Category: Film Review

While once a safe, dependable helmer of Hollywood entertainment, director Ron Howard’s recent career choices have been anything but predictable. His oeuvre could technically be classified as a roller coaster ride, going skyward with movies such as “Rush,” “Thirteen Lives,” and “Jim Henson: Idea Man.” And it’s plunged into the depths, including one of the worst films of 2020, “Hillbilly Elegy.” To his credit, most of these endeavors work to challenge Howard’s moviemaking skills, presenting him with different genres and locations to expand his storytelling horizons. “Eden” is one of those big swings, exploring a developing situation of survival on Floreana Island nearly 100 years ago. Screenwriter Noah Pink (“Tetris”) reheats a true tale of community tensions, out to examine the dramatic potential of strangers forced to endure the elements and one another in the middle of nowhere. “Eden” slips out of Howard’s control in many ways, though its examination of manipulation has its powerful moments. There’s just not enough of them to support the unsteady viewing experience. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Saint Clare” is an adaptation of the 2012 book titled “Clare At Sixteen,” written by Don Roff. From all evidence, the novel has very little to do with the movie version, including the age of the eponymous character, who’s now a college student. Changes have been made to generate a more adult understanding of what’s really YA literature, but writer/director Mitzi Peirone doesn’t do enough to really shake up the threat level of the picture. “Saint Clare” (which was shot three years ago) hopes to be unsettling with its central mystery of missing women, and it looks to define a different kind of heroism with its lead character, a person using divine influence to take on the scum of the city. Peirone doesn’t have the money to make a nail-biter, so she delivers what’s basically an episode of television instead, playing the offering flatly and without surprises. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

A study of Edward Drake’s filmography almost qualifies as a horror experience. He’s been grinding out low-budget actioners for five years now (nine movies in total), and all of them involved the participation of Bruce Willis (who, as we understand now, was fighting a painful health decline due to a developing dementia diagnosis), involving himself in a particularly icky professional situation that provided him with something of a career. It’s amazing there hasn’t been a book written about the alleged exploitation of Willis, but until that day arrives, we still have to deal with Drake, who returns with a new lead actor in Kevin James for “Guns Up,” which is very much like every other feature he’s previously helmed. Also claiming a screenwriting credit, Drake delivers an extraordinarily generic offering of violence and cutesiness in “Guns Up,” supplying nothing new to viewers as the endeavor goes through a tiresome routine of shoot-outs and unwelcome broadness. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Although Tyler Perry once proclaimed he was retiring his most popular character in 2019, Madea returns once again to wreak havoc on the lives of friends, family, and customer service workers. Perry goes the Adam Sandler route in “Madea’s Destination Wedding,” gifting himself a vacation with the endeavor, which takes the gun-totin’ grandmother and her troubled clan to the Bahamas for a change of scenery. There’s more sun and hotel action in the picture, but Perry isn’t about to alter his usual way of moviemaking business, intent on keeping the offering crude in every way. “Madea’s Destination Wedding” is more of the same from the filmmaker, who offers sloppy work and random screenwriting, and Perry has no interest in timing, keeping the tiresome effort caught up in endless riffing and episodic shenanigans, only saving storytelling for the very end of this dismal feature. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Screenlife movies are difficult to pull off. The subgenre requires viewers to sit with characters as they work with their keyboards and phones, often in suspense situations involving killers and predators. There’s not much movement to be found, beyond screen activity, creating inherent limitations when it comes to physical action, which is usually paired with thrillers and chillers. “Don’t Log Off” is another attempt at screenlife suspense, this time examining the dangerous ways of a video conference birthday party, with the guests pulled into a troubling evening when one of their own goes missing during the gathering. Co-writer/directors Brandon and Garrett Baer show a command of screen movement and are dedicated to making sure viewers understand these personalities, but “Don’t Log Off” doesn’t come to life with any sort of fear factor. The picture is lethargic and anticlimactic, and the helmers don’t solve any of the storytelling issues that come with this style of filmmaking, remaining muted with horrors meant to shock the audience. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s interesting to note that writer/director James Gunn has made seven movies over the last 20 years, and six of them have been based on or influenced by comic books. The man loves superhero cinema, and the success of his “Guardians of the Galaxy” series has turned him into an industry authority, even placed into a leadership role for DC Studios, tasked with launching a fresh round of world-building for the comic book company. “Superman” is meant to pour the foundation for this new direction, giving Gunn control of arguably the most famous superhero of all time, and one who’s been brought to the big screen on many occasions. The new “Superman” is striving to be massive and loaded with comic book references, but there’s a limit to how much the screenplay can take before it starts to ignore its primary appeal, and Gunn’s feature gets close to collapsing on multiple occasions. It’s loaded with characters and story, though it’s really at its best when dealing with Superman, giving star David Corenswet an opportunity to shine as he carries a wobbly, overwritten franchise-starter across the finish line. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Sovereign” is based on a true story, using the details of the 2010 West Memphis police shootings to inspire a study of American insanity as it spreads throughout the land and across generations. Writer/director Christian Swegal makes his feature-length helming debut with the endeavor, and he dips into a particularly dark tale of influence, examining the experience of a teenage boy who’s completely guided by his father’s radicalization, eventually challenged to understand his parent’s poisonous way of thinking as he begins to mature into an adult. “Sovereign” is a riveting picture that aims to identify the frustration of those lost to indoctrination, also providing a parallel perspective with law enforcement to balance out the viewing experience. Swegal is careful and observant with the film, which reaches many chilling moments and painful reminders of U.S. extremism, and it’s held together by star Nick Offerman, who provides a searing performance in one of the best roles of his career. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 2018, residents of the Hawaiian Islands experienced quite a jolt during an average January morning. Instead of enjoying some sleep or the start of daily routines, the area was presented with an Emergency Alert System communication warning that a ballistic missile was headed for the area, urging people to immediately seek shelter. Citizens were left in a state of panic for 38 minutes, believing the end of the world had finally arrived, only to be told the whole incident was a horrible mistake. Writer/director Deena Kashper appears to be using the nightmare situation to inspire “Nuked,” which examines tensions inside a rural California home as a birthday party is interrupted by news of a missile launch, leaving partygoers to deal with a lot on their minds as death and destruction looms. Kashper hopes to turn such despair into a comedy, but she’s not entirely committed to funny business, taking “Nuked” into a few intimate directions as it explores a tense situation of terror. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

With “Push,” co-writers/directors David Charbonier and Justin Douglas Powell look to make something small-scale and frightening. It’s their third chiller in a row, and another picture that makes use of a single location, with previous endeavors “The Boy Behind the Door” and “The Djinn” also striving to create nail-biting tension around limited real estate. The team has their cinematic fixations, and they receive a healthy workout in their latest effort, which pits a pregnant real estate agent against the mentally unstable ways of a home invader during a particularly vicious night. “Push” doesn’t win with story, emerging as an exercise in suspense and shock, putting the helmers to work as they strive to squeeze as much tension as possible out of the premise. It’s debatable of there’s enough here to support a feature, but Charbonier and Powell show enthusiasm in their attempt, generating a steady pulse of unease in the offering, and a few explosive moments of conflict. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The summer moviegoing season means a return to shark attack cinema. Last month saw the release of “Dangerous Animals,” which attempted to subvert the norm in the subgenre, playing around with human predators instead of strictly oceanic ones. And now Japan tries their luck with horrors from the deep in “Hotspring Sharkattack,” which is about an unserious as a film can get. We’ve done the “Sharknado” thing too many times, but writer/director Morihito Inoue delivers a different kind of wackiness with his presentation of death and destruction. He goes camp, but creatively so in the picture, which examines chaos caused by deadly ancient sharks awakened from the deep due to commercial development, seeking revenge on all for such an offense. “Hotspring Sharkattack” is low-budget and loving it, and while there’s definitely a limit on such exaggeration, Inoue has some imagination for his lunacy, mounting a bizarre and amusing riff on sharksploitation bedlam. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Vampire stories are plentiful, but author Joe Hill has something a little different in mind with “Abraham’s Boys.” The material is an adaptation of a short story, and writer/director Natasha Kermani is challenged to figure out how to work with Hill’s central concept of post-Dracula life for Mina Harker and Abraham Van Helsing, picking up with the characters as they experience the trouble of maintaining sanity after they’ve survived maddening events. It’s a neat idea, and Kermani is hunting for patience from her audience, going the slow-burn route with the endeavor, searching for a sense of creepiness to command the viewing experience. “Abraham’s Boys” has mood, and the tale eventually gets around to escalation, helping to improve a somewhat sluggish effort that battles with the limitations of the material that inspired it. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

23 years ago, a director billed as “Kaos” helped to bring “Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever” to the big screen, looking to establish himself as a major player in the world of action cinema. The plan didn’t come together as intended, as the film died a quick death at the box office while collecting a large assortment of negative reviews. The helmer has worked to keep his career going, delivering many B-movies over the years, and he continues his fixation on cheapy thrillers with “Bang,” a bluntly titled revenge offering from screenwriters Ken Solarz and Peter M. Lenkov (two television veterans), who try to subvert a few expectations with their slightly unusual take on one-man-army storytelling. Kaos has become Wych Kaosayananda, but his instincts for bruiser entertainment haven’t changed much since “Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever,” finding “Bang” a real bore when it highlights shootouts and assorted physical challenges, which should be the main draw for this endeavor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Loneliness and grief are common experiences that inspire a lot of cinematic offerings. The rough emotional ride of such events easily gives birth to stories investigating the confusion of personal loss, and the difficulty of processing such an experience. “Daniela Forever” is the latest from writer/director Nacho Vigalondo (“Colossal,” “Timecrimes,” “Open Windows”), who takes the basic concept of despair and tries to transform it into a fantasy take on denial and acceptance. The helmer means to get weird and somewhat poetic with the work, examining the state of mind of a man using dreams to reacquire the life he’s lost, only to learn more about it during his manufactured visits. It’s a timely tale of technology and human connection, and while Vigalondo doesn’t pursue pacing in the feature, he has a few sharp ideas on the future of coping, especially as our A.I.-infested world keeps expanding. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Ilya Naishuller made his directorial debut with 2015’s “Hardcore Henry,” presenting himself as a new action specialist on the scene, focusing on chaotic screen encounters. He moved into more mainstream work in 2021’s “Nobody,” finding himself with a pandemic hit. Naishuller goes deeper into Hollywood with his latest, “Heads of State,” which pairs the helmer’s love of mayhem with star power and a sizable budget. The result is a loud, mostly unfunny endeavor that gradually becomes a cartoon, as Naishuller works in excess to help cover for production limitations and the lack of a clever script. “Heads of State” has its moments of distraction, but these are select sequences in a picture that’s overlong and underwritten, losing its initial momentum as the whole thing grows bloated and, unfortunately, quite stupid. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

One of the great challenges of watching “The Old Guard 2” is trying to remember what exactly happened in “The Old Guard.” The 2020 release was a riff on “Highlander,” presenting a graphic novel-inspired team of immortals out to take down threats and deal with their longevity. The picture was a pandemic hit, racking up streaming views with a captive audience, making the arrival of a sequel all but assured. Five years later, a continuation has finally emerged, though one with a rocky production history (it was shot three years ago), appearing with hope to turn a random hit movie into an ongoing series. “The Old Guard 2” probably isn’t going to expand the fan base, as director Victoria Mahoney (a television veteran) is in way over her head with the project, struggling to manage subplots, characters, and action in a film that’s surprisingly lifeless, unable to match the semi-fun factor of the original feature. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The making of 1975’s “Jaws” is not a secret. The picture’s troubled production experience has become the stuff of Hollywood legend, and tales of professional struggle and personal camaraderie have been explored in all kinds of media, most notably in a lengthy making-of documentary created for the feature’s laserdisc release (directed by Laurent Bouzereau), and there was 2007’s “The Shark is Still Working,” a marvelous fan-driven overview of the picture that strived to be a bit more comprehensive when handling the many details of the movie and its fans. Now there’s an anniversary to celebrate as Steven Spielberg’s massive summer blockbuster turns 50, inspiring Bouzereau to return to this world for “Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story,” which isn’t exactly complete, but it does the trick, especially for lovers of the suspense classic. Bouzereau treats the assignment as a victory lap, gathering interviewees and footage to celebrate five decades of cinema excellence and influence, covering the basics in moviemaking and personality while adding an oceanic angle to the story, reinforcing the power and majesty of the shark, working to erase the villainous label applied to the creature after “Jaws” was initially released. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

One of the nice surprises of the 2019 film year was the release of “Dora and the Lost City of Gold.” It seemed an impossible task to make a live-action “Dora the Explorer” picture, and one aimed at a teen demographic, but director James Bobin managed to make an entertaining, creative celebration of the animated world, giving it unusual life. Six years later, Dora is back, only now she’s played by a different actress and the production is working with a little less budgetary might to supply a screen adventure. “Dora and the Search for Sol Dorado” doesn’t share the same bigness as the previous endeavor, but director Alberto Belli and screenwriter JT Billings recapture most of its spirit in a pleasant sequel that’s greatly enhanced by its actors, with Samantha Lorraine (taking over for Isabela Merced) doing an exceptional job making the main role her own. She’s warm and excitable, helping to enliven “Dora and the Search for Sol Dorado” when it occasionally gets stuck in storytelling inertia. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The video store. It was once a place that launched cinematic journeys and shaped social connections. Now, most of the business is dead, long killed off by Hollywood’s need to chase profit by destroying profit, and video stores have become the focus for many documentaries, especially independent ones scraping together an appreciation of days gone by. Director Alex Ross Perry has a lot of indie cred, previously helming “Her Smell,” “Queen of Earth,” and the recent rock doc “Pavements,” and he goes where many moviemakers have gone before in “Videoheaven,” striving to assemble an understanding of the VHS generation and the business of the rental days. Perry looks to avoid glops of nostalgia, transforming the feature into a lengthy (nearly three hours long) academic examination of the business and its many influences, using inspiration from Daniel Herbert’s 2014 book, “Videoland: Video Culture at the American Video Store.” Perry doesn’t bring the joy for “Videoheaven,” but he comes prepared with hundreds of clips to back up his ideas, creating a visual trek across the once mighty omnipresence of the industry, identifying its cultural power. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Actor Jack Donnelly heads to “Fatal Attraction” territory in “Pretty Thing,” making his feature-length screenwriting debut with the endeavor. It’s a study of lust gone wrong, this time involving a sexually adventurous woman and the younger lover she dares to momentarily possess, out to experience the thrill of the hunt. What she actually receives in return is a more complicated relationship that Donnelly takes his time examining, going slow-burn with the picture as it gradually visits other perspectives and tones. Director Justin Kelly (“JT LeRoy,” “King Cobra”) does a fine job sustaining the mysterious ways of “Pretty Thing,” generating a sense of steaminess as the offering delivers early eroticism. He also stays with the turns of the material, capably selling the rising distress felt by both characters as they confront the reality of their pairing. Donnelly generates uneasiness, and Kelly manages to sustain it all the way to the final minutes of the film. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

When it comes to a depiction of the end of the world, there’s a lot of competition for attention these days. Television is especially fond of doomsday experiences, using episodic storytelling to explore the pains of society as it deals with all sorts of survival challenges. “40 Acres” often feels like a series compacted into a feature film, as co-writer/director R.T. Thorne attempts to investigate the lives of his characters from different sides, chasing a few subplots and flashbacks. Thorne wants to create something a bit more meaningful with the movie, mostly saving beats of horror and action until the final act. It’s a laudable attempt to go a little deeper into characterization and mood, but “40 Acres” has plenty of pacing issues, as the helmer often mistakes stillness for suspense. What’s here is human and sensitive, but not always gripping, which is a strange feeling when the material focuses on the dismantling of world order. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com