ERNEST GOES FOREVER: I Watched All Nine Ernest Movies In A Row (Part II)

Hey, Vern! For some reason I spent fourteen hours straight watching all of the Ernest movies back to back. I went through my experience of watching the first four in PART I. Let’s continue with the remaining FIVE movies, which I have to admit had extremely diminishing returns.

ERNEST RIDES AGAIN (1993)

2:30PM. I am really starting to wear down, and I still have five movies to go. And it’s not like they’re going to get better…this is the last Ernest movie that was actually released in theaters. The first three each made around 25-28 million, nothing crazy but turning a respectable profit (earning around the same as . Then Scared Stupid made only 14 million, and Disney pulled Touchstone out of the Ernest business. But Varney and gang wanted to keep making more Ernest movies, so this was released independently and boy did it crash land, only making 1.5 million in theaters. ONE POINT FIVE! SURF NINJAS MADE MORE THAN THIS. You’d think this catastrophe would mercifully bring a swift end to the Ernest Cinematic Universe (ECU), but oh no, it just meant that the last four would be banished straight to video.

And holy shit, I can see why this one tanked. All you really need to know about this movie is that for a large chunk of it, Ernest is stuck on a giant runaway Revolutionary War cannon. You’re right, that doesn’t make any sense. This is in Virginia maybe? He’s a janitor at a college and there’s like some old mythical giant cannon that might have the actual Crown Jewels of England or something? I don’t know. He straddles it, he gets stuck in it, some British spies try to kill him and so do some evil professors. What really pisses me off is Ernest doesn’t seem to have brought his dog along this time. Where’s Wallace Rimshot, Ernest? Where’s Rimshot?! I can maybe see how this was evolved out of some Ernest meets Indiana Jones idea, but if you don’t have the budget or script to pull it off, you end up with what looks like a high school video that was shot for extra credit.  This is BY FAR the worst Ernest movie I’ve seen yet. Not only is the production value way down (it feels like they filmed at least half of this without a permit, hustling through shot lists on empty dirt roads before the neighbors tractor comes through), the plot is horrendous. Didn’t they have a whiteboard in this famed Tennessee ad agency somewhere with a bunch of Ernest Goes to BLANK ideas on it? How the hell did the runaway cannon make the top of this list? SPY ERNEST! BUTLER ERNEST! ERNEST GOES TO THE MOON! ANYTHING ELSE instead of Ernest humps a fake cannon nobody cares about.

I absolutely hated sitting through this, and started to fall asleep multiple times. My notes got really unintelligible, but here’s some highlights:

Meanwhile professor’s wife and vacuum people are looking for professor?

Ernest just straight up doing Raiders impressions saying well Dr Jones I see you have found the Ark for us.

Ernest gets stuck inside cannon headfirst, he’s worried there might be bugs or vampires inside it.

“Ernest consider the ramifications.” “We don’t have any ramifications. All we have is this cannon.”

“Ernest thanks to your help, we found the world’s largest cannon,” as they eat corn.

And that’s about it. Really the only good thing I can say about this movie is that it came in one of those old clear plastic VHS cases where you have to pinch the two ridged sides to slide the tape out. I didn’t expect these to get this bad this quickly. I am very discouraged. This might start reading like a dying soldier’s last letter to his girl back home.

ERNEST GOES TO SCHOOL (1994)

4PM. More than halfway, but still a long way to go. At the tail end of the last movie, there was a trailer for this one, and it said COMING AUGUST 94 TO THEATERS EVERYWHERE. Oof. If only they knew how wrong they were. They must have been pumping these out pretty quick at this point, because this was already filmed and ready to go before they realized there was no longer a demand for Ernest movies in theaters. If anything, THIS should definitely be the last Ernest movie, right? Quietly send it straight to every Blockbuster in the South and then be done with it (do people in the South even like Ernest? Or is he just a caricature that briefly amused coastal elites?). I wish there was a website that attempted to track 90s VHS rental numbers, I have a feeling whatever they were wouldn’t justify three more movies.

So the basic plot here is that Ernest is happily employed as a janitor/handyman at a high school and then the school district changes the rules, stating that all employees need to have a high school diploma. So what does Ernest do? He has to go back and pass 12th grade (Billy Madison comes out a year later). This plot just made me sad, I mean it’s one thing to require the guy inheriting a fortune 500 company to have an education, but what kind of monster makes a janitor do this just so he can keep being the JANITOR?

Still, this is much better than Runaway Cannon, and there’s some really fun fantasy moments that get added in. When Ernest is alone in the halls trying to find his math class, a tumbleweed rolls by and then the scene becomes like the wild west. A cowboy on horseback appears, nods at him, and tells him which way to go to class, and hands him a hall pass. There’s also a daydream where Ernest imagines himself waltzing with his crush, the band teacher Ms. Flugle. MS. FLUGLE! I mean, fine, this isn’t great comedy, but when you’ve been watching Ernest as long as I have, ANY change in form or tone is cause to celebrate. You also get to see Will Sasso as a bully football player in this. At one point he straight up pours lighter fluid on Ernest in class and then just fucking lights him on fire while all the kids laugh. I don’t even think he was sent to the principal’s office.

I thought I was in for a pretty straightforward movie about Ernest buckling down and studying, making the grade, and then giving a speech at graduation (and then immediately taking off his gown and start cleaning up the bleachers as the janitor). But boy did this movie have a much better twist in store for me. Ernest just isn’t smart enough to cut it, but luckily for him there are two SCIENTISTS (one of them is the bug eyed silent Bobby, a welcome return) who I guess work at this high school? These scientists have a secret lab behind the lockers where they have a brain power device. Ernest plugs in, and transforms into SMART ERNEST, pictured above. This was a great call. Varney gets to do a different voice, dropping the Ernest shtick completely and coming off instead as a pompous intellectual. And he changes his outfit! I am disgusted with myself when I realize how excited I am to see him wearing something new. Which makes me wonder…why does he always wear the same outfit? Is this whole Ernest look just what they threw him in for the first commercial and it stuck FOREVER? Would we not know it’s Ernest if he wore something else? There was a flashback scene in one of the last couple movies where we saw Ernest as a kid, writing on the chalkboard in detention like Bart Simpson, and even then, he was wearing the same outfit. I doubt even Steve Jobs was rocking a black turtleneck in junior high.

So, yada yada yada, Ernest of course loses his smart powers at inopportune times, and eventually the stakes somehow just become that if the school doesn’t win the big football game, it will be CLOSED LOL. This of course leads to Ernest saving the day by becoming the quarterback and throwing the winning touchdown TO HIMSELF (which he crab walks to catch). This movie really went off the rails, and I don’t think we even got a scene where he gets his diploma. I might have fallen asleep, though. Let’s just move on.

SLAM DUNK ERNEST (1995)

5:30PM. I am feeling slightly re-energized by how weird the last movie was. But hold up. Somehow, after six movies, this is the one where they decide the title doesn’t have to start with Ernest? I’m pissed. They couldn’t just have it be Ernest Slam Dunks? Whatever. Holy crap this movie is going to have Kareem Abdul Jabbar in it. I am really looking forward to the one on one match between him and Ernest (editors note: Kareem does not play ANY basketball in this movie). This is the other one I had to get on VHS, and the trailers before the FEATURE PRESENTATION are for Heavyweights and THE JERKY BOYS MOVIE lol. Remember that? No? Fine. The credits inform me that Kareem will not be playing himself, but a character called the ARKANGEL, and I am delighted by the possibilities. Is this going to be an Angels in the Outfield situation but with ghost Kareem lifting up Ernest to dunk? (editors note: no, it’s gonna be some magic shoe bullshit).

My excitement quickly fades when I see the drop in production value here. The last one might have been straight to video, but they had assumed they were shooting it for the big screen. That is not the case here. Almost all of the film either takes place in an empty mall or an empty basketball gym. This opens with Ernest working as a mall janitor with his new friends and co-workers, a group of black guys who also have a rec basketball team called CLEAN SWEEP (pretty good name). I think this is the moment where I really realized just how white the Ernest franchise is, and how white I am for wanting to rewatch this shit in the first place. Except for one black kid at camp in the first movie (who just happened to be the only kid who couldn’t swim, yeesh), these are the only black friends Ernest has had. He has barely even SPOKEN to anyone that isn’t white in the other six movies. I am REALLY nervous about seeing some blackface in Ernest Goes to Africa. Anyways, the other janitors tell Ernest he can’t play basketball, because he’s worse than white, he’s redneck. I’m into this dynamic. I also just realized we haven’t seen the chefs in a few movies, and I’m very glad they’re gone.

Ernest gets visited at night by an extremely stiff Kareem, who gives him some magic shoes that look like those old air pumps but with eyes. This gives Ernest the ability to just kind of fly around the court, and he joins the rec team and starts dominating rec basketball games. I can NOT overstate how uncomfortable it is to see Varney in a basketball uniform. Here I was rooting for costume changes, but be careful what you wish for. Also, the scorers table has a snack spread, and there’s a bowl of Bugles on it. I Google “What happened to Bugles” and am now time traveling back to a 2011 chat thread where nobody has any answers. People disagree whether or not they are still available in Canada.

The stakes are laughably low in this, I thought we were going to see Ernest joining the NBA, but instead he just wins the rec league championship by a score of 99-9. Oh wait I guess there are stakes, I must have just zoned out. For some reason, the winners of the rec league get to play one game against the CHARLOTTE HORNETS, and there will be NBA scouts there lolol. Sadly we do not get an appearance from Glen Rice or Larry Johnson (imagine if they had Ernest dress up as his old lady character and play one on one against Grandmama!). Side note, I guess this means Ernest has moved to North Carolina now. I really wonder the dark secrets he keeps, why he keeps moving from state to state. Only two movies left!

ERNEST GOES TO AFRICA (1997)

7PM It’s gotten dark and raining outside. The whole day has come and gone while I’ve been Ernesting. And now I have to sit through the one I have been dreading the most (editors note: it gets really racist). I’m actually surprised this one is set in Africa. For a failing franchise, it seems weird to do a location shoot. I look it up and BOTH of the final two Ernest movies were shot in South Africa, so there had to be some sort of shady tax break or something. I have no doubt that doing these movies for peanuts was a primary concern.

Somehow the quality has gotten even worse. This one looks worse than a History channel reenactment. I didn’t know a DVD could be blurry. I have really tuned out here, it’s hard for me to focus enough to even understand what’s going on. Wikipedia tells me that Ernest has given his crush waitress some secret jewels that some bad guys are after and then he gets kidnapped and taken to Africa. Again, this wants to be an Indiana Jones type situation, but the budget just won’t allow it. The humor has also turned much darker, straying from the source material. At one point Ernest knocks his pet goldfish into the sink and then accidentally turns on the garbage disposal. Not cool. And whenever Ernest isn’t on screen, this movie seems to forget it’s a comedy at all. The bad guys are all terrible actors who are trying to seem cool and evil, making this feel like a Steven Seagal flick. And now I’m slowly realizing that this has stopped being funny altogether. It’s only getting sadder and sadder watching Varney put on the blue vest each time, like seeing the Ghostbusters reduced to doing kid’s birthday parties or an alcoholic trying to keep the night going after last call.

About halfway through the movie, my worst fears are realized. At one point, Ernest turns to his female companion and says “don’t worry, I know how to talk to these guys” before walking up to a group of African men and saying “sup homies.” I thought this was bad until I got to the part where Ernest actually dons blackface with an offensive accent in disguise as an Indian servant. Holy shit. It is a stereotype of a stereotype, from white men who probably only knew India through what they had seen depicted in Temple of Doom. Ernest gets captured by a cannibalistic tribe, and then escapes after they are all infatuated by Ernest’s yo-yo. This movie is rapidly making me rethink this whole project. My only option is to tune out completely. Fuck.

My wife has come home from work, I get to interact with another human which is nice. Although she quickly can’t stand this movie and retreats to her laptop. We order Indian food, and all I’m really doing at this point is staring at the clock for the samosas to get here. Occasionally the backdrop of shooting this in Africa pays off with some nice production value, but the quality of the video is so low (not to mention all the racism) that it doesn’t matter. I am so happy there’s only one movie left. Soon it will all be over.

ERNEST IN THE ARMY (1998)

8:30PM. And finally, here we are. A light at the end of the tunnel. Only ninety more minutes. I had started this day thinking I might turn this into an annual tradition, try to get some friends together and have an Ernest film festival. But holy shit, fuck that. That will not be happening. Besides showing my future children the cinematic masterpiece Ernest Goes to Jail, I doubt I’ll ever watch one of these movies again.

This time Ernest starts out shagging golf balls at a driving range in Georgia, until he joins the Army reserves in hopes of getting to drive big trucks. He has a friend in the army, and I realize this guy is John R. Cherry III, the ad agency exec who invented Ernest 18 years ago and has directed eight of the nine movies. Knowing that this was their last film together, it’s kind of nice to see them interact onscreen, and Cherry isn’t that bad.

Somehow Ernest is sent into actual combat, and I’d be lying if I told you I had followed the plot at all the rest of the way. At one point Ernest says “I learned CPR on Oprah!” There’s a bad guy strapped to a rocket. Ernest befriends a local kid and teaches him how to make pancakes. Does any of this even matter? The Wikipedia entry for this movie is laughably sparse (it’s considered a stub instead of a real article), the shortest guide to any of the movies.  But this is the last one! Shouldn’t that mean something? Unfortunately no.

I wish there was something poetic about him starting his journey at a summer camp and ending it in the army, but that would be a stretch (the tag line is trying to do this, saying “Americas hero is finally back in camp,” but that isn’t really accurate. Ernest skips boot camp in this and just goes straight to deployment). The problem is it’s clear that they didn’t expect this to be the last movie. There’s no end to his character’s journey to land a slightly higher job than the one he currently has. No farewell Ernest moment, where all the characters from all the movies come to his funeral and remember what a great friend he was. This is the problem when you reset the world every single movie, there’s nothing to build off of, nothing to keep an audience interested in coming back. Why didn’t Ernest ever get married, or have kids? Can’t you just picture the poster of him standing confused over a crib, pinching his nose and holding a dirty diaper? Why didn’t he invent something and become famous, or at least start his own business? The character never grew at all, which meant there was never any chance to keep things fresh or interesting. By the 9th movie, all you want is for Ernest to just go away.

 

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And that’s it. It’s almost 10:30 at night, and I’m free. I can finally stop watching Ernest movies. I turn off the tv, grateful to have my life back. I should be thrilled. But I can’t help but feel a little sad. The only reason this marathon is over is because Jim Varney died before they could make another movie. Varney was diagnosed with lung cancer in 96 (he was a heavy smoker), and he passed away in 2000.

I can’t help but picture how things could have been different for the man behind Ernest. He was clearly talented, but somehow just got trapped doing the same thing. Sure he started out in commercials, but he had become a household name. You didn’t see Jim Carrey do ten Ace Ventura movies, or Robin Williams reduced to trotting out Mrs. Doubtfire Goes to Washington straight to video. They moved on to more dramatic roles, they expanded their range, and they stopped being typecast. Did Varney ever audition for Saturday Night Live in his younger days? He would have been a natural on that show, a crowd favorite scene-stealer with all his impressions and characters. He had already worked his way into Toy Story as Slinky Dog…people knew he was funny.

I start to wonder how different things could have been if he didn’t die so young (he was only 50). If he would have had a renaissance, a post-Ernest career. Sure there was the chance that we’d have just gotten more Ernest movies, and I’d be doing this for ten more hours. But I like to imagine something happier than that. Maybe somewhere along the way, Quentin Tarantino or P.T. Anderson would have taken an inspired chance, casting him as a troubled patriarch or hitman, and gotten something incredible out of him. Maybe he gets nominated for an Oscar. I really think he was that good. And after fourteen hours of watching the man at work, I’m equally impressed and frustrated. He was always slumming as Ernest, aw shucksing his way through the limited interviews I could find, never living up to the potential he had as an actor. In this way, Varney was more like Ernest than he probably cared to admit. The character will unfortunately be his legacy, but that’s also better than most of us can hope for. Ernest goes forever, and so does Varney. KnoWhatIMean?

ERNEST GOES FOREVER: I Watched All Nine Ernest Movies In A Row

Growing up, one of my favorite movies to watch was Ernest Goes To Jail. I would rent the VHS tape again and again from the nearby grocery store, and howl with laughter every time Ernest became magnetized, or did a weird impression, or said one of his catchphrases. Then I started to notice him on tv, too. He was on commercials all the time for the local Chevy dealership, saying KnoWhatIMean, Vern. Always wearing his signature blue vest, grey t-shirt, jeans and a blank beige baseball hat. My dad and I would chuckle every time he came on. Good old Ernest. And then I grew up, and my slapstick tastes evolved to Naked Gun and Spaceballs. And I had never really thought much about Ernest again until recently, thanks to one of those internet rabbit holes you end up falling down from time to time.

Somehow I had landed on the Ernest P. Worrell Wikipedia page, and I was shocked to learn that the character originated from commercials, and not the other way around. An ad agency in Tennessee had created Ernest, and started booking more and more clients who wanted to use him as their spokesperson for local ads. Just like the car commercials I had seen in Sacramento, it was always the same gag for millions of people all over the country. He would speak straight to camera, treating the viewer as somebody he would call Vern, and recommend a new product. It is a weird concept looking back on it. Ernest can probably be best described as annoying. And he always seemed to be bothering the viewer, but you were supposed to be buying what this guy was selling you. Why would anyone think that Ernest had good taste?

This was so, so weird to me that the commercials came first. I had always assumed that the success of his kids movies had opened the door for Jim Varney to use Ernest to sponsor things for easy money, like how every other celebrity peddles soda or chips. But not Ernest. Somehow a character that was created in thirty second commercials had become popular enough to star in several of his own ninety minute movies. This would be like if Flo from Progressive had gotten her own series of films about her weird life inside that white room in the internet she works in. And even that’s not a great comparison. Flo only does ads for Progressive. Ernest would do ads for HUNDREDS of brands, often doing several commercials for different products in one shoot (Varney was said to have a photographic memory, and could look at the scripts once and rattle off each specific product’s commercial in one take, one after the other).

Learning this made me VERY interested in revisiting the movies. I was kind of morbidly curious to see how the hell they pulled this off, if at all. How do you stretch a character that really only exists to tell you to buy cars and milk into someone that can carry a  whole movie franchise? Would there be product placement in every scene? And what were these movies? I had heard of a few, but I had no idea how many there were. One of them was called Ernest Goes to Africa! If I didn’t know about these, I’m guessing hardly anyone else remembered them, either. And that fascinated me, too. How does a character go from being the ‘Dude, You’re Getting a Dell’ guy to the American Mr. Bean to not even having a single meme? Do people under twenty even know who Ernest is?

So I fired up my computer and started to search for Ernest movies, and eBay naively auto-filled thinking I was interested in Ernest Hemingway crap instead. Uh no. NOBODY cares about that guy, I’m looking for ERNEST P. WORRELL. $40 later I owned all nine movies (two of them only available on tape). I didn’t even own Ernest Goes to Jail as a kid, and now I had all nine Ernest movies in my thirties. I thought it would be a funny idea to try to watch all of them in a row, to really get the full Ernest experience, and see if this favorite character from my childhood was still funny at all. It would take almost fourteen hours to complete. I would quickly become an expert on all things Ernest. And I would regret it immediately. Here’s part 1 of my running diary during this marathon of pain (part 2 will be released shortly).

ERNEST GOES TO CAMP (1987)

Starting at 8:30 AM. Feeling good. I guess the whole premise of every Ernest movie is taking what you know about Ernest (that he’s an annoying bumbling uneducated klutz) and saying “imagine if you sent him to BLANK?!” But a random summer camp doesn’t actually seem like that bad of a place to send this guy. Ernest is introduced as a janitor and repairman at Camp Kikakee, where it’s his dream to someday actually be a camp counselor.

Right off the bat, I’m surprised at how nice Ernest is. He’s not even that annoying, really. Not like in the commercials, anyway. I was expecting these movies to be all about how much grumpy adults can’t stand wacky Ernest, like early Jim Carrey or Adam Sandler or John Leguizamo. But this version of Ernest would never dare barge into someone’s home and yell at them to buy something. You would think this movie would have a pretty straightforward arc: Ernest proving himself as a worthy counselor. But they also try to combine two other camp movies into this: there’s the troublemaker kids from the nearby detention center that will have to learn to care about respecting camp and get along with others, and also an evil mining corporation (!) that wants to bulldoze over the camp in order to find some valuable mineral called Petrocide (the name is better than Unobtanium I guess). There are also two camp chef characters for comedic relief (which feels weird, because isn’t Ernest himself the comedic relief?), and that roughly translates to gross-out humor with nasty ass food. They have a machine where they throw all of the ingredients to chicken pot pie in one end and it shoots out the completed dish in the other. I hate these chefs.

Ernest goes through a lot in this movie. He over-pumps butane lamps and turns them into rockets. He tries to build an elaborate meat roaster over a campfire and burns himself. He gets attacked by badgers, fire ants, and a turtle, and also gets poison ivy all over. He ruins everything by getting duped by the evil mining CEO into convincing the Native American who owns the camp land to sign it away. This leads to the craziest scene in the movie, where we get a montage of the camp closing while Ernest sings an original sad song written for the movie!

Is it just me, or is this song kinda good? In like a sad Kermit the Frog kinda way? You’re getting some definite range from Jim Varney here that you didn’t expect. I was baffled and delighted. I really hope there is more singing in the rest of the movies (editors note: there isn’t).

Eventually, blah blah blah he redeems himself (I guess) by leading the camp in a Home Alone style assault on the mining goons (including parachuting nose-biting turtles onto them) until they flee the site, the “love interest” camp nurse (who I’m not sure even came as close as giving him a hug) forgives him for almost selling off her granfather’s land, and the detention center kids…get completely forgotten about and don’t have any sort of resolution. Sorry, boys, you belonged in a different movie. One down!

ERNEST SAVES CHRISTMAS (1988)

I’m immediately taking out one dvd and popping the next one in, every precious second counts. It’s 10 AM and I’m really thinking this whole day won’t be so bad. The opening credits tell me that someone is actually going to play the role of Santa in this movie. This is a little surprising, since the last one didn’t really have any fantastical elements (beyond Ernest being impervious to pain). We’re in Orlando this time, which makes me realize I had no idea where the last one was set. The internet tells me it was shot in Tennessee, so I guess it was probably also set there?

So Ernest has moved to Orlando and now is a taxi driver for reasons unknown (Did the summer camp shut down despite everyone’s best efforts? Does he just come to Florida the other nine months of the year? Are these movies going to reboot Ernest’s reality each time, or will there be any sort of continuity in Ernest’s lore?). Anyway, who does he happen to pick up at the airport? Santa Claus himself (when we see Santa go through customs, his passport photo is just him in his Santa outfit and the name says Santa. They didn’t even go for a Kris Kringle joke). The guy playing Santa is about a hundred and fifty pounds too skinny, I’m guessing he was the best old man actor they could find, but why not throw him in a fat suit??? He tells Ernest he’s in town to find the host of a cancelled children’s show, who he plans on getting to replace him as Santa. So after realizing that Home Alone’s violent contraptions had to have been at least partially inspired by Ernest Goes to Camp, I now see that Tim Allen’s The Santa Clause was kind of a rip off of this movie. Will I slowly realize every movie ever has just been copying Ernest?

One thing leads to another, Santa gets thrown in jail, and we get a real Miracle on 34th Street plot with nobody believing he’s real…it’s rough to get through. The problem here is that this movie seems to still not yet understand what makes Ernest Ernest. Shouldn’t he believe in Santa? Shouldn’t he be the ONLY adult who still does, and he’s the only one who can help Santa because he’s so darn nice and naive? Nope. He needs to see to believe just like everyone else. I guess he loves Christmas more than the average adult, but Ernest is wayyy too normal in this. And shouldn’t he at least be paired up with a kid who does believe? This movie kind of suffers from the same problem as the first one, which is that it wouldn’t really matter if you removed Ernest from the plot entirely. Santa isn’t trying to get Ernest to replace him (Tim Allen’s version realized the obvious problem of this. Why isn’t Ernest becoming Santa? I guess so that he can still be Ernest in future movies?), nor does Santa end up needing Ernest’s help recruiting new Santa. Ernest doesn’t actually save Christmas at all in this movie, he just misplaces Santa’s toy bag for a while and then struggles to return Santa’s sleigh to him in time (he’s flying around in SPACE for a while, and the air force also scrambles some fighter jets to shoot him down, which means, yes, Nightmare Before Christmas also copied Ernest).

We do get an extended Vern moment, which feels so out of place with the rest of the movie. Ernest and his female drifter friend stop at Vern’s house, to help him decorate for Christmas. It is an excruciating five minutes of Ernest spiking the camera and returning to his old commercial form. He completely ruins Vern’s house and then leaves. Fun! There’s also the introduction of the Ernest disguises in this movie, something that becomes more and more of a calling card. Ernest dresses up as an old lady, and also a dirt covered snake wrangler. It’s all an excuse to show off Varney’s range, which I remember loving as a kid.

My nemeses, the camp chefs, have unfortunately returned here. This time they are airport baggage handlers, and it looks like one of them has been replaced by a bug eyed guy I think is in Ernest Goes to Jail. They now go by Chuck and Bobby, and they have a big guy-little guy, one talks-one doesn’t, Penn and Teller shtick going on throughout. So I guess we will be getting some returning actors, but they won’t be playing the same roles? Ernest really paved the way for American Horror Story. The chefs-turned-baggage handlers whole plot involves them not knowing what to do with the Reindeer Santa left at the airport in crates. They do serve the purpose of padding this movie out enough to hit 90 minutes, but what a drag. Two down!

ERNEST GOES TO JAIL (1990)

11:30 AM. I am getting hungry and heat up some leftover pasta from Jon and Vinny’s. This is the movie I’m most looking forward to out of all nine, since it was the only one I cared about as a kid. Either I’m already starting to lose it, or the opening credits look actually legit, a jokey take on James Bond (which makes me realize an Ernest spy movie should have been a no brainer).

The fucking chefs/baggage handlers are back immediately, this time as brothers who are working security at a bank. Who the hell are these guys? I look them up and they were apparently ALSO in commercials for the same Tennessee ad agency. So really this would be like if Flo’s movie series always featured the ‘Can You Hear Me Now?’ guy as comedic relief. Anyway, Ernest is the janitor at this bank and his new life goal is to be a bank teller there. I don’t want to be a dick, but maybe if Ernest actually stuck around at the same job for a while he would actually accomplish his goals.

Right away it’s obvious that this one is ratcheting up to Looney Tunes levels of slapstick. Ernest’s floor buffing machine drags him up the wall and onto the ceiling, where he gets electrocuted and briefly becomes magnetic. Ernest is kind of becoming a superhero? (also, a superhero Ernest movie seems like a no-brainer, too). Looks like we’re actually getting our first actual love interest for Ernest, a nice bank teller who believes that he can get the job. She’s agreed to go out to dinner to discuss Ernest’s goals, and Ernest considers this a date. He goes home to change into another exact copy of his outfit, and for the first time, we actually get to see what the hell this guy lives like. His house is an extreme rip-off of Pee Wee Herman’s, with all sorts of Rube Goldberg contraptions and clashing decorations and tchotkes . They even give him a little dog, Rimshot, to really complete the Pee Wee picture. Is Ernest the Southern Pee Wee? Sure. It turns out Ernest can be whatever you decide he is.

Besides the unfortunate increase in KnoWhatIMean’s, I’m relieved to see that, just as I remembered, this movie rocks. It’s a classic switcharoo. Ernest is happily assigned to jury duty, and, after a particularly disgusting ink pen gag, he gets tricked into trading places with a criminal on death row who looks just like him (Varney pulling double duty as the criminal Mr. Nash, who I’m just gonna call Bad Ernest from here on out). Good Ernest gets thrown in jail, and Bad Ernest takes over his life. The prison is strangely futuristic, too. Everything is a little foggy and backlit in pink, and the guards wear sunglasses and gigantic maroon jackets with cool sleeve patches. Wait a minute. Futuristic prison. Two characters switch lives, the good guy getting stuck in jail while the bad guy turns his home life upside down. I’ve seen this before. Damn, let’s add Face/Off to the list of movies that have borrowed from Ernest. Quick aside, I recognize the prison warden as one of the guards Hannibal Lecter eats during his grand escape in Silence of the Lambs, which comes out a year later. This guy was on quite a hot streak in the early 90s!

The rest of the movie is pretty straightforward, Good Ernest learns to become tough in prison, while Bad Ernest redecorates Ernest’s house in draped velvet and matador paintings, unsuccessfully tries to woo the bank teller, and plans robbing the bank without tipping off Chuck and Bobby (the security guards/baggage handlers/chefs). Then we get to Ernest’s execution, and holy crap they are actually putting him on the electric chair. Everything is of course fine, as this just causes him to reach the next evolution of his powers and now he’s not only magnetized, but also able to shoot Palpatine electricity from his outstretched Frankenstein arms. I loved this part the most as a kid. But what do we think this movie’s stance is on capital punishment, though?

Bad Ernest is eventually defeated, but he really stole the show and they definitely should have had another one of these remaining SIX movies be about Bad Ernest’s revenge. The end credits also have a pretty catchy Harry Belafonte rip off song that Shazam doesn’t recognize. Three down! It’s all downhill from here.

ERNEST SCARED STUPID (1991)

1pm. I take the dog out for a quick walk and then head right back to this prison of my own making. True story, this movie was too scary for me when it came out. I was six and the trolls gave me nightmares for days. This is also the first movie I think of whenever I see the old Touchstone Pictures logo at the start of a movie (which is funny, because this is the last Ernest movie to be released by Touchstone). Dare I say the opening credits of this one are the best so far.

Ernest now lives in Missouri, and works as the town garbageman. At least he brought his dog Rimshot with him. Even though he moves every movie, he is always kept in the south, and that gives me the idea of another no-brainer Ernest movie: why not send him to the big city one of these times? Crocodile Dundee style, it would write itself. He could be a doorman or a valet. Or a butler in high society? If we’re not putting Ernest in fish out of water scenarios, what is the point of an Ernest movie???

Anyway, this town has an old legend about some trolls and it seems like Ernest’s only friends are elementary school children. Wait, what? Ernest hangs out with them in his garbage truck all day, then leads them into the woods to build a tree house. One of the kid’s dad is the town sheriff, and if I were him I definitely wouldn’t let my child hang out all day in True Detective backwoods with a drifter janitor (and even though we never see Ernest’s house in this, his zany version of Neverland Ranch from Ernest Goes to Jail isn’t doing him any favors in the pedophile department). Yada yada yada, they build a treehouse on some creepy old tree that a troll is buried under, and Power Rangers villain level trolls comes out and attack the town, turning a bunch of kids into little wooden dolls. It feels like an extended Goosebumps episode featuring Ernest, but after having Santa and Electro Ernest, this isn’t even much of a stretch. The trolls only weakness is milk (???) and you get a fun climax of the kids all taking out the trolls with squirt guns filled with milk.

The weirdest part of the plot is that the legend says to defeat the troll, Ernest is the key. Somehow Ernest’s ancestors are from this town, and they were the original ones to bury this troll back in early 1900s. Wait wait wait. Is this Ernest’s hometown? There’s no mention of him moving back home, and he has no relatives. This seems like a huge oversight, we could have gotten a Nutty Professor Klumps situation with Ernest having Aunts and Uncles all played by Varney! The damn chefs/baggage handlers/security guards are back, of course, this time as hucksters looking to capitalize on Troll Fever by selling every possible troll repellent from their handyman store. The Chuck in this version has been replaced by a new actor, and even though I Googled “Why isn’t Gailard Sartain in Ernest Scared Stupid?” the internet doesn’t seem to care enough about Ernest to have answers. This Chuck doesn’t do the character’s patented pig squeal shriek, so I don’t mind him as much.

The real MVP of this movie is Eartha Kitt, who plays an eccentric old woman who lives in an creepy house in the woods. She seems to be some kind of welder or something? And she at one point calls Ernest The Great Redneck Hope. She is the first actor in this franchise who is tolerable when embracing the camp. I realize I have no idea why Eartha Kitt is famous, so I look her up and holy shit, this woman has led a life. Orson Welles, the director of a little film called Citizen Cane, once called her “the most interesting woman alive.” She was the original Catwoman on the old Batman Boom Pow tv show, and was blackballed by the CIA after telling LBJ that the Vietnam War was bullshit during a visit to the White House. Eartha Kitt was awesome. This movie was not. Four down!

While I for some reason forced myself to keep watching Ernest continuously for eight more hours, I’m going to take mercy on you and break this up into two parts. Check back soon for part two, where I suffer through the worst of Ernest’s sins, and also start to just feel really bad for Jim Varney. 

Which Avengers Will Thanos Kill in Infinity War?

All eighteen Marvel movies have been leading up to the arrival of Thanos. While it’s been a little frustrating to watch movie after movie where the stakes seem to only build to the next movie, this one should be different. We’ve been promised that this time not everyone is gonna survive. Marvel has had no problem killing its bad guys in the MCU, but it has been VERY hesitant to get rid of any of its heroes. Besides Coulson’s death in the first Avengers, the closest thing we’ve gotten to an actual superhero dying is Quicksilver’s death in Age of Ultron (and that character’s entire purpose seemed to be becoming a sacrificial lamb for Ultron).

So before every other website does the same thing, let’s handicap who is most likely to actually die in this movie (and JUST this movie, we’re not getting into round two with Thanos, the fourth untitled Avengers, yet). We’ll go from least likely to most, working our way from the heroes who have multiple guaranteed movies after this to the ones whose arc has sadly run its course. I didn’t include any of the SHIELD people because I don’t think they technically count, and who really cares if Cobie Smulders doesn’t make it? Onward!

16. Peter Parker/Spider-Man

There is literally no way Tom Holland’s version of Spider-Man dies in this movie. Besides there being an untitled sequel that already has a 2019 release date, it is obvious Marvel has high hopes for the web slinger to carry them beyond phase three of the MCU. There is a very good chance that he will take over the centerpiece role of Tony Stark, and eventually become the new leader of whatever the next phase of The Avengers looks like. He was hand picked by Stark, and is the only one Iron Man has taken on as a sort of apprentice. He might get in harms way more than Tony is comfortable with in Infinity War, but I’ll be shocked if he gets more than a scratch.

15. T’Challa/Black Panther

Even though we don’t have an official Black Panther sequel on the books yet, Marvel isn’t stupid. The film just cracked the top ten domestic box office of all time, and it will very likely pass Dark Knight and settle in at number 7 (edit: holy crap it ended up at number 3!). You definitely don’t kill off the main character of a colossal new franchise, and you can be assured that T’Challa is safe. The same goes for his sister Shuri, the Q to his James Bond, who HAS to be in the sequel or people will revolt, and his top bodyguard Okoye is probably safe, too. I will say I’m a little worried for the only other character carrying over from Black Panther, M’Baku, the scene-stealing leader of the gorilla mountain tribe. He might die in the battle at Wakanda to make things more personal for Black Panther, but hopefully not.

14. Guardians of the Galaxy

I’m lumping the Guardians together here, because there’s just no way we’re losing any of them in this movie. They are the only ones besides Spidey to also have a sequel locked in for a 2020 release, and you’re not doing another Guardians movie without Starlord, Gamora, Rocket, Groot, Drax, or even Mantis (if Mantis was going to die, she would have sacrificed herself in Guardians 2). The one character I could definitely see dying from this part of the Marvel Universe is Nebula, who  you might remember is not only Gamora’s sister, but more importantly Thanos’ daughter.  This will be a very personal battle for both Gamora and Nebula, and Nebula will assuredly get a great chance for redemption and save her sister while sacrificing herself.

13. Doctor Strange

A Doctor Strange sequel has been all but confirmed at this point, with MCU mastermind Kevin Feige saying he was very interested in making it happen. They have barely scratched the surface of all the weird adventures Strange can go on with alternate dimensions and what not, and I’m sure Marvel has more in store for him. Benedict Wong is reprising his role from the first movie as well, and while there’s the possibility that each franchise will have to sacrifice one of their side characters, I think he’ll be safe here, too.

12. Thor

One of the original core, Thor was probably the most expendable of the original Avengers. And I’m betting Chris Hemsworth was getting sick of playing him, too. But then came Thor: Ragnarok, injecting a ton of new life and fun into the character, and after hearing how excited Hemsworth is again in interviews, now there’s no way he’s done. Fully expect Thor to get another sequel after this. His evil brother Loki will be making an appearance as well, and while Loki has a lot of history with everyone involved after the events of the first Avengers, I don’t see him dying in a non-Thor movie. And even though she was just introduced, the same goes for Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie.

11. Bruce Banner/ Hulk

While Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk might not ever get his own movie (due to a bizarre copyright that allows only Universal to distribute standalone Hulk movies), he has been a fan favorite in the Avengers films and was fantastic in Thor: Ragnarok. Ruffalo has talked about how they are essentially doing a Hulk movie seperated into three parts, through Ragnarok, and the next two Avengers movies. So we can be pretty sure he’ll be safe at least through Infinity War. That being said, I think there’s a good chance Hulk will die in the fourth Avengers film, the final showdown with Thanos after everyone gets womped in this one. He might switch back to Banner at the wrong time, or just sacrifice himself to save Black Widow.

10. Tony Stark/Iron Man

Robert Downey Jr. can’t play Iron Man forever, right? He is the one that started all of this ten years ago, and while it might seem fitting for him to die in Avengers 4, there’s no way he goes down in this one. I also just can’t see Marvel killing the golden goose, and I’m guessing they will keep him around as a mentor figure to the next generation of heroes. He might not fly in the suit anymore after Avengers 4 (hopefully passing the Iron Man mantle to Black Panther’s sister Shuri!), but he will still be a great character to have around for Spider-Man to learn from. And imagine how cool it will be when old man Stark suits up to help out the young guns in another ten years. Plus Tony had his big sacrificial moment at the end of the first Avengers movie, I don’t see Marvel having him do the same thing again.

9. Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow

After the success of Wonder Woman, you really have to think Marvel will finally give Scarlett Johansson’s character her own movie. The only thing that could throw a wrench in this is if it ends up being a prequel like the upcoming Ant-Man movie, where we explore her backstory as a deadly assassin/spy. In that case, she could very well die in one of these Avengers movies and still get her own movie. She is one of the only Avengers to have no “powers,” and will certainly be vulnerable and pretty useless against Thanos, but I don’t think they will kill her in this.

8. Scott Lang/Ant-Man

You might be surprised to see Ant-Man this high on the list, since he has a movie coming out right after Infinity War, but remember that Ant-Man and the Wasp is a prequel, set between the events of Civil War and Infinity War. While it would be a very strange move, he could technically die in Inifinity War and then pop right back up in his own movie months later. Paul Rudd is incredibly charming and delightful in this role, and I don’t see them getting rid of him. Although his (literally) big moment already came in Civil War, I still think he’s safe.

7. Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier

While Barnes has run the gamut from trusty sidekick to full blown bad guy to the entire reason for the conflict in Civil War, he finally seems to be positioned to be firmly on the heroes side. And while he will never have a good relationship with Tony Stark, he is very likable and seems to have earned the trust of Shuri and the rest of Wakanda while he’s recuperated there. I could easily see him appearing in the next Black Panther movie, and while he’ll probably never get his own movie, there’s another big reason I think he’s safe that we won’t get into yet.

6. James Rhodes/War Machine

This is where the list gets very dicey…anyone from this point on could die for sure. Besides Iron Man and Pepper Potts, War Machine is the only character who’s been with this thing from the beginning. Even though it was awkward that he had to be recast with Don Cheadle, Cheadle has done enough in the five movies that he’s appeared in to make us really like the character. This is all to say it would be very powerful to see him die. But we already saw Rhodey have a near death experience in Civil War, so I think he’s probably the safest of the tertiary Avengers. But that’s not saying much.

5. Clint Barton/Hawkeye

It took us a while to care about Barton, since he was mostly used as a brainwashed bad guy in the first Avengers, but Marvel worked extra hard to flesh out Hawkeye in Age of Ultron, showing us that he is ready to retire and be with his family. I thought they were setting that all up to have him die in that movie, but he ended up making it through…so it might not look so good for him this time. Besides being missed back home, he also has a close relationship with Black Widow, and as the two weakest Avengers, odds are that one of them doesn’t make it. If they want to get really dark, they’ll kill Hawkeye and give a moment to Linda Cardelinni as his grieving widow. This one would tug on the heart strings a lot, which is why I think they might do it.

4. Sam Wilson/Falcon

Anthony Mackie has been a welcome addition to the MCU since Captain America 2, and he has made a pretty boring character extremely likable. His budding friendship with Bucky and loyal sidekick shtick with Captain America has worked really well, but depending on how high they want the body count to be, this might be the end of the line for him. The only way I would feel confident Falcon doesn’t die in this movie is if we shockingly lose Winter Soldier instead, but I’ll explain why that would matter more in a second!

3. Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch

I loved Elizabeth Olsen in Ingrid Goes West, but she has never really made me care about this character. Maybe it’s the wonky accent, or the lack of screen time, but she is pretty easily the most expendable Avenger. Even though they have given her a brother to grieve over, an accident to feel guilt about, and a budding romance with Vision, it’s still hard to feel as connected to the Scarlet Witch as we do to everyone else. Her powers can potentially make her one of the strongest Avengers, so she won’t be an easy out for Thanos, but I think Olsen’s time as this character is over. And she will probably go down trying to avenge who’s next on this list…

2. Vision

Clearly the main premise of Infinity War is that Thanos is attempting to collect all of the Infinity stones to put in his fancy glove so that he can become unstoppable. I think Thanos is going to succeed in this plan by the end of this movie, and that’s very bad news for Vision, because he happens to have one of those Infinity stones in his freaking head. This one is so obvious that they are showing parts of it in the trailer, so it won’t be that much of a surprise. It will still be plenty rough though, because of our attachment to the voice of Jarvis and his relationship with Wanda. I could see Tony resurrecting Vision in the second movie, rebuilding a robot that houses his consciousness much like Ultron. But he will definitely die at least momentarily.

1. Steve Rogers/Captain America

To really gut us at the end of this movie…to really show how powerful and bad Thanos is, we are going to have to lose one of the original Avengers. And since I don’t think Tony is going anywhere yet, all signs unfortunately point to Cap. He is the only Avenger who has not one but TWO heroes ready and willing to take up his mantle and become the next Captain America if called upon (Bucky and Falcon). And really this has always been Steve’s destiny. If you go back to the first Captain America movie, he believes his whole purpose is to give his life for his country. He knows he won’t fare well in the war, he just wants to get a chance to die for what he believes in. Then he was given super human strength, and a Vibranium shield, and the rest is history. But in case you haven’t noticed, Vibranium isn’t exactly that rare anymore now that Wakanda is going to share its technology with the rest of the world. It will be an extremely sad and powerful moment, but I think it’s something that really has to happen to raise the stakes. Chris Evans nailed this role, and the Captain America trilogy is easily the strongest part of the MCU, but it’s time to move on to the next phase.

And that’s it. Luckily, we don’t have to wait that long to see if I’m right or not. What do you guys think?

What’s the Difference Between James Bond, the Fast & the Furious and Mission: Impossible? At This Point, Not Much.

The year is 2006, and three gigantic franchises are all releasing new movies with drastically different expectations.

Daniel Craig has just taken on the mantle of James Bond in Casino Royale, a gruff and “realistic” updated version of the classic British spy. Craig is asked in the movie if he wants his martini shaken or stirred, and he surprises us by responding “Does it look like I give a damn?” It was a new Bond, an electric charge in the franchise that would briefly push 007 to the forefront of a new wave of gritty post-Jason Bourne action hero.

The same energy had just been reignited in Mission: Impossible, with Tom Cruise binging the tv show Alias and personally lobbying for its creator J.J. Abrams to direct M:I III in hopes of making the series fun and cool again. Abrams did more than just that, he made Cruise’s character Ethan Hunt a real person, with a real life (and wife), and in a masterful performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman, gave him a real bad guy trying to take that all away. Bond and Hunt were both spies, sure, but you would never get them confused. You’d find one flirting at a high stakes poker table, and the other sneaking around the freaking Vatican wearing a latex copy of someone else’s face. These new Craig Bond movies seemed to be above ridiculous action, while Abrams was pushing Mission:Impossible to embrace it completely. They were still occupying pretty different spaces.

And then there was the Fast and the Furious franchise, dying on the vine with a third entry that was one step away from being straight to DVD. The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift did not have any of the charismatic star power that made the first film a surprisingly enjoyable riff of Point Break with street racing. At this point the films were almost exclusively about who can soup up their car the most, and who can still win a race with just their pride of being from the streets. It would have been a real stretch twelve years ago to say that these three franchises would soon end up being merely tonal shifts of the same plot: elite secret teams of indestructible people in fast cars traveling the world in search of the latest technological McGuffin before the “this time it’s personal” bad guy could get their hands on it and exact his revenge.

Now all three franchises seem to be involved in an escalating game of “can you top this action sequence,” thrilling fans with individual set pieces while leaving a trail of completely unmemorable plots in their wake. You always enjoy seeing Bond or Ethan or Dom chase down a bad guy, but rarely do you remember why that chase needed to happen in the first place.

To really illustrate how similar they are now, think about this: if you were asked to guess which franchise ends up in space first (disregarding the fact that Bond technically already went in a past life in 1979’s Moonraker), it is not an easy answer. Somehow Fast & Furious would probably be the smart bet at this point! But you can definitely picture all three figuring out a plot that required its characters to fix a satellite or board a space station (and Tom Cruise would no doubt demand to actually film it on the moon, continuing his fetishistic obsession with doing his own stunts to honor Xenu).

How did this happen? Let’s take a look at how each franchise got into this “space race,” and if there’s anything left still separating them from each other.

Daniel Craig’s Bond

For the purposes of this comparison, we’ll only be looking at the four Craig Bond movies.  Craig’s Bond has been reset to the beginning of his career, as he is just getting his “license to kill.” But he is still the gold standard that the other two franchises are constantly trying to evoke with lavish set pieces in exotic locales.

When you think of the plot of a James Bond movie, you know a number of things are certain. He’ll have to travel all over the world as he tries to figure out who he can trust in pursuit of the bad guy (who will most likely have some sort of bizarre physical attribute). He’ll attend some sort of fancy event all dressed up, order a martini and follow somebody to learn who they’re working for or with. There will be at least one beautiful woman to seduce/save/ultimately doom, and he’ll get to use some fancy new gadgets provided to him by Q. And there always has to be a car chase.

For all the exciting moments in a Craig Bond movie, the plots of the first two movies were surprisingly dull. Take Casino Royale for example. You might remember he had entered a poker game, but probably not because he was trying to stop a terrorist financier from recouping the money he lost betting on the bankruptcy of an aviation company. Or Quantum of Solace, where Bond ultimately uncovers a plot to control all the water in Bolivia. The stakes were relatively low, Bond was only taking on shadowy power players trying to make more money. It was a job for James Bond precisely because the mission was in the shadows.

But by the time Skyfall rolled around in 2012, though, the effects of Cristopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight reverberated through every action movie. Trying to keep up with the excitement, Bond was coming back from the dead, Javier Bardem was obsessed with revenge, and getting caught on purpose to initiate his master plan. Craig’s Bond movies always had moments of extreme action in them, but now the plots were being streamlined into high concept adventures to give audiences what they wanted .

The most obvious thing that sets Bond apart (besides him being British) is that he’s very much alone. He has a boss in M, he has ill-fated coworkers and contacts in the CIA, and whatever love interest is involved the current problem, but he seems forever doomed to be truly alone. He was burned at the end of Casino Royale after trying to give it all up for love, and now he seems to only live for the next mission. Dom and Ethan Hunt hope to give up the dangerous life and just spend time with the ones they love, but Bond doesn’t have that option. He has obvious chemistry with Moneypenny, but we all know it would never last long if they tried.

Mission: Impossible

Ethan Hunt, Bond’s American counterpart, was not a character in the original television series the franchise is based on. He was created for the movies, and him and Tom Cruise are one and the same at this point. Each movie seems to mostly exist as a convoluted vehicle to provide Cruise an opportunity to do a crazy action stunt. As the years go on, it becomes clearer and clearer that this will be the role Cruise is remembered for most. If Mission: Impossible is know for one thing, it’s the action sequences and stunts.

Some of the original cast of the show hated the first movie (and assumedly everything since). Martin Landau was quoted as saying it was “basically an action adventure…(while the tv show) was a mind game.” Tom Cruise was jumping off of helicopters and repelling into secure rooms. He was still sneaking into places instead of blowing up the front door, but the action definitely jumped to another level from the 60s tv show. Hunt seems to always need to gain access to absurdly secure facilities himself, by having to hold his breath or free climb all while not dropping a bead of sweat, while Bond would just sleep with the wife of the man who has the key.

While Bond’s most unique feature is that he travels solo, Mission:Impossible always seems to force Ethan Hunt to figure out who he can actually trust within his own agency. Someone sending him on the mission has ulterior motives, and one of his bosses always seems to end up double crossing him in the third act. As Henry Cavill muses in the trailer for the latest movie Fallout, due in July of this year, “How many times has Hunt’s government betrayed him, disavowed him, cast him aside? How long before a man like that has had enough?” (we, of course, know that Ethan Hunt, like 007 and even Dom, will always end up doing the right thing).

And yet, as the movies have gone on, Ethan has also assembled a team of people that he does consider trustworthy. He is given a team of fellow operatives, each with a specific expertise, and he considers it a failed mission if any of them don’t come back. Counting Fallout, Ving Rhames has been in all six films with Cruise, while Simon Pegg has been in the last four since Abrams involvement and Michelle Monaghan will make her third appearance. If there wasn’t some secretive list of every active spy being constantly leaked, you could easily picture Hunt barbecuing in his backyard, having Coronas with his version of familia.

The Fast & the Furious

You would never mistake Dom Torreto for a spy. While rarely successful, Bond and Hunt are usually tasked with accomplishing their entire mission without even being noticed. Dom does not roll like that, nor is he expected to. He wants people to know not to mess with him and the familia, and this rampaging demand can be parlayed into happening to save the world, too. He is at his core nothing but a “humble” street racer obsessed with his friends and family. But somehow Fast & Furious transformed him and his crew into a group that were comfortable taking on secret missions from secret government agencies.

The Fourth Film, “Fast and Furious” set everything in motion by elevating Dom and the crew into international fame. They go from the harmless crime of hijacking fuel trucks to being forced into drug running, and ultimately have to all break Dom free from heading to prison. But Fast Five is really the movie that really allows Dom to occupy even remotely the same space as Bond and Hunt. This all works by introducing The Rock’s character, an elite American soldier who is tasked with tracking down Dom’s crew all over the world and bringing them to justice. By the end of Five, The Rock respects them, and the table is set for him to actually ask them to help in the future.

That gets us to Furious 7, where Dom and the crew are trying to recover God’s Eye, a powerful surveillance program that Bond or Hunt would both love to recover themselves if given the chance in their own films. The change in each Furious movie is subtle, slowly progressing each street racer into special ops superheroes. Somehow Ludacris improbably transforms into one of the worlds best hackers, when he was introduced back in the second movie as nothing more than a guy who occasionally hosted street races. Dom and Brian and Letty are all now comfortable jumping out of moving vehicles, engaging trained assassins in hand to hand combat.

And now that this crew is traveling all over the world and saving the day, they need to look cool doing it (no doubt due to a request by Vin Diesel himself). Fancier cars and clothes become a necessary part of the story, and James Bond is the obvious inspiration behind this desire. But fans of this series don’t see themselves in James Bond or Ethan Hunt. Part of the appeal here is seeing Dom and the crew rising from rags to riches, going from being chased by the government to begged by them to help out.

It used to be that different movie plots would call for the differing expertise of these franchises: the suave emotionless precision of Bond, the fearless calm calculations of Hunt, or the raw muscle badassery of Dom. But now all of them can race any car, jump onto any train, and track down any missing briefcase you need returned. And the way things are going, they will all set foot on the moon soon enough. Is this a good thing? I’m not sure. But I’m still going to see all of them.