Category: Film Review

Co-writer/director Jeff Baena likes to make very strange movies. He’s the helmer of “Life After Beth” and “Joshy,” and made a particularly strong impression with 2017’s “The Little Hours,” a Middle Ages farce that managed to score with particularly tricky material and tone. Never one to turn down a challenge, Baena returns with “Horse Girl,” a picture that begins with quirk and comedy before getting deadly serious about the depths of mental illness. Naturally drawn to dark humor, Baena hopes to offer some type of entry point to the story, and he works well with star Allison Brie (who also scripts), giving her the space she needs to form a character living in the growing shadow of encroaching madness. It’s the second half of “Horse Girl” that loses rhythm and tension, finding the writing irritatingly light on detail when it comes time to submerge the lead character in complete insanity. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s Valentine’s Day weekend, and writer/director Stella Meghie has been tasked with providing some romantic warmth for moviegoers seeking a little tenderness. The helmer of "Everything, Everything," Meghie goes very soft with “The Photograph,” a new-love viewing experience that’s buttressed by melodrama and staring contests from lead actors Issa Rae and LaKeith Stanfield. The picture pushes a fairly safe sense of PG-13 sensuality and conflict, and while the actors are game to follow Meghie’s slow dance style of filmmaking, they can’t bring the feature any sense of urgency. The jazzy mood and delayed response tends to make “The Photograph” sleepy, which does little to pull viewers in tightly with the story’s blend of relationship worry, sexual response, and generational influence. Read the rest at Bu-ray.com

While it wasn’t a fan favorite, 2016’s “Suicide Squad” managed to make a lot of money and introduce the villainous character Harley Quinn to the D.C. Extended Universe, giving the faithful a ray of psychotic light in the midst of a dreary, confused mess. Sensing a breakout character, the powers that be have awarded Quinn her own movie, put in charge of assembling a different type of vigilante squad in “Birds of Prey,” which transforms a once dangerous character into an antihero for maximum box office potential. Edges have been sanded down to give Quinn her close-up, and there’s potential in the material’s vision for teamwork, but “Birds of Prey” isn’t really all that different from “Suicide Squad,” offering a slightly more appealing heap of half-realized characters, hand-holding narration, and repetitive action. It’s certainly colorful with a passable female POV, but whatever the picture was during its scripting phase has not made it to the final cut. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 2015, writer/directors Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala made a wonderfully unsettling debut with their first feature-length effort, “Goodnight Mommy.” It was spare work, but unnerving, creating an enjoyable nightmare that suffered some pacing issues, but managed to sink its talons into the audience. “The Lodge” is their long-overdue follow-up, which returns the duo to the realm of slow-burn horror, which is all the rage these days, embarking on a mission of psychological distortion with their endeavor, which examines the stains of trauma as a family spends the Christmas holiday in a remote dwelling. Much like “Goodnight Mommy,” “The Lodge” is in no hurry to get anywhere, and while such persistent delay ultimately does damage to the movie’s overall effectiveness as a chiller, it remains clear that Franz and Fiala are gifted genre craftspeople, looking to make ticket-buyers feel the pressure of doomsday without fully explaining what’s coming for them. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Elijah Wood has been working very hard in recent years to become an interesting actor. He’s selected projects for himself that’ve managed to showcase different sides to his personality and capability, and his interest in the dark stuff (extending to producing duties on “Color Out of Space” and “Daniel Isn’t Real”) has largely paid off. “Come to Daddy” continues Wood’s fondness for unexpected cinema, starring in a dark comedy that opens as a family reunion tale and climaxes at a motel swinger meet-up, and somewhere in the middle there’s a lock-picking scene with a fecal matter-covered pen. Director Ant Timpson works extra hard to make a simple idea expand into dozens of odd scenes, and while the picture runs out of steam long before it ends, there’s a special weirdness to “Come to Daddy” that keeps it gripping and intermittently amusing. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

As a tale of temptation and survival, “Hansel & Gretel” has been adapted and reimagined countless times since its debut in 1812. The Brother Grimm fairy tale has been transformed into light and dark entertainment, most recently in 2013’s “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters,” which endeavored to turn the storybook siblings into action heroes. For co-writer/director Oz Perkins, the original tale is an ideal fit for his helming interests, giving him another opportunity to explore slow-burn chills, only now he’s handed a little more marketplace visibility with “Gretel & Hansel,” which delves into Grimm Brother doom, but also keeps up genre trends set by Euro-flavored endeavors such as “The Witch” and “Hereditary.” Perkins aims for cinematic creep with the progressively titled “Gretel & Hansel,” and he’s capable of constructing arresting imagery. It’s storytelling stasis that often flattens the viewing experience. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Producing James Bond movies is a full-time job. The enormity of work often keeps the series out of service for years at a time these days, with Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson tasked with keeping the franchise on track, focusing their energies on a cinematic brand name that’s been around for almost 60 years. “The Rhythm Section” is a rare side project from the duo, with their EON Productions trying to get something started with this adaptation of a 1999 Mark Burnell novel, with the author also handling screenwriting duties. There’s a heavy spy atmosphere in the story, which does some globetrotting and assesses various levels of threat, but in the hands of director Reed Morano (“Meadowland,” “I Think We’re Alone Now”), “The Rhythm Section” goes darker than 007, offering emotional suffocation and a crisis of conscience instead of blockbuster action. It’s more artful than Broccoli and Wilson usually go, and they help to create an interesting feature, but one with more than a few storytelling issues. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There’s been no shortage of media productions looking to adapt Henry James’s “The Turn of the Screw.” The 1898 horror novella certainly has a ghost story hook to fuel a proper nightmare machine, and such ambition is revived with “The Turning,” the latest attempt to stretch something small scale into something significant. Screenwriters Carey W. and Chad Hayes (“The Conjuring”) definitely have a take with their version of James’s story, but their intent is often mangled by director Floria Sigismondi (“The Runaways”), who doesn’t have style or patience to make an effective chiller. When “The Turning” isn’t obsessed with cheap scares and underwhelming performances, it falls asleep as a mystery, dragging through haunted house formula with limited appreciation for dynamic frights. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Last Full Measure” is a movie that means well enough. It examines the tattered state of veteran affairs, dramatizing the experience of William Pitsenbarger, a U.S. Air Force Pararescueman, who, in 1969, sacrificed his life during the Vietnam War to save others. The screenplay by Todd Robinson (who also directs) details the situation that led to Pitsenbarger’s demise, but primarily focuses on the action, 30 years later, of the survivors of the conflict, who deal with guilt and shame, adding their voices to a plan striving to upgrade the hero’s Air Force Cross to a Medal of Honor. “The Last Full Measure” makes a valiant effort to understand the confusion of war and its lasting scars, emotional and physical, and Robinson has quite a cast of acting pros and legends to support dramatic integrity, which is most successful when handling gut-rot pain, stumbling some when it slips into tearjerker mode. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s been a long time since Guy Ritchie has made something that’s distinctly his own. He’s spent the last decade chasing blockbusters, trying to turn himself into a mega-director the studios love to employ, only to receive a few kicks in the teeth (“The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” and “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword”) and one lucky break from basically a sure thing (last year’s “Aladdin” remake). Initially making a name for himself with gangster cinema, Ritchie returns to form with “The Gentlemen,” which examines criminal conduct and games of intimidation from a community of bosses, lowlifes, and outsiders. Ritchie isn’t taking a tremendous creative gamble with the movie, but it feels like a man flushing the gunk out of his system, returning to his favorite genre to find his violent English playfulness again, which he hasn’t been near since 2008’s “RocknRolla.” Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Color Out of Space” represents a long overdue return to feature-length filmmaking for writer/director Richard Stanley. Working in documentaries, shorts, and enduring one famously disastrous shoot (1996’s “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” which he was fired from) over the last 28 years, Stanley hasn’t been seen in full force since 1992’s “Dust Devil,” which followed his breakthrough picture, 1990’s “Hardware.” Stanley’s unusual vision has been missed from genre endeavors, but “Color Out of Space” is a fine return to form for the helmer, who takes the challenge of an H.P. Lovecraft short story adaptation seriously, making a distinct push to craft something horrifying, reaching beyond the earthly realm to do so. While it takes some time to get up to speed, the movie is a wild ride, teeming with evil energy and grotesque visuals, sustaining Stanley’s career interest in making the audience as uncomfortable as possible. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Tyler Perry has slowed down his theatrical career in recent years, focusing on television productions and the creation of his own studio in Atlanta. It’s been a lucrative career change, and the small screen provides a proper home for Perry’s limited dramatic imagination, welcoming his soap opera obsessions. Perry returns to feature-length filmmaking with “A Fall from Grace,” but it’s no herculean creative endeavor, with the picture shot in just five days in the bitter cold, utilizing much of Perry’s T.V. crew and experience. And you know what? It shows. Striving to become the new Roger Corman, Perry once again clings to pure absurdity with his latest offering, which begins with legal procedure and concludes like a Blumhouse production, working swiftly and steadily to give viewers the very least when it comes to a moviemaking effort. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Created as an action distraction for the spring of 1995, “Bad Boys” marked the directorial debut of Michael Bay, who took a low-budget project starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence and made it come alive, feeling out his helming powers with what would become his only movie made with some restraint. Returning to the brand name in 2003, Bay manufactured a hideously bloated and mean-spirited sequel, offered a chance to do whatever he wanted with the series, electing to squeeze all the fun out of it. After a long breather, Smith and Lawrence return with “Bad Boys for Life,” but Bay has chosen to sit this one out, passing the baton to Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, two untested filmmakers tasked with keeping up the Bay energy for the weirdly delayed second sequel. It’s nice not to have Bay around to make a mess of things, but the new kids on the block are just as interested in grotesque violence and sheer noise, unwilling to make “Bad Boys for Life” their own bulldozing creation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s easy to see why the 1920 Hugh Lofting book, “The Story of Doctor Dolittle,” is a tempting adaptation opportunity for movie producers. While the literary offering spawned its own series of missions for the titular character, his central gift, born with an ability to speak to animals, is a concept that can go anywhere. And it has on a few occasions, most notably an epic 1967 musical that bombed at the box office, and most recently a 1998 comedy starring Eddie Murphy that trigged a string of sequels. Now there’s “Dolittle,” with co-writer/director Stephen Gaghan striving to make a big-budget, family friendly spectacle featuring gobs of visual effects, one of the highest paid actors in the history of Hollywood, and a supporting voice cast made up of various comedians, actors, and professional wrestlers. It’s a massive production, and yet “Dolittle” feels uncomfortably small, presenting a limited imagination for wonder and funny business, trying to win over audiences with eye candy instead. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Not so fast, 1990’s nostalgia, there’s still plenty of love for the 1980s out there. For director Jack Henry Robbins, the early days of video recording are lovingly recreated in “VHYes,” which gives audiences a chance to revisit the small thrills of documenting life and television during the wild west years of home electronics. Robbins doesn’t have a story to share here, manufacturing a viewing experience instead, calling in friends and family (including parents Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon) to recreate shows, films, commercials, and household interactions from 1987, creating a bizarre mix tape of comedy and surrealism, with nothing in the feature lasting for very long. It’s a stab at an old-fashioned underground movie, and “VHYes” secures a semi-consistent showcase of amusing performances and welcome silliness, playing up the technical limitations of equipment and satirizing the programming trends of the day to add something wonderfully oddball to the marketplace. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer Lucy Alibar has a fascination with the motor that keeps young minds running. She made her screenwriting debut with “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” adapting her stage play “Juicy and Delicious,” and she returns to theatrical inspirations for “Troop Zero,” which is based on her play, “Christmas and Jubilee Behold the Meteor Shower.” Alibar has an appreciation for free-range upbringings, and aims for a sweeter understanding of personal challenges with her latest effort. “Troop Zero” doesn’t stray far from underdog cinema formula, but Alibar keeps her material sentimental and empowering, trying to speak to the heart of pre-teen characters as they battle adults, the 1970s, and their own perceived limitations on a quest to communicate with the deepest reaches of space. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Guy Pearce has accepted some roles he shouldn’t have over the years, but it’s difficult to understand why he said yes to “Disturbing the Peace.” Usually big money is the reason behind respected stars and their need to appear in VOD product, but even by those standards, Pearce is really scraping the bottom of the barrel with this feature. And amateurish production from director York Alec Shackelton (who previously helmed another lump, the Nicolas Cage-starrer “211’), “Disturbing the Peace” tries to be an urban western, pitting a troubled lawman against a pack of violent bikers, but there’s little appreciation for the building of tension, the technique of selling violence, and basic thespian skills. Pearce is the best thing about the picture, but that’s not saying much, as the veteran actor is simply here to make a few bucks and move on, putting in the least amount of effort possible. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Wave” approaches ideas on conscience and karmic balance through the cinematic reverberations of psychedelic drugs. Director Gille Klabin is prepared to take the audience on a special mind-bending ride, armed with distinct visuals and doses of CGI, while instructing star Justin Long to capture the finer points of mental and physical alarm as his character is sent through time and space to deal with his issues as a human being in a dangerous position of power. “The Wave” has a simple message of personal inventory to study, and Klabin tries to capture audience attention through bursts of chaos, hoping to wind up the feature as a manic sprint through different realities. It’s not an especially ambitious production, and not entirely compelling either, but it does have a certain energy at times to keep it going, with Long working hard to communicate the inner melt of a troubled man. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Screen comedy hasn’t been living its best life in recent years, with trends in improvisation and lowbrow humor hurting funny business instead of helping it, finding filmmakers all too content to provide limited imagination. “Like a Boss” isn’t going to change the game, but it does have an interesting director in Miguel Arteta, helmer of “Cedar Rapids,” “The Good Girl,” and the recent “Beatriz at Dinner.” Arteta is far from infallible, but one can sense something trying to happen in “Like a Boss,” which possesses moments of pleasant silliness with two very game stars before it retreats back to numbing cliché, creating strange tonal extremes as Arteta tries to steady himself and create a bawdy, R-rated comedy that also touches on female empowerment and friendship issues. He doesn’t get there, but some mild effort helps. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There was a time when this type of movie was nearly released on a monthly basis. In the late 1980s, Hollywood wanted in on oceanic horror movies, with features such as “DeepStar Six” and “Leviathan” making a run for box office glory, only to find limited interest from ticket-buyers. 30 years later, there’s another attempt with “Underwater” (shot three years ago), which isn’t quite as monster intensive, but does restore the primal terror of being stuck at the bottom of the sea, facing off against a most determined foe. It’s the “Alien” formula, only with tighter spaces and lots of wetness. “Underwater” has the remote setting and some money for visual effects, but director William Eubank (who contributed effective work with 2014’s “The Signal”) is more interested in creating a chaotic viewing experience, not a terrifying one, shredding his invitation to make a claustrophobic nail-biter, preferring flat acting and cheap scares instead. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com