Month: August 2022

August is a strange month to release “Easter Sunday,” but it’s easy to recognize a studio punt with the project, which is meant to turn comedian Jo Koy into a leading man. He’s not a seasoned film actor, and this much is evident in the picture, which finds Koy struggling to become charming in a completely laugh-free viewing experience. “Easter Sunday” aims to say something about the chaos of family life, and doing so with a Filipino-American focus, hoping to use the culture and its broad personalities to prop up a DOA endeavor directed by Jay Chandrasekhar, who has a rough track record when it comes to making funny movies (offerings include “The Dukes of Hazard,” “Super Troopers,” and “The Babymakers”). Wacky behaviors can’t save the effort, which doesn’t do anything fresh with humor, and it’s a terrible holiday feature, failing to find the warmth of a domestic gathering, putting a lot of pressure on Koy to make anything here appealing. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1987’s “Predator” is an action cinema classic, merging worlds of violent excess and sci-fi cinema into a tightly constructed ride of survival, dripping with testosterone. Producers have attempted to match it for over 30 years, and while a few follow-ups have been fine, the original Schwarzenegger-ian magic hasn’t been recaptured. That was supposed to change with 2018’s “The Predator,” but the big-budget reworking was a major creative whiff, failing to restore excitement and surprise to the franchise, almost coming close to killing the brand name with its ineptitude. Four years later, and now there’s “Prey,” which is a prequel to “Predator,” with screenwriter Patrick Aison taking the adventure back to 1719, introducing Native American characters as targets for an alien hunter that refuses to back down from a fight. “Prey” has the novelty of its setting, which is a refreshing change of pace, and director Dan Trachtenberg (“10 Cloverfield Lane”) oversees some effective suspense sequences. It’s not an especially different take on the central human vs. hunter concept, but it’s definitely an improvement over “The Predator.” Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director David Leitch has built a career out of hardcore action movies, dealing directly with elaborate choreography and bloody messes in films such as “Atomic Blonde,” “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw,” and his biggest hit, 2018’s “Deadpool 2.” For “Bullet Train,” Leitch isn’t interested in taking any creative detours with this adaptation of a Japanese novel, preferring to Americanize the material with plenty of bruising, slicing, and blunt force trauma, recycling the “Deadpool” formula of irreverent comedy and hard-R brutality, as the features are basically the same, even down to the actors involved. However, “Deadpool 2” had a defined sense of humor and some interesting ways with action. “Bullet Train” is a graceless, unfunny endeavor that’s hell-bent on being the most aggressive picture of the year. Leitch puts his faith in the “more is more” way of thinking, content to bash viewers over the head with the cartoonish ways of the material, trying to sell a joke that doesn’t have a punchline. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While it carries a friendly title, “I Love My Dad” is a dark comedy about parental extremes, with writer/director/star James Morosini taking viewers on quite a ride with the material, which is shaped from a true story. The helmer spotlights the bad instincts and big heart of a father who doesn’t understand right from wrong, generating an exploration of askew guardianship from a desperate man doing anything, I mean anything, to spend some time relearning how to engage with his emotionally fragile son. “I Love My Dad” hits a few farcical highs and some profoundly emotional lows, and while Morosini doesn’t always maintain command of the feature’s tone, he takes some interesting storytelling risks with the picture, which results in some major laughs and plenty of wincing along the way, making for one of the stranger films of 2022. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 1980, actor Kevin Bacon was a cast member of the hit slasher film, “Friday the 13th.” The picture helped to change the industry, inspiring countless knockoffs and a passionate fanbase, but Bacon has never celebrated his participation in the endeavor, possibly troubled to be associated with an unsavory feature. For “They/Them,” Bacon finally returns to the deep woods for this effort, which places him in a camp setting where a killer is on the loose, hacking up victims. It’s cause for celebration for some, but writer/director John Logan isn’t making a horror movie with “They/Them,” more interested in a study of young people dealing with the turbulence of their lives. Macabre events periodically occur, but Bacon isn’t back to basics here, playing a supporting part in a heartfelt examination of confusion and shame, but it’s a lousy genre offering. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Skydance Animation is the latest company created to get in on the profitable ways of family entertainment. Their debut feature is “Luck,” and the company hopes to acquire some of the good stuff with the hiring of John Lassiter, the once mighty Pixar Animation honcho who left the company for controversial reasons. Lassiter is here to help secure a hit for the studio, with the man who helped develop “Cars” and “Toy Story” staying strictly within his comfort level with “Luck,” which takes zero creative chances during its run time. It’s also one of the most exposition-packed animated pictures in recent memory, with director Peggy Holmes (“The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning”) desperately overseeing an often absurdly elaborate exercise in world building that’s meant to be explored in additional media, should the initial outing reach its audience. Such an outcome seems unlikely, leaving viewers with the burden of keeping up with the laborious screenplay, which is mostly tell and very little show. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com