Death Wish (2018)

I saw the original “Death Wish.” Bruce Willis’ 2018 version is not “Death Wish.” It’s primarily a Bruce Willis movie. In it, he becomes a vigilante to avenge crimes against his family. That sounds a lot like “Death Wish,” but it’s not “Death Wish.” The 1974 version was weightier in every aspect. The crimes against Charles Bronson’s family were worse, his vengeance less precise and the moral argument more personal (although I do like the irony that Willis’s character is a trauma surgeon). But ultimately, Bruce Willis and his preternatural lack of gravitas is the problem with Bruce Willis’ “Death Wish.”

Cocktail

It’s easy to write off “Cocktail” as a formulaic modern romantic comedy, except, technically, the formula didn’t exist yet. Tom Cruise made this movie in 1988, six years before one Hugh John Mungo Grant’s p-whipped ass showed up in “Four Weddings and a Funeral.” But Cruise does play the boy-who-never-grew-up, he does get his comeuppance, his id (played by Bryan Brown) gets slain and Cruise does, indeed, get p-whipped. So it’s kind of a beta version. Personally, I wouldn’t have been caught dead in such high-end bars with such douchey, bottle-slinging bartenders as Cruise and Brown back in 1988. Still wouldn’t.