Category: Film Review

“The Greasy Strangler” was released in 2016, introducing film nerds to the curious anti-comedy vision of writer/director Jim Hosking. The picture was a wild ride of ideas and textures, and while it didn’t always hold together, the movie offered inspired goofiness at times, delivering an edgy understanding of a peculiar sense of humor. Hosking graduated to a slightly bigger moviemaking challenge in 2018’s “An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn,” offered some name actors and a decent budget to continue his exploration of oddity, coming up with another interesting study of lunacy. The effort was largely ignored by viewers, sending Hosking back to the world of small-scale storytelling for “Ebony and Ivory,” which actually doesn’t contain a plot. It’s more of an experience, following two characters as they deal with each other in a remote location. Hosking continues his hunt for slow-burn strangeness with the offering, but his creative drive is noticeably lacking this time around, showing more concentration on repetition in a feature that’s not easy to endure, even during its most inspired moments. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Pickup” is an Eddie Murphy action comedy where co-star Pete Davidson is assigned all the funny lines. Something definitely went wrong during the development of the project, resulting in a decidedly underwhelming viewing experience where the actor capable of extracting laughs from the material is hired to play the straight man, and the director is Tim Story, who specializes in generic entertainment (“Ride Along,” 2019’s “Shaft,” 2004’s “Taxi”). The helmer adds another dud to his resume with “The Pickup,” which hopes to deliver big thrills with plenty of car stunts, while hilarity is meant to emerge from Davidson, who’s working extra hard to remain energetic in the endeavor, acting like a puppy who really wants a forever home. The screenplay is no help, taking few creative risks as Story is hired to provide as vanilla a viewing experience as possible, delivering an instantly forgettable feature. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

2022’s “The Bad Guys” began life as a book series by author Aaron Blabey, but the writer has gone far beyond his original premise of animal hoodlums and their battle with decency. Blabey’s imagination has taken the series into downright cosmic directions, following his creative impulses into challenging narrative territory, making for an unexpected ride of risk-taking storytelling, especially in the world of children’s literature. The brain-scramble approach hasn’t come for the cinematic incarnation of “The Bad Guys,” which remains content to be just a good time for young audiences, keeping up with animal high jinks and heavy action, really playing up the master criminal aspect of the series. “The Bad Guys 2” is more of the same, quietly denying Blabey’s insanity while it moves forward with cartoon bigness, generating a second helping of colorful characters and bright voice work, while animation remains stylish for this return to criminal temptation for the morally dubious bandits. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The television show “Police Squad!” debuted in 1982 and only lasted six episodes. It offered broad humor and sharp visual gags, allowing creators David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker to extend their brand of wild comedy after the success of “Airplane!” The trio revived their idea for the big screen in 1988’s “The Naked Gun,” which became a sizable hit for Paramount Pictures, who eventually ordered two sequels that also did significant business. It’s been a long time since Lt. Frank Drebin busted crime on the big screen, and while star Leslie Nielsen has passed away, co-writer/director Akiva Schaffer (“Hot Rod,” “Popstar,” “Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers”) hopes to revive the spirit of his biggest career triumph in, well, “The Naked Gun,” which plops Liam Neeson in the main role of Drebin’s son (don’t do the math). It’s inspired casting, as Neeson has a funny side to his gruff screen presence that doesn’t get much attention, but the bright, silly highs of the 1988 movie are missing in 2025, which certainly commits to the rat-tat-tat approach of the ZAZ creation, but doesn’t share its inspired sense of humor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Michael Jai White has been steadily building a directorial career over the last 14 years, periodically taking control of his action movies. His last effort was 2023’s “Outlaw Johnny Black,” a mediocre attempt to continue what 2009’s delightful “Black Dynamite” started, with White going weirdly bloated with his light comedy, unable to recapture the same magic. “Trouble Man” finds White returning to the Blaxploitation subgenre, now with an acceptable run time (90 minutes) and a more direct script by Michael Stradford. The production doesn’t win on style or mystery, but it’s a surprising amount of fun, finding White encouraging a certain level of silliness while also overseeing conflicts, including several resolved through martial arts contests. “Trouble Man” maintains a sense of humor, and White does what he can with his limited budget, clearly having a good time bringing the main character and his specific way of doing business with others to life. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

We don’t get too many kid adventure movies these days. The family film marketplace is loaded with animated offerings and live-action versions of animated offerings, but “Sketch” is trying to provide a different sort of jolt for fans of PG-rated entertainment, returning to the 1980s and the Amblin years for inspiration. Writer/director Seth Worley (making his feature-length debut) concocts an unusual study of panic in the endeavor, which follows the actions of kids and adults finding their real-world troubles replaced by fantasy ones as a child’s drawings come to life, ready to terrorize the community. “Sketch” plays a fun game of humor, heart, and (mild) horror in the effort, and Worley proves himself to be an imaginative storyteller with limited resources. He stays attentive to character and offers some amusing thrills and chills in the picture, making it a pleasant cinematic alternative for those seeking a more adventurous moviegoing experience. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“She Rides Shotgun” is an adaptation of Jordon Harper’s 2017 book, tracking the desperation of a man marked for death who’s trying to keep his estranged daughter alive while they figure out a way to make it to some sort of safe space. Screenwriters Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski embark on a challenge to turn the intimate story into a cinematic experience, bringing the material’s emotional content to the screen while also preserving hits of threat and pursuit to keep the endeavor at least passably exciting. Director Nick Rowland (“Calm with Horses”) has some difficultly knowing when to cut short all the speechifying going on the movie, but he mostly connects with characterization and especially performance. Young Ana Sophia Heger is surrounded by talented actors in the feature, but she manages to best them all with a powerful turn as a girl caught up in a dangerous situation with a father she barely knows. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Body horror pays a visit to couples therapy in “Together,” which is the feature-length filmmaking debut for Michael Shanks. He heads into Cronenberg Country with the endeavor, using the ways of the flesh to explore a corporeal breakdown between two people who’ve stopped communicating with each other, on their way to living separate lives. The universe has other plans, and Shanks labors to create a nightmare to follow on multiple levels of interpretation, spending the first half of the picture creating a successful mystery concerning possible evil and a potential break-up. “Together” makes a few questionable creative decisions as it hunts for an ending, limiting the lasting impact of its dramatic mission, but the movie remains vivid enough to engage, finding pockets of ugliness to investigate, and the writing has a few things to share about the struggles of cohabitation and partner support. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Co-writer/director Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia (“The Platform,” “The Platform 2”) delivers a fascinating story in “Rich Flu,” which imagines a new global pandemic, but the illness only reaches the most affluent of people. It’s a different kind of fright involving the privileged class, and an absolutely ripe idea for cinematic inspection, opening the door to a satiric take on the true power of the powerful, or perhaps horror could be summoned as desperation sets in for those unaccustomed to struggle. For the first half, Gaztelu-Urrutia pursues a tone of panic, following the main character as she gradually understands the danger coming for her, desperate to make sense of a situation that’s beyond comprehension. Gaztelu-Urrutia can’t maintain suspense in the film’s second half, but “Rich Flu” isn’t even interested in maintaining pace and pressure, eventually reaching for a Big Message that takes an hour for the helmer to investigate, only to finally arrive at a forgone conclusion. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There have been reports suggesting that “War of the Worlds” was shot in 2020, and the film certainly plays like a production trying to deliver screen intensity while maintaining COVID-19 guidelines. It’s a screenlife take on the 1898 H.G. Wells novel, which has been explored in all forms of media (and will continue to be exploited as a public domain option for B-movie producers), putting music video director Rich Lee in charge of a global alien invasion story that’s explored only through computer and phone screens. Scale normally associated with the brand name isn’t present here, and suspense is missing as well. “War of the Worlds” feels very amateurish and undercooked, out to sell panic and paranoia with limited resources and a script (by Kenneth A. Golde and Marc Hyman) that’s painfully routine, aiming to merge a paint-by-numbers family drama with worldwide destruction. There’s a lot of keyboard action and screen switching, and perhaps there’s a Big Idea on the state of surveillance in America, but it’s all turned into generic mush as Lee has little to work with beyond remote production clumsiness. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After the minor box office success of 1995’s “Billy Madison,” Adam Sandler was a comedy star with potential. He was quickly gifted another starring vehicle, and 1996’s “Happy Gilmore” went on to become an even bigger hit, helping to launch his big screen career with arguably one of his best movies, and a title that’s gone on to amass a huge fanbase. The best time for a “Happy Gilmore” sequel would’ve been 1998, but instead of a quick turnaround to remain in Sandler’s youthful ways with silliness, “Happy Gilmore 2” arrives 29 years later, and not a lot has changed for the character or the screenwriting (credited to original writers Sandler and Tim Herlihy). Growth, comedic or otherwise, isn’t the creative goal of the follow-up, as director Kyle Newacheck (2019’s “Murder Mystery”) is basically making “Callback: The Movie,” setting up a recycling factory for the star, who reworks almost every bit from the previous endeavor, deflating the fun factor of seeing Happy back in action. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After this much practice, it’s about time Marvel got this one at least somewhat right. There have been four previous cinematic adventures for the comic book family The Fantastic Four, and none of them really clicked. A 1994 version was doomed from conception, though it worked extremely hard to pull off amazing things without a budget. Iterations in 2005 and 2007 weren’t nearly as fun as they could’ve been, held back by an unadventurous director. And a revival in 2015 was downright awful, killing off future interest in the brand name. The Marvel Cinematic Universe tries again with “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” and the production is a lot more confident with its fantasy vision this time around, creating a screen space big enough to handle heroism and gigantic villainy, with director Matt Shakman (a television veteran) mostly in command of the material’s sense of threat. It’s a lumpy endeavor that doesn’t always connect the dramatic dots, but it’s periodically huge, capturing a significant comic book battle previous “Fantastic Four” offerings couldn’t manage without falling apart. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Actress Molly Gordon has been making a positive impression over the last five years. She nailed a supporting role in 2020’s exhilarating “Shiva Baby,” and 2023’s “Theater Camp” found Gordon also accepting responsibilities behind the camera, making her directorial debut with the wonderful film. “Oh, Hi!” presents a different acting challenge for Gordon, who’s tasked with portraying a slightly manic woman trying to process a horrible turn in her romantic life, getting in deep with her partner while he’s chained to a bed. Writer/director Sophie Brooks (“The Boy Downstairs”) doesn’t set the scene for a horror experience, going darkly comedic instead, while retaining some sensitivity around fragile emotions involved in the end of a relationship. “Oh, Hi!” doesn’t really have enough substance to fill a feature-length run time, but it connects in spots, and Gordon is terrific in a complicated role involving pain and pleasure, keeping the feature as compelling as possible. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Mike Wiluan heads to the fringes of World War II to inspire his latest film, “Monster Island.” With a title like that, images of rampaging creatures doing battle in a remote part of the world come to mind, but the helmer isn’t aiming for a kaiju battle royal. What’s here is actually small in scale, putting two soldiers from vastly different backgrounds against a sea creature who’s intent on defending its terrain. A long game of survival and communication makes up most of “Monster Island,” though Wiluan is attentive to genre needs, delivering a decent amount of blood and guts for horror fans, and he doesn’t follow a digital path for the most part, making sure the ghoulish beast at the center of the story maintains plenty of man-in-suit appeal. The endeavor certainly strains to reach its already short run time, but there’s a modest amount of entertainment value in the offering, especially for those who enjoy creature features. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

When we last saw director James DeMonaco in action, it was 2021’s “This Is the Night,” which pulled the helmer away from his duties overseeing “The Purge” franchise to make a coming-of-age movie about the wild night when “Rocky III” opened in Staten Island. At least it wasn’t another “Purge” sequel. DeMonaco tried a dramedy on for size, and it didn’t quite work, urging him back to horror for “The Home,” co-scripting the endeavor with Adam Cantor. The tale concerns a young man and his battle with the unexpected inside a senior care center, and one might expect DeMonaco to find an actor of true dramatic might to help give the fright film some gravitas. Instead, we have Pete Davidson in the lead role, and boy howdy does he look uncomfortable to be there. “The Home” (which was shot three years ago) asks way more of Davidson than he’s capable of giving, and DeMonaco’s no help, submitting a poorly constructed offering of screen terror. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Screenwriters Paul Reichelt and William Kaufman clearly like action movies from the 1980s, working to update the formula with “Osiris,” which often plays like a blend of “Aliens” and “Predator.” It’s derivative stuff from Kaufman, who’s been in the business of B-moviemaking for many years now, and he returns to the realm of limited lighting and locations in the endeavor, which is mostly set inside tiny, dark rooms. “Osiris” is small-time sci-fi, and it’s passably interesting to watch Kaufman treat the offering with seriousness, out to create an exploratory bruiser that pits human warriors against alien hunters. The feature isn’t big enough to really do its premise justice, and Kaufman isn’t clever enough of a filmmaker to make the routine of gunplay and exposition compelling. The picture means to pack a punch, but it rarely excites, and while actress Linda Hamilton is the sole focus of the marketing, it’s best to temper expectations for what’s nothing more than a glorified cameo for the once and future Sarah Connor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The Smurfs have been around for nearly 70 years, explored through most forms of media, including a highly successful cartoon series in the 1980s and various cinematic efforts, the last released in 2017. It’s been very strange to watch Paramount Pictures figure out how to sell a new Smurfs movie to today’s kids, electing to put 100% of their marketing might behind the casting of pop singer Rhianna as the voice of Smurfette, plastering her name everywhere they possibly can. Apparently The Smurfs and their extended hold on pop culture isn’t enough to excite potential viewers anymore. However, after seeing “Smurfs,” perhaps the studio is fully aware of what they’re doing, pushing to deflect attention from the film itself, which is missing a tremendous amount of charm and enjoyable comedy. Director Chris Miller (“Shrek the Third,” “Puss in Boots”) chases other animated offerings with the endeavor, limiting the natural appeal of the source material to create a wearisome picture that’s a blend of “Trolls” and “Inside Out.” Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After scoring a box office and critical hit with 2019’s “Midsommar,” writer/director Ari Aster was offered an opportunity to take a big creative swing with a sizable budget. The gamble resulted in the creation of 2023’s “Beau is Afraid,” which failed to attract an audience, and perhaps understandably so. Aster crafted a picture that was intentionally unbearable, showing little interest in keeping viewers involved in his vision of absolute misery. Aster returns to screens with “Eddington,” and he’s not giving up on his mission to make the audience feel awful about the world around them. The helmer turns to the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic for this study of psychological corruption, returning to his love of tortured characters and the impossible situations of survival they find themselves in. “Eddington” has a range of interesting ideas to share about the insanity of the last five years, but Aster retains his habitual indulgences, losing the impact of his examinations the longer he draws out the run time. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Sequels can mean big business for Hollywood, and recently there’s been the trend of resurrection in horror cinema, bringing back old franchises for fresh exploitation, while the people in charge of titles have the easiest job of all. There was 2018’s “Halloween,” which was a sequel to 1978’s “Halloween,” and there was 2022’s “Scream,” which was a continuation of 1996’s “Scream.” Now there’s “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” which connects to 1997’s “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” putting co-writer/director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (“Do Revenge”) in charge of reviving a brand name that’s been fully worked over (including two sequels and a television series), merging members of the original cast with a new team of panicking young characters. It’s a formula that resulted in box office success for other franchises, but the new “I Know What You Did Last Summer” isn’t exactly a thrilling ride of slasher cinema nostalgia, finding Robinson unable to recapture the simple charms of the original film. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There haven’t been many animated pictures made for adult audiences, but director Genndy Tartakovsky is the right person for the job. While he’s been building industry cred with his work on the first three “Hotel Transylvania” movies, the helmer has always shown interest in more mature visuals and hard-edged storytelling, as seen recently in his series, “Primal.” There’s nothing sophisticated about his latest, “Fixed,” but Tartakovsky is absolutely committed to providing an R-rated viewing experience for fans of crude cartoon adventures, making sure this study of a dog trying to save himself from being neutered deals directly with all kinds of canine behavior. “Fixed” wins on energy, offering a traditionally animated tour of coarse happenings and strange characters, and while laughs are limited, Tartakovsky is clearly having a ball (or two) with this tribute to animal activity and human-like neuroses. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com