Category: Film Review

1997’s “Good Burger” wasn’t a hit movie, but it managed to make a little money during its brief theatrical run, eventually developing a loyal fan base and cult appreciation. A feature-length version of a Nickelodeon “All That” sketch, the picture wasn’t a towering achievement in the art of filmmaking, but it was goofy and mostly fun, with the screenplay managing to expand on the world of television, also serving as a vehicle for stars Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell, with the latter showing great comedic chops as a lovable half-wit. 26 years later, there’s “Good Burger 2,” which reunites Thompson and Mitchell for a new adventure in fast food mischief, and the atmosphere of absurdity is mostly retained in the sequel. The endeavor doesn’t stray far from the highlights of the previous effort, presenting likeable dumb guy entertainment with minimal stakes, and Mitchell once again becomes a good reason to sit through the occasional dud bits the writing creates. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Family Matters” was a popular ABC show during the 1990s, part of the “TGIF” movement to bring family programming to prime time. However, the show itself, which began as a study of household dynamics, soon became the Steve Urkel show, giving the spotlight to a nerdy character with an extraordinarily broad screen presence. Urkel claimed a spot in pop culture, spawning all kinds of merchandise (even a breakfast cereal) while gradually handed major screen time, helping to expand the mainstream appeal of “Family Matters” while undoubtedly irritating a few of his castmates. The show ended in 1998, but the icon is back, in animated form, with “Urkel Saves Santa,” which returns star Jaleel White to the role that made him famous, contributing voicework that’s digitally altered, but still Urkel-y with lowered expectations, sending the geek into help mode as holiday cheer is threatened, requiring his special inventing skills to save the day. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Five years ago, Bradley Cooper made his directorial debut with “A Star Is Born.” He poured a lot of soul into the endeavor, emerging with not only a hit movie, but a feature that carried pop culture for a few moments, and dominated the music scene. It was a film with many flaws, but Cooper had passion for the project, and its cinematic potential was something to see. He returns with an even fiercer understanding of creative and romantic life with “Maestro,” which isn’t a bio-pic of composer Leonard Bernstein, but a portrait of behavior and musical mastery, also delivering an inspection of marital challenges and sexual needs. It’s all over the place, but that’s what Cooper wants from the effort, which follows the patterns of Bernstein’s volatile orchestral achievements, exploring sudden surges of emotion and inspiration as the conductor tried and often failed to exert control over his own domestic life. “Maestro” is gorgeously made, but much like “A Star Is Born,” the dramatic value of the picture often trails its incredible craftsmanship. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Genie” is a remake of a 1991 BBC special, “Bernard and the Genie,” which took a slightly darker look at the relationship between a sad man and the magical, wish-granting prisoner he releases. The show was written by Richard Curtis (“Love Actually, “Four Weddings and a Funeral”), and he returns to duty with an Americanized update, trading a slightly somber study of the dangers of wish-fulfillment for the brightness of comedy that typically emits from Melissa McCarthy. The actress doesn’t push too hard with her usual slapstick ways here, but she’s in charge of bringing positive energy to the endeavor, with director Sam Boyd looking to generate a cozy holiday mood for the offering. “Genie” is not a powerful viewing experience, and comedic value is tested at times, but it’s gentle work with a pleasing Christmas atmosphere. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

2023 marks the 40th anniversary of the Cabbage Patch Kids phenomenon. The dolls have been around longer than that, but in 1983, sales of the brand went through the roof, creating scarcity in stores, which soon led to hysteria. Some recall the violence that broke out as parents madly dashed to claim a prized box for their children (or even themselves), with the media devoted to capturing such insanity, adding fuel to the fire of Cabbage Patch Kids frenzy. There have been a few television specials tracking the history of the brand name this year, while “Billion Dollar Babies: The True Story of the Cabbage Patch Kids” offers a feature-length overview of ownership and marketing, with director Andrew Jenks finding some fresh ways to detail a known story, gaining access to a few people who’ve gone on record about the brand’s development and its legal woes. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Please Don’t Destroy is a comedy troupe best known for their work on “Saturday Night Live,” picking up the weird-short-videos-from-three-friends mantle previously held by Lonely Island. Members John Higgins, Ben Marshall, and Martin Herlihy have a special approach to comedy, combining intense emotional highs and lows with healthy amounts of absurdity, sold with lightning-fast edits and zoom-happy cinematography. Their bits are often limited to their office space, and the gang uses the art of brevity well. Much like Lonely Island, Please Don’t Destroy is ready for a cinematic upgrade, with “The Treasure of Foggy Mountain” their debut movie, requiring Higgins, Marshall, and Herlihy to think bigger and much longer with their screenplay. Not straying far from their sense of humor, “The Treasure of Foggy Mountain” is a big goof, but it’s also a very funny one, with Please Don’t Destroy successfully handling the challenge of length with a fast-paced, wonderfully silly romp. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

To help celebrate the Walt Disney Company’s 100th anniversary, the studio is attempting to get back to basics with “Wish,” their latest animation offering. It’s a fairy tale set in a storybook world, using the broad strokes of fantasy to inspire a classic hero vs. villain conflict, buttered up with plenty of songs and the usual offerings of animal sidekick comedy and positivity. It’s basically an easy lay-up production for Disney, but they do this stuff relatively well, and “Wish” is no exception, with directors Chris Buck (“Frozen” and its sequel) and Fawn Veerasunthorn overseeing a decent offering of widescreen magic, and one that’s aware of the studio’s legacy, presenting easter eggs and origin stories for dedicated fans. It’s easy to enjoy the picture, but it’s best to approach it with some sense of understanding that it’s not swinging for the fences in terms of storytelling, content to deliver the essentials, sold with outstanding visuals. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After sitting out the last “Hotel Transylvania” sequel, 2022’s “Transformania,” Adam Sandler returns to the world of animated entertainment with “Leo,” which he co-scripts with Paul Sado and Robert Smigel (who co-directs with Robert Marianetti and David Wachtenheim). Sandler remains in family film mode with the endeavor, which looks to illuminate the world of fifth graders and their specific concerns about life, especially when they’re coached by a talking lizard facing the end of his days. Much like Sandler’s 2002 holiday effort, “Eight Crazy Nights,” the feature is an unexpected musical, using tunes to support a lighter journey into neuroses, giving the effort some amusing moments of performance before it heads back to simple silliness. “Leo” isn’t grand, but it's fun, with lively voicework and some genuinely hilarious moments. Those in the target demographic will likely find it shockingly real about elementary school concerns, giving the movie a nice edge of relatability as it deals with typical Sandler goofballery. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While he works almost non-stop at this point, it’s heartening to watch Nicolas Cage at least make some effort to challenge himself with wildly different parts. In 2023 alone, he’s portrayed a cowboy (“The Old Way”), Dracula (“Renfield”), a bison hunter (“Butcher’s Crossing”), a lunatic (“Sympathy for the Devil”), and a man of action (“The Retirement Plan”), and Cage retains that omnipresence for “Dream Scenario,” playing an average person who’s suddenly inserted into everyone’s mind while they sleep. It’s a dark comedy from writer/director Kristoffer Borgli, who uses Cage’s natural way with strangeness and panic perfectly, guiding the actor to his best performance of the year in a movie that takes on the choppy waters of fame and infamy, tracking the powerlessness of such a position in our modern age. “Dream Scenario” is a mix of Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman, with Borgli more interested in behavior then quirk, finding some level of humanity in the middle of a giant subconscious mess. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The cinematic exploration of “The Hunger Games” ended eight years ago, concluding with two pictures meant to bring finality to the saga of Katniss Everdeen, following the epic scale of revolution envisioned by author Suzanne Collins. The saga was over, making a killing at the box office in the process, giving fans a rest after dealing with four straight years of class turmoil in the fictional world of Panem. But something this profitable could never be finished, finding Collins resurrecting the brand name for a 2020 prequel, going back in time to see how the villain of the franchise, President Snow, became the monster he was meant to be. To some, it was a welcome return to this universe, while others were critical of Collins’s true creative mission with the release. To Lionsgate Films, “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes” means the moneymaking machine is back online, quickly ordering up a film adaptation, with director Francis Lawrence (who helmed the last three “Hunger Games” features) returning to explore a time of development and betrayal, making a plodding movie in the process. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Dashing Through the Snow” is a new contender for holiday perennial viewing, with this tale of a stranded Santa and his Scrooge-like companion aiming to deliver seasonal tingles and sizable laughs for viewers ready to devour Christmas entertainment. The screenplay is credited to Scott Rosenberg, who long ago did memorable work with “Beautiful Girls” and “High Fidelity,” but recently found his way to fortune with the “Jumanji” sequels and “Venom.” Rosenberg is definitely not at his best with “Dashing Through the Snow,” conjuring a mostly generic study of holiday adventuring, and one that’s strikingly similar at times to 2018’s “The Christmas Chronicles,” hitting the same beats of discovery and music. Director Tim Story doesn’t help the cause, overseeing a few charisma-free performances and a general lethargy to a tale that’s meant to inspire audience investment in Santa’s survival. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There have been many interpretations of Napoleon Bonaparte, with the French leader explored in all forms of media, reaching a point where the reality of his existence isn’t nearly as interesting as the myth. Director Ridley Scott and screenwriter David Scarpa (“The Day the Earth Stood Still” remake, “All the Money in the World”) hope to restore some grit and eccentricity into the world of Bonaparte, with “Napoleon” their epic take on a life filled with petulance, violence, and longing for a woman he couldn’t fully possess. It’s a massive story of military development and hunger for power that’s difficult to explore, even with a 157-minute-long run time, but the material definitely plays to Scott’s interests in epic filmmaking and chilly emotionality. “Napoleon” isn’t a consistent viewing event, but Scott manages to capture bigness to the historical journey, while Scarpa’s in charge of conjuring more intimate drama to reach viewers, with editorial choices losing some important connective tissue along the way. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Casting professional turned screenwriter Samy Burch attempts to resurrect the saga of Mary Kay Letourneau for “May December,” which isn’t a strict dramatization of the famous sex offender story, but it definitely uses it for inspiration. Burch doesn’t rehash the salacious details of the crime, turning it into an unusual detective story instead, using the ways of Hollywood professionalism and commitment to inspire a strange examination of obsession involving the method of an actress hired to play a Letourneau-like woman. Director Todd Haynes certainly has experience in areas of fixation and repressed trauma (previously helming “Carol” and “Velvet Goldmine”), working to give “May December” an atmosphere of uneasiness while slowly tunneling his way into the minds of fractured and manipulative characters. The feature has a way of remaining elusive, which isn’t always welcome, but Haynes has strong performances to manage, and an interesting approach from Burch. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Thanksgiving” originally appeared in the 2007 double-feature extravaganza, “Grindhouse,” offered as one of a few faux trailers for genre entertainment meant to spice up the viewing experience with a little film marketing fun. Director Eli Roth set out to lampoon holiday-themed slasher entertainment, ending up with a bloody, goofy highlight reel of an R-rated massacre from the 1980s. “Thanksgiving” has returned in 2023, with Roth aiming to extend the life of the joke for a feature-length study of deadly happenings in Plymouth, Massachusetts. What worked in two minutes doesn’t easily translate to a 100-minute-long endeavor, with Roth visibly struggling to expand on the trailer’s premise. And he’s always right there with comedy, returning to silliness while splashing the frame with all kinds of gory encounters. It’s meant to be a blast, but this update/expansion/do-over eventually loses steam, leaving viewers with the helmer’s one-note sense of humor and a mystery that fans of nasty business shouldn’t have trouble solving. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It probably won’t happen, but there should be a book written about the making of “Next Goal Wins.” The production history of this thing is too strange, with principal photography beginning four years ago, finding director Taika Waititi riding on the success of 2018’s “Jojo Rabbit,” returning to duty for a low-budget underdog sports film about the efforts of the American Samoa soccer team and their quest to actually score a single goal during a game after suffering many humiliations. For reasons unknown, Waititi walked away from the movie for a long time, eventually completing “Thor: Love and Thunder” in 2022, returning to “Next Goal Wins” years after he started making it. It’s a tale of temporary abandonment that’s potentially fascinating, and the feature itself is very charming. While a lot of editorial fussing is present, Waititi returns to the small, oddball comedies of his early days here, creating some laughs and formulaic fun with this examination of teamwork and understanding. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Jonah Feingold has recently been dealing with the screwy ways of love, helming such romantic comedies as “Dating & New York” and “At Midnight.” He’s not straying far from career interests with “EXmas,” taking the dangers of mutual attraction to the holiday season with this Christmas-themed endeavor, which oversees the troubles and trickery of exes suddenly facing each other again during a holiday break. Screenwriter Dan Steele doesn’t have a large imagination for “EXmas,” mostly sticking with formula for the effort, which isn’t big on warm feelings or laughs, only finding intermittent charms as routine largely drives the viewing experience. Surprises are not present in the feature, which tries hard to be amusing, even wacky, but little here catches fire, despite a clear push to present Christmas tingles and silliness. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Captain Marvel” was released in 2019, but it feels like a lifetime ago now. The movie introduced the world to the might of Carol Danvers, with the material looking to celebrate a female hero in a comic book world often dominated by male characters, and the endeavor had the benefit of being released right before “Avengers: Endgame,” helping to boost its visibility and sell its narrative importance to fans ready to battle once again with their favorite heroic team. It made a fortune at the box office, but the picture wasn’t the strongest offering from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, creating a chance for the producers to generate a stronger vehicle for the popular hero. Unfortunately, “The Marvels” isn’t it. Instead of a solo show continuing the saga of Carol, the feature teams her with two additional characters, going for another group effort as the worlds of television and film collide in this mediocre serving of spectacle and comedy. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There’s been some debate about the financial success of 2020’s “Trolls World Tour.” The picture certainly didn’t have it easy, released during the early days of lockdown life, with the film, created for theatrical distribution, offered to families at premium video-on-demand prices, acting as the first shot fired when dealing with the widespread acceptance of this method of distribution. Certainly it must’ve done some business, as three years later, there’s now “Trolls Band Together,” another sequel in the “Trolls” franchise, and one that’s ready to fully embrace the debatable power of 1990s nostalgia and the glory days of boy bands. There’s love for the music subgenre, but it’s not prioritized in the screenplay by Elizabeth Tippett, who overstuffs the second sequel with lots of supporting characters and subplots, leaving the feature somewhat confused when it comes to the ultimate direction of the endeavor, which doesn’t have as much meaningful focus on music as the previous offerings. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

As an actor, Jesse Eisenberg is typically drawn to roles that explore the ways of masculinity experienced by characters who often can’t handle their pain and fear. He’s played the part repeatedly, and he returns to action in “Manodrome,” which follows a character’s experience as he’s confronted about his manhood, attracted to the release of a cult designed to prey on the mind of someone unable to understand their personal issues, often placing the blame on women. It’s a study of the incel lifestyle, which plays directly to Eisenberg’s strengths as a quiet actor dealing with the powder keg atmosphere of seemingly unreachable feelings. The premise has potential, and writer/director John Trengove initially seems to be going for a “Shining”-like atmosphere of encroaching insanity. Sadly, “Manodrome” doesn’t remain in an enigmatic state of mind, slowly growing unwieldly the more explicit Trengove gets with the details of this unraveling. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Orson Oblowitz has a deep love for film exhibition, pouring his heart into the creation of “Showdown at the Grand,” which investigates the days of an indie theater operator getting in touch with his big screen fantasies as his life is threatened by an evil land developer. It’s a passion for the old ways that keeps the endeavor inviting, but Oblowitz doesn’t have much in the way of a budget, getting stuck with limited coin as he stages an action movie about action movies and all the daydreams they inspire. “Showdown at the Grand” isn’t a pulse-pounding thriller, but it scores with its love of the game, showing respect for the weird ways of theater owners and their dedication to a business that doesn’t always love them back. It’s a loose viewing experience, but Oblowitz has his moments, presenting a bruised valentine to the escape movie theaters provide. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com