Any Which Way You Can (1980)

Any Which Way You Can (1980)

Directed by: Buddy Van Horn

Starring: Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Geoffrey Lewis

Any Which Way You Can, the sequel to Every Which Way But Loose, is more of a comedy than an action movie, focusing more on the zany antics of Clint Eastwood’s orangutan pal (who is very obviously a different monkey than in the first movie, this one is way scarier) than on the boring relationship between him and a crazy country singer. Who for some reason comes back in this movie, even though she told him she hated him at the end of the first one…

The main plot of Any Which Way You Can comes from a big fight between Clint and… some other guy, whom he befriends. They’re both supposed to be the best bareknuckle boxers, so they draw a lot of gamblers, whom we spend WAY too much time with, especially since they’re so painfully unfunny. The high point of this movie is a country song about being a monkey, while we watch a monkey relax on a hammock. I’ll just leave it at that.

This movie is FAR worse than the first one (which wasn’t all that good to begin with), mostly because they ditched any attempt at a serious plot and replaced it with bad, predictable gags delivered by unfunny actors. Also, there’s an extended sequence where we keep skipping between Clint and his girl, Clyde and a female orangutan they stole from the zoo, and two old people having sex. Not… all together, there were three different sections there. It was still horrible.

Every Which Way But Loose (1978)

Every Which Way But Loose (1978)

Directed by: James Fargo

Starring: Clint Eastwood, Sandra Locke, Geoffrey Lewis

Clint Eastwood and an orangutan travelling cross-country in a truck to bareknuckle box for money? What more could you possibly want in a movie?!

Clint Eastwood and his orangutan pal Clyde travel… didn’t I just summarize this movie? I mean, apart from Clint’s romance with a manic-depressive country singer, that’s really all there is to it.

It’s very obvious that Rocky came out two years before this movie, as all the fighting is shot in a VERY Rocky way. A.. Rocky Mountain Way, if you will. Or… if you won’t, that’s fine too. I shouldn’t expect that you’ll like my far-fetched bad puns. I shouldn’t expect that at all.

You’d think there’d be more to say about a movie with Clint Eastwood and a monkey, but there really isn’t. It was a pretty non-descript action movie. With a monkey. At least it was better than Most Xtreme Primate.

The Host (2006)

The Host (2006)

Directed by: Joon-ho Bong

Starring: Kang-ho Song, Hie-bong Beyon, Hae-il Park

I really didn’t know anything about this movie going into it. I didn’t know that it’s the highest-grossing South Korean film in history or even that it was a giant monster movie, and the title sure doesn’t give any clues as to what it’s about. It’s refreshing being able to go into something with absolutely no expectations at all.

The Host begins with some scientists dumping gallons of formaldehyde into a river. Of course, this creates a giant monster which goes crazy and starts eating people. Also, the monster seems to carry a terrible virus, and the government quarantines everybody who was at the site of the first attack, including our family of protagonists. After they all break out of the quarantine area, they go their seperate ways to find the daughter of our main character, who was captured and believed eaten by the monster at the beginning (right there on the poster, even!).

This was actually a pretty good movie. The special effects and CGI were actually really well done, especially for a foreign movie (just because they have lower budgets over there, not because they’re worse at it or anything like that), and it’s awesome to see a monster movie like this where you actually get to see the whole monster… a lot. It’s never treated as a Cloverfield-type thing, and is instead more of a main character, an antagonist you see all the time. It’s kinda goofy, actually, running around like a dog with no balance, careening into things and falling over all the time. It’s cute until it starts spitting out all the bones of the people it’s eaten…

Anyway, my biggest problem with this movie is that after the family escapes from the quarantined area, the plot just goes nuts. Some people go after the monster, some go back to work or something, I honestly have no idea what was supposed to be going on for a full half hour in this movie, and then everything finally comes together in the end and the monster is killed by this family, and with the help of a random hobo they met on the street. That hobo is awesome.

But overall, it was a really good monster movie. If you didn’t like Cloverfield, this is the perfect antidote movie for you. And if you did… you should watch The Host anyway, just so you can see how a monster movie is supposed to be made.