Category: Film Review

It’s tough out there for a monster spider chiller. SyFy productions such as “Lavalantula” have ruined the freak-out factor when it comes to the sight of rampaging arachnids, making a joke out of what would normally be an alarming cinematic situation. A Chinese-Australian co-production, “7 Guardians of the Tomb” seeks to return a little fury to the subgenre, mixing creepy-crawly spider attacks with Indiana Jones-style adventuring, hoping to find a balance between horror and small-scale spectacle. Co-writer/director Kimble Rendall can only do so much with the limited budget and thespian talents gathered, leaving “7 Guardians of the Tomb” straining to be the high-flying good time at the movies it wants to become.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There’s a lot of competition out there for the zombie lover’s dollar, inspiring filmmakers to find new and interesting ways to refresh genre particulars, refusing to submit the same old stomp to moviegoers demanding a little more from their flesh-chewing entertainment. Making his directorial debut for “The Cured” is David Freyne (who also scripts), who twists the subgenre in a more allegorical fashion, using the menace of “infected” types to explore political history in Ireland and the violent extremism that plagues all corners of the world today. “The Cured” isn’t light, bloody fun, retaining an impressively curated heaviness about it, with Freyne laboring to making something different with familiar working parts, coming up with an impressively forbidding tone and emotional urgency to reach beyond expectations.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Nostalgia is a powerful feeling, triggering a range of emotions as encounters with items or events invite a flood of memories, which can sometimes be an unwelcome development. Screenwriter Alex Ross Perry (“Queen of Earth”) and director Mark Pellington (“Henry Poole is Here”) come to “Nostalgia” with a profound interest in the anguish remembrance inspires, working to craft a haunting poem to the process of reflection, mixing a series of thousand yard stares with episodic storytelling that’s depressing to watch. Not that sadness isn’t welcome, but the production’s approach to communicating pain is to make an irritatingly protracted movie that lacks refined editing and necessary bits of sunshine to help illuminate depths of darkness. “Nostalgia” is a rough sit, and while it initially seems that Perry and Pellington have a master plan for their relay race of misery, it doesn’t take long to realize that they don’t.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

For a time travel movie to work, it doesn’t have to offer a big idea, but speed is appreciated to help digest the particulars of this type of science fiction. Math and science is often most effective with some passion behind it, but “Curvature” doesn’t trust the value of excitement. Brian DeLeeuw has scripted a small-scale mind-bender, but he’s often stuck searching for emotional resonance with a story that seems built for exploitation interests. “Curvature” is dull, requiring a director who’s dedicated to the essentials of cinematic pursuit, but helmer Diego Hallivis seems overwhelmed here, trying to preserve DeLeeuw’s characterization while delivering limp action. The basics of time-leaping and broken hearts are here, but the production doesn’t come alive, weakening a passable detective story.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There are no spoilers here: “Irreplaceable You” opens with the acknowledgment that the lead character is already dead, narrating the picture from the afterlife. It’s a startling way to begin a movie, and if screenwriter Bess Wohl wanted to attempt any sort of suspense that typically comes with unknown fates, she erases the possibility right away. Sadly, such a loss is the last offering of surprise “Irreplaceable You” is interested in gifting the audience, quickly embarking on a quirky, undercooked tearjerker that appears willing to examine the process of grief and fears of the future, but doesn’t make time to go deeper than teary dialogue exchanges and awkward turns of plot. Wohl only wants the gushing emotions, not the intricacy of mortality and romantic responsibility.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

As the Marvel Cinematic Universe expands, fringe characters are starting to take center stage, joining the ongoing examination of comic book heroism as it emerges from all shapes, colors, and sizes. Now that Ant-Man and Doctor Strange have found their footing at the box office, here comes Black Panther, perhaps the most regal character found in the MCU. While the ways of T’Challa were introduced in 2016’s “Captain America: Civil War,” the King of Wakanda becomes the sole focus of “Black Panther,” bringing heightened fantasy action, vivid characters, and African pride with him. While co-writer/director Ryan Coogler doesn’t always maintain stamina when it comes to the fine details of the crime and punishment showcased in the script, he has a wonderful sense of culture and costumed authority, creating a vibrant solo showcase for the world of Wakanda and all the political turbulence and fierceness it contains. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

Leave it to Aardman Animations to make a picture featuring cavemen that’s also about the birth of soccer. It’s typically strange stuff from the company that gave the world “Wallace and Gromit,” “Chicken Run,” and “Shaun the Sheep,” but the production offers a commitment to the absurdity, trying to find the funny in every frame of this stop-motion animated event. Significant laughs are missing from the mix, a rarity with Aardman, but “Early Man” delivers on charm and technical achievements, supplying a breezy sit with a bizarre premise, which marries sports movie formula with Monty Python wit. Director Nick Park aims for a slightly younger audience with “Early Man,” which is heavy on slapstick and exaggerated personalities, and while the film is perhaps something of a disappointment in the grand scale of Aardman achievements, it remains pleasant and periodically inspired.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

For his second release of 2018, Nicolas Cage goes the voyeur route in “Looking Glass,” which offers almost enough provocative moments to pass, only to weirdly pull back just when the effort hits major areas of disturbing behavior. It’s the latest endeavor from Tim Hunter, the helmer of “River’s Edge” and “Tex,” and a director who’s spent a significant amount of time guiding TV shows, gifting him ease with tiny budgets and small ideas. “Looking Glass” offers both, and it doesn’t emerge with any real sense of screen authority, but Hunter captures a few blasts of unguarded behavior and thriller-esque twists, laboring to make something exciting out of a slow-burn journey into the mind of defeated man. It certainly could be better, but it’s mildly impressive to watch Hunter make sure it’s not worse.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Adam DeVine is relatively new to the world of leading men, having previously shared shenanigans with larger casts in supporting roles (“Pitch Perfect,” “Why Him?”), and joining Zac Efron in 2016’s “Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates.” “When We First Met” is the first time a picture is dependent entirely on DeVine’s charm, skill with a punchline, and capacity for emotional communication. Director Ari Sandel (“The Duff”) puts a lot of faith in DeVine to manage the inner life of the film, and it’s not the best casting in the world, with the habitual jokester trying to make a Jack Black comedy while the helmer attempts to nudge the tone of the effort to something more bittersweet. “When We First Met” has some positive energy and a tried-and-true premise ripe for silly business, but a little DeVine goes a long way, with the feature not nearly as hilarious or meaningful as it aims to be. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Female Brain” is an adaptation of a book by Louann Brizendine, a neuropsychiatrist who has spent the majority of her career studying the chemical changes in women as they encounter the daily worries of life. The material doesn’t seem like a natural fit for a big screen adaptation, but comedian Whitney Cummings, who’s never directed a film before, has elected to take on the challenge of turning science into entertainment. Obviously, Cummings strives to turn “The Female Brain” into funny business, giving her cast wide open spaces to improvise and horse around while the script struggles to manufacture something resembling a plot. Cliché eventually suffocates the movie, but it’s a long road of unfunny business before formula reigns, with Cummings and co-writer Neal Brennan arranging a pedestrian battle of the sexes where only the audience loses.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

What began as a tentative step toward the mainstreaming of kink with psychologically disturbed characters has now become a telenovela that fails to find a suitable ending. “Fifty Shades Freed” is the second sequel to 2015’s “Fifty Shades of Grey,” offered up as a trilogy closer to a film series that never started in the first place. The main characters have returned, as have the glory shots of unlimited wealth and sexual gamesmanship between people in dire need of therapy, with the production setting out to make the die-hard fans of author E.L. James’s work happy enough with the adaptation. It’s the execution of such absurdity that’s a real problem for director James Foley (returning to duty after 2017’s “Fifty Shades Darker”), who loses concentration on what little passes here for plot, shooing away dramatic interests to sell the basics in sex, soundtrack cuts, and product placement, with the occasional pout from the lead actors presented to remind the audience they’re still viewing an ongoing saga about broken people who should be legally blocked from seeing each other. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

Heroism is an amazing thing, and it should be celebrated as much as possible, helping to cut through the stress of daily life with reminders that when faced with unimaginable adversity, humankind remains capable of extraordinary courage. Spencer Stone, Anthony Sadler, and Alek Skarlatos are heroes, bravely taking on a heavily armed terrorist onboard a train bound for Paris in 2015. They should be remembered, but “The 15:17 to Paris” is not the way underline their true grit in the face of absolute horror. In fact, nobody should be subjected to what this movie has to offer. Director Clint Eastwood has made his share of duds while helming 36 motion pictures, but “The 15:17 to Paris” is by far the worst film he’s ever made, fumbling a valentine to the three men who survived a potential massacre with a feature that’s shockingly amateurish and numbingly dull, while its overall disposability keeps the effort in a coma. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

Bad Robot, a production company owned by J.J. Abrams, is trying very hard to make “Cloverfield” a thing, only they don’t seem to possess much of a game plan for franchise expansion, doing little original work since the 2008 theatrical debut of the first picture. In 2016, there was “10 Cloverfield Lane,” which began life as a low-budget thriller (originally titled “The Cellar”) with no sci-fi touches, only to be ‘roided up with “Cloverfield” juice and turned into a sequel, and a successful one at that, inspiring Bad Robot to return to the same formula with “God Particle,” a space chiller that’s been redressed as “The Cloverfield Paradox,” offering an even looser connection to the brand name than the previous chapter. Not helping matters is the DTV quality of the filmmaking, with “The Cloverfield Paradox” offering a wildly inconsistent tone and poor casting to bring its space station disaster to life.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I'm fairly certain that when Beatrix Potter created Peter Rabbit in the late 1800s, she never imagined there would come a day when the beloved character be featured in an adaptation that includes a scene where Peter fights an uncontrollable urge to place a carrot inside Mr. McGregor’s plumber's crack. Trying to amuse families in a modern age, director Will Gluck cranks up the mischief and irreverence for the new Peter Rabbit, which quietly discards the delicate nature of Potter's work to charge ahead as a slapstick-drenched cartoon. It's not entirely unpleasant either, but purists might find themselves in a permanent state of pearl-clutching with this aggressive carnival of talking animals and bodily harm.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I’m sure the producers of “Entanglement” are in a difficult position when it comes to selling a semi-strange movie. The marketing is slightly misleading, depicting the endeavor as a Shane Carruth-style brain bleeder, but the actual effort is a bit warmer and funnier than expected. Director Jason James and screenwriter Jason Filiatrault set out to explore the power of chance and the comfort of delusion, but they don’t leave Earth for extended periods of time, remaining accessible as a relationship drama and a depiction of a mental breakdown, all the while adding human touches to keep the picture approachable. “Entanglement” has a few issues with revelations, but it remains a compelling march across a broken heart, examining tricks from the human mind and soulful needs, with James doing his best to balance the enigmatic with the completely relatable.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s difficult to make a lot of sense out of “Permission.” Writer/director Brian Crano has a vision to create an anti-romantic drama, examining the pressures that come with an open relationship, especially one created out of fear, not lust. It’s a provocative picture, taking an adult look at complicated pairings and the struggle of clean communication in a longstanding union, and Crano gets select moments right, especially when it comes to the internal churn of temptation and the head rush of reality when faced with sexual opportunity. “Permission” isn’t consistent with character and its resolution leaves much to be desired, but when Crano digs into the psychological muck with this premise, he’s generally far more effective a storyteller than when he relies on cliché.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Ritual” is based on a 2011 novel by Adam Nevill, but it plays like an update of “The Blair Witch Project,” only this time this time thirtysomething men are sent into the wilderness to experience the numerous horrors of camping. Characterization is strong in the picture, which showcases numerous concerns from a group of frightened men, but pacing is slack throughout, with director David Bruckner soaking in the juices of perilous travel but failing to secure a riveting sense of doom. “The Ritual” eventually arrives at a place of absolute danger and oddity, but it takes a long time to get there, with Bruckner strangely electing to simulate the extremely long and physically draining journey, leaving suspense more of an afterthought than a priority. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s honestly great that Adam Green is determined to keep the “Hatchet” series going for a small collection of fans. It’s rare to find such dedication to a franchise that most people aren’t even aware of, with “Victor Crowley” the third sequel to the 2006 original, milking a derivative slasher concept for everything its worth. What began as a jokey horror experience has finally achieved its desire to become a sketch comedy show, with Green doing away with any sort of frights to make a painfully goofy and alarmingly small-scale continuation to an ongoing narrative that’s already coughed up everything it was meant to offer 12 years ago. “Victor Crowley” is crude, endless (even at 76 minutes), and made on the cheap. Fans might lap it up out of habit, but it’s bizarre to watch the “Hatchet” universe get smaller and sillier as it expands, with Green refusing to put a DNR order on his creation.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Directors of “Daybreakers” and “Predestination,” Michael and Peter Spierig tainted their promise with last year’s “Jigsaw,” their surprisingly lifeless attempt to resuscitate the “Saw” franchise. It felt like a creative bump in the road for the talented filmmaker duo at the time, but with “Winchester,” disappointment may be their new reality. After delivering all the agony and bloodshed with “Jigsaw,” the Spierigs restrain themselves with their latest picture, orchestrating a PG-13 ghost story that’s more about spooky encounters and exposition than sophisticated suspense. Unfortunately, “Winchester” is a drag, and while it retains visual potency, the screenplay never comes together in an exciting manner, unable to escalate with intrigue and frights as the Spierigs labor to sell a mystery that’s not very gripping to begin with. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

As a character, Woody Woodpecker has always been a rascally creature, bordering on insanity during his early years as a cartoon creation, masterminded by Walter Lantz and Ben Hardaway. In “Woody Woodpecker,” a 2018 effort to revive the looney bird for modern audiences, there’s a scene where Woody farts out his theme song. This is not progress. Attempting to marry live-action and CGI animation in a way that made 2010’s “Yogi Bear” some money, “Woody Woodpecker” is a fairly unendurable creation from a production team that probably has reverence for the colorful icon, but no idea how to translate ink and paint antics to the real world, electing to go as crude and obvious as possible just to get a reaction from younger viewers. “Woody Woodpecker” is bad, real bad, and its hunger to scrape the bottom of the barrel for humor is downright depressing to watch. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com