Category: Film Review

It’s easy to understand why Jon Hamm would agree to star in a low-budget endeavor like “Corner Office.” He’s almost in every shot, takes control of the picture through voiceover, and portrays a mentally unstable human being, giving him a chance to do something different in a career that’s mostly been about sameness. He doesn’t make any bold choices, but Hamm finds his footing with the material, which is an adaptation of a book by Jonas Karlsson (Ted Kupper handles screenplay duties), capturing the peculiarities of a bizarre person coming into contact with unreality. Director Joachim Back doesn’t make an urgent movie with “Corner Office,” but he finds his way into the strangeness of the tale, which presents power plays in a business setting, teasing “Office Space” directions, but ending up with its own appreciation of insanity. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

2018’s “The Meg” was an adaptation of a book by author Steve Alten, but that wasn’t the big draw of the movie. Summer audiences wanted to witness giant shark mayhem on a big studio budget, and director Jon Turteltaub certainly achieved that level of escapism. It wasn’t a clever feature, but it was a fun ride, with big visual effects and a grand sense of disaster film scale, making for an enjoyable distraction. It’s taken producers five years to come up with a “Meg” sequel, finally returning with “Meg 2: The Trench,” which brings in indie helmer Ben Wheatley (“A Field in England,” “Free Fire”) to try his luck with sharksploitation, on a mission get the brand name’s momentum going again with a screenplay (credited to Jon Hoeber, Erich Hoeber, and Dean Georgaris) that’s basically a rehash of the original endeavor, only a bit darker at times, and more aware of its fun factor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Poster art for “Mob Land” finds star John Travolta with a gun in his hands, involved in some incident of violence. The image promises something active about the feature, which has been described as a “thriller” in press information. The picture is most certainly not active in the way thrillers usually are, with writer/director Nicholas Maggio going for more of a contemplative tone with the endeavor, exploring the price of crime as a single act of theft becomes a nightmare for a young man desperate to support his family. “Mob Land” has a few moments of physical activity, but it’s largely a film about hard stares and philosophical discussions, with Maggio unwilling to tighten up the effort, giving it some type of forward momentum. The helmer would rather stew in hazily realized atmosphere, and while he scores with some dips into darkness, Maggio misses an opportunity to turn all this misery into a gripping viewing experience. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Carter Smith was recently in command of last February’s “Swallowed,” finding compelling ways to amplify an unusual crisis of drugs and digestion. There was a creepy opener with some real tension to explore, but Smith wasn’t as confident with his conclusion, bringing the feature in for a rocky landing. It wasn’t the resolution many hoped for, but enough of “Swallowed” connected as intended, highlighting the helmer’s interest in bizarre situations of confrontation and survival. Smith’s newest endeavor, “The Passenger,” also gets off on the right foot, establishing a level of confusion and violence to power the story. However, this time, the ending matches the beginning, with “The Passenger” maintaining a consistent level of threat and furious feelings, detailing a gnarly therapy session between a mass shooter and the victim he spared with a decent sense of pace and a few stretches of real intensity. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Andrew Legge makes his directorial debut with “Lola,” going the extreme low-budget route to accomplish his cinematic goals, working with digital tools and frenzied camerawork to generate a look into the past, present, and future. It’s a time-travel movie in a way, and also a found-footage production, keeping viewers sufficiently disoriented as Legge (who co-scripts with Angeli Macfarlane) plays with the magic of mystery and the brutal realities of war, also endeavoring to craft a story about two sisters and their extraordinary journey with a special machine. “Lola” has limits to its imagination and execution, but the central idea is fascinating, with Legge and Macfarlane finding a fresh approach to the manipulation of time, delivering an askew take on the WWII experience and the weird crisis of trust facing special siblings. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The grand success of 2014’s “John Wick” has inspired many productions to present action scenes hoping to replicate the intensity and the eye-widening intricacy of the Keanu Reeves-starring feature. “Til Death Do Us Part” is another endeavor that bears some “Wick”-edness, with screenwriter Shane Dax Taylor (“The Best Man,” 2021’s “Masquerade”) and Chad Law (“Jarhead 3: The Siege,” 2023’s “The Flood”) arranging a tale about a secret society of assassins turning on one another when a simple act of termination turns into all-out war. Director Timothy Woodward Jr. (“The Call,” “Gangster Land”) doesn’t have to do much to make the premise work, tasked with simply focusing on the action ahead of him. And yet, that doesn’t happen with “Til Death Do Us Part,” which delivers a draggy viewing experience slowed by uninspired writing and a general absence of pace. There’s violence, but only at times, as the movie is more interested in droopy character banter than how the players attempt to destroy one another. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are back! Well, they never really go away anymore, with television shows and other media keeping the lucrative brand name alive even during lower points of popularity. However, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” is the first big screen offering in a little while, with 2016’s entertaining “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows” struggling to find an audience for the Michael Bay-produced take on the central premise of superhero reptiles. Director Jeff Rowe (“The Mitchells vs. the Machines”) returns to the sewers with a new approach, riding recent waves in animation and comedy to refresh the franchise, moving away from hard action to rework the adolescent excitement of it all. “Mutant Mayhem” is an engaging restart of the Turtle universe, emerging with stylish animation and active voice work, on a quest to make the Heroes in a Half Shell lovable again. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1994’s “The River Wild” was a traditional thriller from director Curtis Hanson, who aimed to bring a little Hitchcock to the great outdoors with his vision for suspense during a white-water rafting trip. The script was tight and open-world locations evocative, and the production had Meryl Streep to inspire audience curiosity, with the venerated actress in the midst of an experimental phase, starring in big studio projects, exploring genre work. “The River Wild” earned its success, offering tremendous entertainment value and sharp filmmaking, but, apparently, time has come to revisit the title. “River Wild” isn’t a sequel, and it’s not really a remake, with screenwriters Mike Nguyen Le and Ben Ketai (who also directs) reworking the basic rafting premise for a much darker take on rising violence on a river. It’s a low-budget, Streep-less endeavor with limited goals, and while it doesn’t match the thrills of the 1994 effort, “River Wild” has compelling grimness, refreshing brevity (running 85 minutes), and contains a few surges of panic to keep it involving. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Charming and prolific actor Randall Park has been dabbling in direction over the last few years, taking on a few television episodes to build some confidence. He graduates to feature-length storytelling with “Shortcomings,” which is an adaptation of a 2007 graphic novel by Adrian Tomie (who also accepts screenplay duties), and he’s picked a small project to explore. The tale follows the slow implosion of a young man getting used to the idea that he’s the source of all his relationship problems, and Tomie supplies a gentle mix of humor and horror with the story, which offers a few turns to keep things interesting. Park presents a graceful effort, managing the sometime odd tone of the endeavor, and he’s gathered a gifted cast to bring all the shades of emotion to life, overseeing some terrific performances. “Shortcomings” is small but always engaging, with the helmer capably reaching dark areas of behavior without losing the rhythm of Tomie’s original vision. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Bill Pohlad has a real affinity for stories about musicians, especially tortured ones dealing with a lot on their minds. In 2014, Pohlad explored the Brian Wilson experience in “Love & Mercy,” and he returns to the world of psychologically troubled artists in “Dreamin’ Wild,” which is based on the true story of the Emerson Brothers, who, in 1979, released their one and only album, watching a vision for music world success evaporate soon after. It’s a profound tale of guilt and regret, and Pohlad handles it all very carefully. He’s making a soft film about an easy listening band, trying to be comforting while examining distressing feelings of failure. “Dreamin’ Wild” doesn’t charm with its leisurely pace, but Pohlad has command of the material’s heart, getting into deep, complicated emotions over the run time, working to understand mental spaces of people newly confronted with their past, and all the stinging pain and lost potential that comes with it. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

One would think an action movie starring John Cena and Jackie Chan would be an easy sell for studios, but something happened to “Hidden Strike” on its way to a small, unpublicized release. The feature was shot in 2018, when the world was a hugely different place, but the screenplay by Arash Amel (“Grace of Monaco,” “A Private War”) tries to make a mid-‘90s actioner with the material, which offers only the simplest of characterizations and the basics in heroes and villains. Director Scott Waugh (“Act of Valor,” “Need for Speed”) is also an uninspired choice, tasked with making a noisy blockbuster for a Chinese audience, using as much CGI assistance as possible. “Hidden Strike” isn’t fun or funny, it’s more of a sensorial assault, watching Chan and Cena attempt to be charming when they have terrible writing to manage and video game visuals to support. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Happiness for Beginners” is an adaptation of a novel by Katherine Center. It’s the type of romantic story that’s easily predictable, with the final scene of the film a forgone conclusion, but it’s the journey there that counts the most. Writer/director Vicky Wight tries to make a cozy picture about navigation, physical and emotional, following a lonely woman dealing with all the trauma she’s experienced and the communication issues she’s having difficulty managing. There’s expected levels of romance and comedy, and Wright doesn’t exactly downplay the predictability of it all. However, she invests in personality, gently nudging the material away from tiresome formula, going easy on the senses with a movie that’s quite charming, also supported by colorful work from an energetic ensemble. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Popular Australian YouTubers Danny and Michael Phillppou make their directorial debut with “Talk to Me,” a tale of supernatural happenings involving the curse of an embalmed hand. It’s not a take on “The Monkey’s Paw,” but a ghost story in a way, with the screenplay (by Danny Phillppou and Bill Hinzman) following the trend of trauma-inspired horror happenings, looking to do something sinister with deep pain felt by a few of the characters. “Talk to Me” has its atmospheric power, with the helmers managing to create a few striking sequences with their limited budget. Visual might generally outruns storytelling here, with the writing much too vague with critical details, and acting is largely too broad for comfort, losing the intimacy of it all. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Two decades ago, Disney tried to bring one of their most popular theme park attractions to the big screen, but they didn’t really have a game plan when it came to the tone of the endeavor. “Haunted Mansion” didn’t work, struggling to balance a decent fear factor and comedy, with laughs gradually taking over the feature, trying to give star Eddie Murphy something to do. The company revives the brand for another go-around in “Haunted Mansion,” but this time there’s more attention paid to the attraction experience, with director Justin Simien (“Dear White People”) and screenwriter Kate Dippold (2016’s “Ghostbusters”) looking to deliver a scarier film, but still remain approachable for family audiences. The new “Haunted Mansion” is a stronger movie than the 2003 release, and while it take some hits with excessive length and dramatic overkill, it definitely understands the mood of the Disney Parks classic, reaching its potential when translating the dark ride to a cinematic event. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Christopher Guest found tremendous critical and commercial success with his run of faux documentaries, but the last endeavor, 2016’s “Mascots,” failed to inspire much praise and viewership, with the helmer’s creative tank out of gas (he hasn’t made a movie since). Enter co-writers/directors Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman, who join co-writers Noah Gavin and Ben Platt (who also stars) in an attempt to rebuild the Guest house, returning to the impishness of the “mockumentary” approach to construct “Theater Camp.” Perhaps one slightly recoils at the idea of a broad comedy set at a summer program for theater kids and their high-strung staff, but Gordon and Lieberman pull off a minor miracle with the effort, capturing a balanced tone of wackiness and feeling, while weirdness is exactly right, making for a frequently hilarious picture that understands timing and this particularly bizarre world of thespian spirit. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Over the last few years, Nicolas Cage has taken a little break from his commitment to creating B-movie entertainment. He’s been trying to revive his reputation for interesting performances in unusual films, scoring critical praise for his work on “Pig,” “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” and “Renfield.” Sadly, box office response has been tepid at best, keeping Cage on the hunt for low-budget offerings of oddity to maintain career momentum, finding his way to “Sympathy for the Devil,” where the famous eccentric is tasked with portraying a deranged man with a gun, forcing a seemingly mild man to join him on a drive toward conflict resolution. Cage becomes Cage in “Sympathy for the Devil,” doing what he can to wake up an otherwise sleepy screenplay by Luke Paradise, who keeps his characters in monologue mode, making a potentially tense viewing experience more tell than show. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Just a few weeks ago, director William Kaufman (“Jarhead 3: The Siege,” “The Marine 4: Moving Target”) submitted “The Channel” to the masses, delivering a low-budget study of brotherhood and violence with plenty of unrealized potential. It was bro-happy entertainment without a deeper sense of drama, struggling with cliché and limited financial support. Kaufman returns with his second film of July, “Shrapnel,” which once again submits a small-scale tale of family and survival, this time taking concerns to a border town in Texas, where a concerned father searches for his missing daughter. Cartel antagonisms rise up, but there’s little to the viewing experience beyond shoot-outs and pained faces. “Shrapnel” is buoyed by leading work from Jason Patric, who pushes to bring passably authentic emotions to an otherwise generic siege tale, giving as good a performance as one can possibly expect from a B-movie with limited storytelling goals. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

For many years, Ian Karr served as a co-host for “Jackie’s Joke Hunt,” a Sirius Radio show that dealt exclusively with bite-sized offerings of humor, with Jackie Martling serving as the master of ceremonies. Karr hopes to go deeper into the world of Martling with “Joke Man,” a documentary exploring (some) of the life and (some of the) times of the veteran comedian, who’s been trying to make audiences laugh with his machine-gun like delivery of traditional jokes, and his encyclopedic knowledge of humor. The idea is similar to 2017’s “Gilbert,” which also took a closer look at a filthy, habitually misunderstood man. Martling isn’t quite as famous as the late Gilbert Gottfried, and Karr is a little too light when it comes to the details of his personal life, but “Joke Man” is a breezy, amusing sit. It’s a valentine to Martling, who’s still in the mix when it comes to performing and hustling, eager to perform for audiences and Karr’s camera, doing a fine job guiding the story of his life. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Sophie Kargman makes her feature-length directorial debut with “Susie Searches.” She has a major creative challenge with the material, which is an adaptation of a 2020 short film, with William Day Frank handling scripting duties. The short was 13 minutes long, while the new movie runs 105 minutes, tasking Frank and Kargman to come up with plenty of fresh story to work with, embellishing a seemingly small tale of a young woman and her thirst to become a true crime podcast superstar. There’s an enjoyably animated performance from star Kiersey Clemons as the ambitious broadcaster, and there’s a first act where so much happens, it’s almost enough to fill the picture on its own. However, “Susie Searches” keeps trying to knot its tale of mistakes and suspicion, with Kargman unable to match the opening activity of the endeavor, gradually letting the air out of a once passably engaging mystery and potent study of online validation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While watching “Sons of Summer,” a feeling that something was off about the viewing experience began to grow. Characters were referencing events from long ago, and they carried a relationship that seemed defined elsewhere, not in this movie. I started thinking, is this a sequel? “Sons of Summer” is being sold to North American audiences as an action film, with 1991’s “Point Break” used as a comparison in press materials. This picture isn’t “Point Break” by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a follow-up to 1977’s “Summer City” (which featured the acting services of a young Mel Gibson) and 1988’s “Breaking Loose: Summer City II,” with co-writer Phillip Avalon returning once again to work on his Australian brotherhood saga, updating the troublemaking and surfing for a new audience. There’s a lot wrong with “Sons of Summer,” and there’s a lot missing from the endeavor, which tries to breeze past references to the previous chapters, but still creates plenty of confusion along the way. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com