All right, I'm just about ready. Actually, let me grab a towel for my eyes real quick. Oh, sure. Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that.
Dan, why are you bleeding from your eyes? Oh, because I just watched Fire Starter 2022, this week on King Me in theaters and streaming only on Peacock May 13. This is Fire Starter 2022. King Me!
Hey! Welcome to King Me, the official Stephen King movie podcast, as well as the official podcast of King Me and the official podcast of maybe overselling how bad the movie is in the top. It's pretty bad. The official podcast of being miscast.
Yeah, wow. The official podcast of never really emoting, but it's not even just because you have too many lip fillers and too much Botox, it's just also your voice doesn't really modulate at all. And also he's kind of got that froggy quality, that like Brendan Frasier froggy quality to his voice. Yeah, man, Frasier would have killed this.
In his legend. Big fat whale costume. Yeah, that's what we're gonna say. Yeah, I'm thinking the whale meets Fire Starter.
I thought you, honestly, I know what we're talking about, but my first thought was the whale meets Frankenstein, Allah, Evan, Kastal, I think we're on to something. Oh my God. So remember they tried to revive the universal monster movies? This is how we do it.
We need a character that people can latch onto. And hey, if you don't mind me saying, everyone could probably latch onto him at the same time. To go around. He's the whale, come on.
He's a bit of a whale. Did you see the whale? I saw the single frame from the whale. We all saw.
Yeah, if that's what you mean by I saw the whale, I saw a picture of the whale. I saw the trailer for the whale. I don't. Should we?
Should we do a, we launch an auxiliary podcast, a King of LLC production called whale watching. And we can do, maybe that's something for the Patreon. We'll do whale watching and we can do the whale and free willy one, two and three. Oh, there's a monster.
And that's a monster, isn't there? There probably is. You could do that new Avatar movie. Did you see that?
No, but there's whales in that. Oh, there are. There's space whales, but there's still whales. But they're in the water.
They are. Okay, so they're water whales. They can communicate though, telepathically. Really?
Yeah. How do they show that on screen? In papyrus font, I believe. Really?
Yeah. Oh, so on the bottom of the screen, it's like me want krill, me want plankton? No, it's much more involved than that. It's how is your baby?
Oh, my baby is good, et cetera, et cetera. It's like. It's not that involved. Yeah.
I go on, I log on Instagram freaking dumbest people you ever met or staying that kind of thing. Also, some of the smartest people. Sure. Look at my baby.
Is it something that they would say? Well, a whale. A whale? A whale?
So the whale means fire starter. The whale means fire starter. Yeah. Can light a lot of lamps.
I just think how we got here, Brendan Fraser. I think Brendan Fraser in like 2001, 2-ish. Everyone watched Crash, the movie about race. The movie that solved racism.
The movie that's exactly. That's Picture Winner. Crash. The movie where it takes place over two days.
First day, everybody's racist. Second day, opposite day. They wake up and they're like, what was I doing last night? Yeah.
Oh my God. Was I being racist? Did I say the N-word? Oh, no.
No. No. Well, yes. What's his name?
Terence? What's that guy's name? Who's in that? Terence?
Yes, Terence. Howard you did. That's the N-word. And that's fine.
And that's fine. You can do it. And that's not my place to say. Not Dylan.
Watch yourself. Yeah. Mad Dylan do not. I mean, talk about good casting.
If anyone's ever looked like a white guy. Oh, yes. Saying the N-word. It's not Dylan.
What? I don't know anything about Dylan. You know? I've seen a fair amount of Matt Dylan movies, but I don't know what he's like in person.
You never hear any stories about Matt Dylan's a really nice guy or really bad guy. You don't hear anything about him. He got a taco truck for the crew. Oh, is that what he did?
He's a super nice guy like that. That would be a nice guy. That would be a nice guy. On the set of LARS-1 cheer movies where he's a serial killer.
How I don't. Okay. Guess what that house is made out of, Dan? Human bones.
A pile of human parts. Wait, really? Yeah. That's a little that's like LARS-1 cheer parody.
It goes so far into the LARS-1 cheer thing of like, what's the most miserable thing I could put on the screen? Matt Dylan is a serial killer, but it's a comedy. I'm in a bad mood. Get it?
Get it? Come on. We're not talking about LARS-1 cheer, are we? We're talking about Farr-Star-teer.
Farr-Star-teer. Farr-Star-teer. Twenty-two. Directed by Keith Thomas.
An old friend of ours. Keith? No, no, no, Farr-Star-22. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. So we are fast approaching present day here. Like, think fucking good. Guys, by the end of this year, we will have watched all of the Stephen King adaptations.
And Rob, I said this to you off, Mike, but it's time to put it to the public. If we did a regular King me every week, we could be done in half the time. We, this is like if, think about it this way, you and I, each of us. Yes.
We are each to put it in terms that Stephen King fans will understand. We're each of us Andy DuFrain. A couple of Andy DuFrain. Yes.
What we're doing now is basically like sort of crawling through the river of shit and then taking a break and being like, I'm going to roll around in this. You know, scoop some up, run it through my hair. I'll be out eventually. No need to rush.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we have watched, we've watched some good movies, but we've watched some really bad ones. We've watched some really bad ones recently.
Yeah. I miss the 90s. Yeah. I miss the 80s and the 90s.
The 80s and the 90s were kind of the heyday. Yeah, man. It's, I feel like everything Stephen King related that's come out in the past like two or three years has been bad. Yeah.
Gerald's game might be an exception there. Gerald's game is good. But when is that from? Like in, not more than a couple of years ago, right?
Oh man. I'm going way back here. Way back machine. That's what we call him.
2017. Oh my God. I'm 54. Oh man.
Yeah. I'm talking about like what do we got here? Well, the outsider is pretty good. That was good.
Yeah. We like the outsider. Stand close. Yeah.
Leacy Story. Fine. Fine. Could have been much shorter.
Yeah. But we went on our own bull over there, didn't we? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Bulldog. 2022. The year of the fire starter.
Let's, let's remember the year that was 2022. Let's set the table. Okay. The name was a country.
It's still a country. Yeah. Yeah man. I don't know.
This. So okay. We watched this movie when it came out. Right?
We did a mini episode that I think is about 45 minutes. It's not so many. But compared to everything else we do. And by our, we're a bit of like a podcast whale.
We're bloated tears in our eyes. Yup. pouring... it's just like poor ranch dressing on everything in that movie.
Of course he does. I have no idea. I know he jacks off to gay porno. I know he...
his daughter wrote an essay that he keeps wanting people to read. This is all I know about the whale. Darren Aronofsky, he's another guy. I think...
is he a clown? He seems like a clown. Aronofsky? Yeah.
Because he did Mother, right? Mother! Mother! If it were an adaptation of the Danzig song, Mother, that'd be...
I'd like that movie. Right. But it's not. It's something much more annoying.
That might be the most annoyed I've ever been in a movie theater. Oh, it was like... I haven't seen others at that time. Dude, it is so up its own ass.
So incredibly self-important. It's like, have you ever been in like... okay. Okay.
You can actually film school graduate, Rob Avon. Yeah, yeah. You know when like you... so for me it was like creative writing classes for you.
Probably screenwriting classes. I'm sure you had a kid in your class who like thought he was gonna change the world with his student film script. Yes. Maybe you were that kid.
I think I was... No, you were doing cool shit. Yeah, I wasn't doing cool shit, but I was... I certainly didn't think I was going to change anything.
But that's what that movie is. It's like... like... all the signifiers of things that mean a lot that are like dense with meaning.
Yeah. But it all just feels so fucking... Should I watch it? Yeah.
Okay. Maybe we should do a series on the Patreon called Mother Boys where we watch that and Psycho. Yeah. That and Psycho.
Firestarter 2022. Starring. Zaka from Firestarring. Zaka from Ryan Kira Armstrong.
Sidney Lemon. Michael Gray Eyes. Gloria Rubin. Kurt Woodsmith.
What? I would... let's be real. Featuring Kurt Woodsmith.
Featuring Kurt Woodsmith. Featuring John Beasley. Yeah, I think that's basically... Yeah.
Everyone else gets very low run. Yeah. Kurt Woodsmith. Yes.
I remember we probably said this at the time too, but what a criminal under use of Kurt Wood S. You know, so... this is the thing that kind of like bums me out. Is that like younger filmmakers or whatever, like they're trying to recapture something from the 80s, right?
Like that sort of, you know, feeling or whatever. And then they'll cast like a, you know, character actor or something from the 80s, right? Kurt Woodsmith. Like I know he was on that 70s show and that's where probably a lot of people know him from.
But baby, he's from... You're talking about the 80s? Yeah, he is from RoboCop. He's from fucking RoboCop, man.
His... I mean, talk about a guy whose glasses have gotten smaller over time. That's a deep cut for the real heads. Yeah.
There's got to be one person listening to this. He remembers where I tried to launch a segment to track Stephen King's glasses getting smaller over time. Definitely. Definitely.
Yeah. Yes. A criminal under use of Kurt Woodsmith. I think they probably had him for like two days and they're like, listen man, it's one location.
You get to wear these pajamas and slippers. He's hanging out, man. Good news. And like, it's a line that he's...
You can keep your wardrobe. Yeah. He's delivering these lines that are like, they're tough, man. It's like poorly written.
And he's like, he's trying to sell it. But it's, I don't know. I think the writing in this movie is pretty bad. It's pretty dog shit, pretty dog shit.
And I got to give it up to Ryan Kira Armstrong for doing a great job. Like, to be a kid actor and like, RA the deck is stacked against you. Sure. You haven't acted as much.
You're not as good at it. And then for the script to be this band, I thought she did like a pretty solid job. I thought she was fine. I thought she was pretty solid.
I think she was pretty fine. She was okay. I think it's really hard to be a child actor. So I'm not like, I don't want to talk too much about this kid.
Sure. But you know what, maybe though, like if the writing was better, that might have been something. I just, I think everything around her, it just sort of like falls apart. There's some really terrible lines that she has to fucking deliver.
Like, Oh my God, when she has to, Liar Liar, Liar, Liar pants on fire. And the way they treat that, like it's bringing the house down. And it's so, the other thing is like, it's so incongruous with the rest of the movie, which is not at all trying to be like a fun genre movie. It's, it's as sort of like muted and sullen as like every fucking movie that comes out.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Damn shame.
And me, and that's what makes the Kurt Wood Smith thing, especially frustrating is he is from a seated position, just chewing as much scenery as he can get his hand. Yeah. And God, from a seated position. Yes.
He doesn't get up. And he's just like, what can I reach? Whatever I can reach, I'm going to chew. You know, you're right, though.
Like he fucking, he comes out and it's Kurt Wood Smith chewing scenery, which is like what you want. You want him like sort of cranked up in that Robocop sort of territory. Yeah. And yeah, everybody else is just sort of like fucking Zac Efron.
What was he on fucking Xanax the entire time? Seriously. It's it's great. Yeah.
It's a full K-hole situation. Right. And like, I don't know, I like 15 years when he gets sober. He's gonna be like, yeah, I don't remember making that movie.
Be one of those guys. I feel like, yeah, you know what? He was probably he was cutting if he'd been bulking for this shoe. Forget it.
That's the thing. Yeah. Chubby Zac Efron. Yeah.
High energy, great performance. He's got a surplus of calories to burn on on acting. Yeah. Fucking cut Zac Efron.
A guy can't even think strange. There's a shot in this movie where you see a PA his hand with smelling salts like shoot just like shoot out of frame. Yeah. That's another thing I'll say against this movie is the editing is pretty psychotic in some spots.
Yeah. The whole the whole sequence at like the Irv Mander's residence is like, dude, it's so weird. It's like, it's so oddly paced. It's so strange.
And the it's even just like nobody's ever in frame together and they're cutting around everyone and it's just it looks so bad. It's bad. Yeah. I don't know.
So all right. Let's get into this because I don't I really don't think all of this movie is as dog shit as everybody like says it is. As we just as we always have said. Yes.
Yeah. Hang on one second. I fucked it up. Yeah.
So what'd you fuck up? No, no, I was I was trying to bring up a page here on web. A web browser, if you will. So this movie starts off with a bay day in a crib and two young parents and they leave the kid in the crib and then the mobile above the crib starts the planet start like bubble in a little bit and you know they catch fire and then some teddy bears and stuffed animals over here catch fire.
Oh no, we got a fire starter on our hands. Why was she mad at the mobile? I don't know. Just want that.
Yeah, she want the Baba. Like Kurtwood says, right? He's like, well, he's like, he's like imagine raising that child with the bottled. So and then Zac Efron wakes up.
It's just a bad dream but probably like a memory and he gets up and his daughter Charlie is sitting at the kitchen table with a zipper lighter just flinking it off and on and then you know they sit down they have a conversation and then the mom wakes up and she comes out. Oh, Vicki McGee herself. Vicki McGee. I really I kind of like this actress and performance here.
I think she does a really good job. Yeah, yeah, I agree. The scene between her and Rainbird, I thought like was actually I felt the tension. I felt like I felt like both of them were doing a really good job throughout the movie every scene that they're in.
I second that wholeheartedly. I actually think the best moment in the movie is probably and this is like less of an acting thing but I agree. Yeah, I will add that I think they have the best moment in the movie which is when they're standing face to face and she turns and runs and he doesn't even like flinch. Yeah, right.
Yeah. It's good. It's good. It is very good.
The movie might peek there. Well, that's yeah. I mean, and that's only like 25 30 minutes. Yeah.
And then we just have to go to the Earth Mander's Airbnb and that's it's such a big chunk. It's yes, it's a weirdly paced movie. Yes. Most of the action it's like action sequence in the first 10 minutes then nothing for an hour.
Yeah. And then a little bit more right at the end. Yeah, pretty weird. What do you think of the opening credits?
The opening credits are they play over what looks like, you know, like old video footage of Zac Efron's character and Sidney Lemmon's character, Vicki and Andy. Um, them doing the, you know, being interviewed for their experiment. Yeah. I actually think it's like pretty fucking smart.
It's a great way to, it's a great way to thread the needle of like people who are coming into this because it's a remake of a movie they already know and still giving that exposition of people who don't know anything about it. Yeah. Um, I think this is a tough movie, I think to adapt. Like just the concept of it is a little, it doesn't go like hard enough, you know, into like any sort of direction.
Like I like the, the shop kind of stuff and like, I don't know. Well, so I think the, I'm of two minds about how they handle the shop thing because the change they make here in the original, right, is like now the woman in charge of it is like more of a bureaucrat, right? Yeah. More of a, um, Kamala Harris type, right?
Where like, and I do mean that kind of like not like I'm being a little rude because she's like a featureless person. Like there's no substance, like there's right all due respect to this actor. There was nothing for her to latch on to no. I mean, she's incredibly one note.
It's just like it's her whole motivation, her whole thing is like, I have a job to do and this is my job. It's like a little bit that and then some like sort of, um, sort of like lip service to the idea of like making the world a better place. Yeah, which like, either, either have her be a true believer or make her so obviously cynical. Yes.
You know, like it doesn't, we don't get enough out of her to know one way or the other what they're going for there. Absolutely. And then, you know, ultimately, you know, no spoilers, you know, we're going to get to it later. But when she does die, it means almost nothing.
You know, yeah, she is quite literally just a person standing next to Zac Efron by her own admission. She's like, if you light him on fire, or you like me on fire, you're lighting him on fire. Right. That scene between her and Kurt Woodsmith where like, uh, they're talking about Charlie's parents and Andy and his ability to, he calls it pushing, but it's like a, you know, like telekinesis, like convincing somebody, through mental powers to do something.
And then Vicki has, um, uh, wait, what I say, he has like, it's like a telepathy thing. She has a telekinesis thing where she can move things with her mind, right? And Kurt Woodsmith says something like, uh, you know, they bring up the, you know, lot six and, uh, you know, the experiments or whatever. And he was like, and that was wrong of us.
We shouldn't have done it. And then she gets like upset and like pissed off and she's like, what you did do it. And now we're here. And now this is what we're doing.
We're going to steal this kid and use her as a weapon. But she is like, she's, that's like the most emotion. I feel like she shows throughout the whole thing. It's like the most emotion and the most insight I think we get into character, which is a shame because it's like the, like the shop as sort of like Stephen King conceives of it is so like of its time.
Sure. Right. Like, um, you know, fucking MK Ultra, like that sort of shit, right? That's what he's drawing on.
It's, yeah, it's such of its time, but it's also, it feels like one of those things that like, you know, if the government in reality, if the government came out tomorrow and they were like, yes, like the MK Ultra thing here, we're releasing all the documents. Um, we do have these like sleeper cells all over the country ready to be activated at any point in time, right? If they just said that, it would be news for like a day and a half. And now, and by next week, we'd be on to something else.
Nobody would give a fuck, right? Yeah. But you know, the idea of the shop and like the shadowy government organization and like they're, uh, you know, they're kidnapping these people with like special abilities to try and use them as a weapon in the 80s, 70s, 80s, whatever. That was like sort of a, like a scary, scary issue idea, like the overreach of government and whatever, right?
That's the same thing with like the X files, like the whole, you know, 11 seasons of the X files is like, you know, uh, fucking Mulder trying to, uh, you know, out the government as having aliens. And then like two months ago, the government was like, yeah, man, they're aliens. We've seen them. We have them.
We have been messing around with them for decades. And that like you're, you're so right. Like the thing that sort of contemporizes that character, the captain Hollister character is also the thing that makes it incredibly boring, which is that like it's so just, there's nothing scandalous about the idea of the shop anymore. Yeah, totally.
It's just like a part of day to day like, yeah, of course, she's just like a pencil pusher. It's just like the sum we do. We got, uh, we hired the, we make the janitor do the assassinations like we're, we're de-skilling assassin political assassinations. We got him on Fiverr, like, um, yeah, no, it's dare I say, it's, it's hella razor reboot coded in that way.
Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, it's an interesting sort of phenomenon where like, what, like, what do you, I don't know what do you even say about it, I guess? That's my job to know how to say it.
No, I guess it is this weird thing where like there are, I don't know, if you like, what do you say? Like if you were going to make a movie today about a shadowy government organization, you would have to walk a pretty fucking tight rope to not come off like a, like a deep state loomy bin, you know, right? Yeah. That's, I mean, that's kind of interesting, though too, is like we simultaneously, I think, um, accept that the government is doing all kinds of like deep state shadowy bullshit, but also like the threshold for what makes you a kook is kind of, I don't know, as, as low as it's ever been.
Sure. Yeah. So yeah, I don't know. Like if you, I don't know, it's just like somehow isn't a compelling idea anymore.
Yeah. So it starts up like, I don't know, I like the shop, uh, within like the Stephen King universe. Maybe, maybe if they were like, maybe if they just were like, uh, a little crazier, like weirder or something, I don't know. It's a, I heard somebody talking about like, they were, uh, I was listening, I think it was the action voice podcast.
They were talking about Candyman, right? And they were talking about like how just kind of weird the movie is. Yeah. Like they really don't make weird movies like that anymore, you know?
It's like, you know, like, Blumhouse, which is a Blumhouse thing, I guess is the closest, but it, that even doesn't like, you know, sometimes they get weird with shit, but like, I don't know. Nothing feels impressionistic in the same way. Yeah. Yeah.
Like, I don't know. There's like, there's like emotional truth to Candyman. Like, you know, I mean, like, it's just a vibe, man. It's a whole fucking vibe.
And everything now has to be like hereditary where it's like, you know, this is a metaphor. Right. It's like, yeah, you can, you can map this onto something else. Right.
And like, Candyman to an extent, you can do that, right? Like there are obvious themes of sacrifice of like telling a fucking weird sort of showing some weird stuff. I think, um, I think we've stopped being a metaphor society and serving in an analogy society. Mm hmm.
Right. Nothing can be open ended. Everything. It's got to be like, this is to this, as that is to that.
Yeah. Nobody takes like big wild swings, you know? Yeah. I don't know.
So what else we got? We should. You want to make it? Yeah.
Let's make a, let's make a really good movie. Okay. Put our money where our mouth is. All right.
I mean, we've watched enough bad movies to know, you know, what not to do. Speaking of bad movies, Firestarter 2022. But allegedly not as bad as we keep saying it is. Yeah.
So, uh, Charlie, she's kind of upset. She's, she's upset. She's a Firestarter. She doesn't have to do with these powers or whatever.
And her mom, Vicki, Vicki and Andy are like us. It seems like an argument that they have a lot is like, Andy does not want, uh, Charlie to use her powers, right? But Vicki says like you should teach her how to use the powers so she can control them, which makes sense. And geez, come on, guess.
Um, so they argue about it or whatever. And then there's an incident in school where Charlie, is about to light an entire classroom on Firebrand. She runs to the bathroom and the teacher goes to the bathroom to check on her. Yeah.
That was weird when they show teacher go to bathroom. That was kind of weird. That was weird. Right.
Big shit break in the middle of the movie. And then we never see her in real time. Yeah. Special skills on the, on the old CV there.
Yeah. Can you shit on command? So, yeah, there's this big explosion in the bathroom. Like we just said.
Andy and Vicki have brought in to, uh, to talk at the principal and they're, you know, they're like, we don't know what we were asking her. Like, how did she do the, you know, what, what did she use to cause the explosion? You know, we didn't find any like gasoline or matches or anything like that. And, uh, Vicki's like, stop calling it an explosion.
And the teacher's like, the bathroom exploded. What would you like to tell him to? But this leads to another argument between Andy and Vicki. Like, and Vicki is basically like, if we had told her how to use the powers, like I've been saying, you know, we could have avoided all this.
Damn, she's right. She is right. Um, yeah. And then so, I don't know, that night, right, they're having this whole discussion.
They, they say that they like their, this family is running from the shop, right? They, uh, they're constantly on the run. They use fake names and whatever. They hide their powers, but now that, you know, fucking Charlie blew up the bathroom, she, uh, she's unleashed the shop on them, right?
So they have to like pack up immediately and leave town and in all of the excitement at home and, you know, go do this and pack and, you know, Charlie starts getting upset and she's like, she feels responsible for it. Um, she, she ends up burning her mother really bad. Yeah. The burn marks on, on her arms and stuff look pretty good.
They get the effect there. Also, this lady, she does such a good job at acting. I believe she was burned. Yeah.
That was good. That was good, like, pain-apping. It was like people like way overdo it. Yes.
But like, even when like, uh, Zach Efron was like wrapping her arms and stuff, she's like, she's like crying and like holding back these, like, the, like the screams and whatever. Yeah. But in a, in a realistic way where she's like, I, this hurts and I want to scream, but I also don't want to upset my kid anymore. Yeah.
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's good.
Um, and, and that's when they get ice cream. Yeah. So, um, Charlie, uh, well, Andy takes Charlie off her ice cream. Um, mom stays home.
Um, just then we, we cut to, uh, a loft apartment. It's playing like some 90s sort of techno industrial sort of music. Not prodigy. Not prodigy.
Um, should've put up prodigy song in there. Yeah. I thought for sure. Oh, for sure.
Right. Not, you know, fly or something else maybe. Um, and all of this like artwork, all of these like, it looks like a tortured drawings of, of, of some of an artist, right? And this is where we meet, uh, it's named John, right?
John Rainbird. Um, he's credited as Rainbird, but he was John, and he was John Rainbird in the original, right? Yeah. Now you got me doubting it.
No, no, John Rainbird. That's right. Okay. Um, yeah.
And so we meet John Rainbird, a native American, um, who is a assassin of some sort that he gets a phone call and he is activated. He has to go, uh, go to their house and his instructions are to kill the parents and, and take the kid, right? So he goes to the house and this is where we get the scene between Rainbird and, and Vicki, um, really good stuff here, the, the whole like fight between them. Uh, Vicki doesn't use her powers ever.
Like she specifically tries not to use them. Um, and then when she does try and use them against Rainbird, she's like out of practice and she can't, you know, she can't do it as well. Um, but yeah, uh, fucking Rainbird, Ices her. He simply strangles her to death.
He does. Um, not cool. Not cool at all. Nice lady.
Nice lady. Do that. So, uh, Andy and Charlie get home and Andy finds Vicki. Yeah.
Well, yeah, they, Andy walks into the house. Well, they both walk in, I guess, but Andy is like, he sees like pictures have been knocked off the wall and he's like, what's going on? And he goes around the corner and Rainbird has Charlie, he's covering her eyes and he's got a knife to her throat. Right.
And I guess the, the idea is like she can't control the fire if she can't see where it's going. Right. So to which I say, I guess, yeah, I don't know, maybe so, but she, like she makes like a fireball anyway and fucking blows it up and yeah, you know, they've run, uh, you know, Andy and Charlie on the, I'll say I even like, I like this setup for these characters where like the, you know, Andy now has to live with a guilt of like insisting on being like the nice guy fun dad hide, hide Charlie from the reality of their lives. Right.
Right. It killed his wife and her mom. Yes. And that's pretty compelling.
And you would think like you play that. So Charlie is kind of like resentful of him and maybe always just about to set him on fire. Uh huh. Keeps, keep that tension up.
Not really. Not really. This isn't even killed little girl. Yeah.
Yeah. That's what I mean. Again, nothing Zach Efron does in this movie feels believable. Uh, so I don't know for this little girl to be playing off of like Zach Efron.
I just feel like she, she has this impossible task, you know. Um, yeah. So they, they go on the run. Um, they stop.
Charlie kills a cat. What do you think of this cat killing scene? Um, it's pretty upsetting. It's a pretty upsetting right?
Um, I thought, man, that's time I saw this movie. I didn't own any cats. Yeah. And now I know two roommates.
I bet that cat did something to deserve that. Yeah. Um, yeah. No, I don't know.
Like I also think, again, like I think, uh, Ryan Kira Armstrong, I think I give these kids names that don't make me feel so stupid. Say no. I'm sorry. Um, like I think she does a great job in this scene.
Like she's a very effective crier. And again, I think Zach Efron is just a wet blanket, just an absolute limp noodle. Yeah. So, so Charlie sees this cat and she goes, reach down the pet and the cat scratches her and she gets all angry and sets the cat on fire.
Then, uh, Andy comes, comes by and sees what happened. And the cat's still alive. It's only half burned. And he's like, you have to, you have to kill it.
That's, you have to, that's the rules. Internal temp of 165 or it's not safety. That's right. He's like, no, it's in pain.
You have to put it out of its misery. Right. So he makes her kill the cat and then she's like, very upset and he's like, good girl. All right.
Yeah. Yeah. Um, kind of dark, got to mess up. Definitely.
Uh, what's he has like another thing that he says though, where's like, what after she burns the cat? Yeah, or like leading up to it. He says something about like how like that's like the price or something. Oh, yeah.
That's how much that's what it costs. That's what it costs. Right. Right.
Which is sort of like, right. And he has that other line where he's talking about how like when you hurt someone, it hurts everyone around them. Right. These things are all sort of mentioned.
He tells the story of, I guess this is a little bit later on when he tells her the story, but it tells the story of when she was first born. And two agents from the shop came and they, they took her from the hospital, right? And Andy saw them in the parking lot. And you know, it was one guy in the car and then the other guy had left for a minute.
So he goes up to the guy in the car and uses his, uh, tele, until the pathic powers to, he tells them to shoot the guy, the other guy. And after that, forget how to breathe. And the other guy comes back, he shoots them. And then he, you know, suffocates, which I think that's kind of an interesting fucking, uh, you know, power there, like, you know, being not just being like, all right, you shoot him and then you shoot yourself to be like, stop breathing.
Yeah. Forget how to breathe. It's very, it's, it's a nice little flourish. Sure.
Um, however, yeah, he was like, unequivocally right to do that. Well, that's the thing. So it's a bad example. Yeah.
He's telling the story about like the cost of what it is, right? And he's like, yeah, those men were bad, but they probably had families. They probably had kids and people that loved them. And yeah, the, the, which may be true.
I don't know. Like I kind of prefer my villains to be like that, like the 80s mercenary kind of vibe. I do think like if, if like someone hands you a paycheck and they're like, go kidnap a family. Like you're kind of bad.
Something kind of a bad guy. There's something bad to, and not only go kidnap a family, but like go kidnap a family so that we can do medical experiments on them. Like there's no, yeah, right. It does kind of like try to have it both ways a little bit, right?
And they like redo this same thought experiment later in the movie with the, the agent in the parking garage, right? Right. Where he's like, it's very sort of like last day on the job, except like my wife just had a baby. Right.
One of those. Yeah. My wife is pregnant and I love her and we're having our first kid. Life is going to be great for him here on out.
Do to do to do. And he gets, yeah. Um, and he literally gets the cat treatment, right? He gets the cat treatment.
He gets a half scorched part, par-baked. Yeah. Um, but again, like the same conclusion, right? Like it's just done, what is it?
It's just like it's done with the knowledge that this has consequences. Yeah. Like, I don't know, man. I guess they were trying to get at this with the cat scene and whatever, but like, she is a kid, you know, she's like nine, 10 years old and like kids, you know, not, I don't know, they make mistakes and they don't even realize it, you know, like she could have killed that cat and like not even necessarily put it all together that like, you know, I don't know that it was the cost of all of it, right?