Rifles, chainsaws & cleavers, oh my

 Judging by movies, it’s almost impossible to believe there’s anything left to blow up. 

 That didn't stop director Adam Wingard from finding plenty of targets in Onslaught, a thriller that not only relies on pumped-up gunfire but also makes room for horror-style killings, notably referencing The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

  A minimal plot turns three combat veterans into brain-altered, genetically engineered warriors the movie deems  as "the human equivalent of heat-seeking missiles."  

 These lethal automatons are part of a conspiracy concocted by Dr. Hans Kammler (Dan Stevens), a German (make that holdover Nazi) scientist who’s introduced when he crawls across the floor of his sleek digs to lick the stiletto-heeled shoe of his equally evil wife (Rebecca Hall).

   Nothing like a little marital affection to warm things up.

   Dr. Kammler's happy degradation primes us to expect that a bit of additional kink will season this boldly presented but depthless hunk of blood-splattered mayhem. 

  And that’s the trouble: You can almost feel the movie straining to hit notes that will make an audience gasp at its audacity. 

    Although Onslaught can be viewed as an extended set piece, it tells a story of sorts. A battle-scarred former soldier -- Adria Arjona's Celeste -- presides over a rundown desert trailer park that's invaded by the movie's three super-warriors. 

  To augment the looming sense of threat, Celeste's  young daughter (Blake Kennedy) has been left with Mom when her ex-husband, also a former soldier, turns up with daughter in hand. It's Mom's turn to take care of the kid.

   Looking more like a junkyard than a place to live, the trailer park is occupied by a hand full of former soldiers, many suffering from their wartime experiences.

    Mom, for example, seems burdened by PTSD flashbacks. Her hand shakes when she tries to pull a  trigger, something revealed early on when she fires at carved pumpkin heads she's propped up on spikes. 

   Additional kink arrives when we meet Cyrus (Drew Starkey), a twisted government official assigned to clean up the messes left by the soldiers, who try their skills at a highway rest stop before heading for the trailer park.

     I’m not going to describe all the mayhem, but I will say that a sequence in which a cleaver-wielding soldier crawls under a truck as he chases Kennedy’s character struck me as a step too far. These soldiers are ruthless killing machines, and we already knew the kid was in danger.

      Not to worry, though. As Onslaught progresses,  Celeste becomes the ultimate protective mom, and a few additional  relationships temper the relentless action, notably Celeste's ties to Josiah (Reginald VelJohnson), an older trailer park resident who adds his weapons stash to the fight.

     Continually abetted by Matthew Pusti’s industrial-strength score, Onslaught includes an opening montage that suggests thematic depth, but even a countdown clock warning of the impending invasion can’t convince us that the stakes involve more than demonstrating a dialed-in capability for delivering rock, shock, and carnage.

  

     

‘Godzilla vs. Kong’: Who’ll win? Who cares?

      The final battle between Godzilla and Kong takes place in Hong Kong, where the two behemoths wreak what appears to be billions of dollars worth of collateral damage, smashing high-rise after high-rise as they crash into buildings and exchange blows.

     With protesters filling the streets of Hong Kong and many of the city’s residents trying to stave off restrictions Beijing wants to impose  I couldn't help thinking that the city had enough trouble without two imaginary monsters stomping it into rubble.

    So, no, I wasn’t amused by Godzilla vs. Kong, the latest movie to bring the two classic monsters to life — or, in this case, digital life.

     The only interesting character in this blaring, disheveled movie is Kong, the sensitive but powerful mega-ape who, in this installment, displays affection for a Jia, (Kaylee Hottle), a child who can’t hear or speak.

     The movie’s human characters are reduced to gaping spectators by a negligible excuse of a plot.  As near as one can tell, the story involves an evil corporate czar (Damian Bichir) who attempts to harness an energy source, a trip to Kong’s home in Hollow Earth, and the tag-along efforts of a couple of adults --Alexander Skarsgard as a scientist and Rebecca Hall, the woman who has adopted Hottle's Jia and who presides over Kong's synthetic eco-system, the place where the movie begins.

     It’s possible, I suppose, to argue that acting, plot, and even clarity of storytelling hardly matter. What most folks want from a movie that pits a giant ape against a towering sea monster is rampant destruction.

   Mindful of that, the filmmakers not only ravage Hong Kong but an entire Navy fleet that's escorting Kong to Antarctica so that he can dive into the hole that will lead him to Hollow Earth and the much-coveted energy source.

    The movie's plot seems so preposterous that I half expect to find it being advanced by one or another of the various groups that currently specialize in bizarre conspiracy theories.

    A parallel story that seems to have been added for youth-appeal introduces a teen-age girl (Millie Bobby Brown),  her nerdy companion (Julian Dennison), and a podcaster (Brian Tyree Henry) who specializes in conspiracy theories related to the plot.

    The movie begins with Kong awakening in the artificial environment where he seems to have resided since his last big-screen appearance. Kong yawns, rises, scratches his butt, and showers under a waterfall. 

     The opening gave me hope that the filmmakers, under the direction of Adam Wingard, might be on the verge of delivering a comic take instead of the usual monster mash in which Kong celebrates his victory over various creatures by ripping off their heads and raising them as trophies. 

   But, no. 

   The case of Godzilla vs. Kong may triumph in the supreme court of movies otherwise known as the box office. But the movie sacrifices any hint of mystery and suspense for noisy displays of blunt force that leave us with only one question: Is this a movie or a demolition derby?