Category: Film Review

Time travel is a topic covered by many movies, and “Relax, I’m from the Future” is no different, once again exploring the strangeness of a mystery man who emerges from another time, desperate to deal with issues in the present to secure a brighter tomorrow, or for him, yesterday. The premise began life as a short film, and writer/director Luke Higginson attempts to turn it into a feature, and one with the particularly strong opening that merges comedy and itchy energy, slowly developing the bewildering situation for a cast of characters. “Relax, I’m from the Future” doesn’t sustain initial oddity, offering exposition instead of following surprises, which adds unnecessary weight to the picture. Still, there’s star Rhys Darby, who brings his natural charm to the endeavor, providing a bright, amusing performance in an effort that’s much better with the actor on the move. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Condition of Return” features elements of church, God and the Devil, and the deep guilt of Catholic sin. One might think they’re sitting down with a faith-based film, but the screenplay by John E. Spare doesn’t head in a more spiritual direction. Instead of being illuminated by heavenly light, “Condition of Return” is more of a Tyler Perry-style offering of campy melodrama, with Spare setting up a punishment routine for the main character while director Tommy Stovall cranks up the ridiculousness of it all, triggering many unintended (I think) laughs during the viewing experience. The movie begins with a severe act of violence, but the rest of the picture gets wild in a hurry, taking viewers on a ride of punishment and insanity. It should be fun, but it isn’t, and those coming to the endeavor expecting a kumbaya experience should prepare to sit through something far wackier than expected. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There is a moment in “Dark Asset” where a character sitting in front of a screen openly wonders, “What is this?” There were many moments while watching the film where I wondered the very same thing. Writer/director Michael Winnick looks to confuse his audience with this endeavor, which plays with time and allegiance in the hope to come off as sophisticated spy game entertainment. “Dark Asset” doesn’t reach many highs concerning matters of smarts and survival, with the entire feature heading in the wrong direction when it comes time to deliver a shot of thriller cinema. The material is strangely talky for a picture about conflict, and action beats are lukewarm, with the helmer barely putting up a fight against his own movie’s inertia. With a plot that involves brain chips, assassinations, and double crosses, there should really be more of a pulse to this thing than what Winnick manages to deliver. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Tim Brown has a film in mind with “The Retirement Plan,” only his execution is too knotted to sustain a fun factor. It’s a B-movie from the helmer, who’s mostly dealing with villainous and violent happenings, tasking star Nicolas Cage to carry the endeavor with his typical enthusiasm for eccentric acting opportunities. He plays a former government assassin coming into contact with his past in “The Retirement Plan,” and Brown is trying to bring out the lighter side of this dark comedy, keeping Cage twitchy and the players on the move as the hunt for a special hard drive tries to intensify in the middle of paradise. Brown has a lot to do with this material, and he only gets halfway there, with the picture far better with set-ups than payoffs, resulting an increasingly crowded offering of half-speed action cinema. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Dumb Money” dips back into recent history, examining the story of the GameStop Meme Stock scandal of 2021, where Reddit users and their indefatigable love of insanity worked to make a mess of an already corrupt Wall Street system. Director Craig Gillespie, joined by screenwriters Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo, strive to replicate the atmosphere found in Adam McKay’s “The Big Short” and David Fincher’s “The Social Network” (the film adapts Ben Mezrich’s book, “The Antisocial Network,” and Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are listed as executive producers), looking to gift viewers some understanding of financial world scheming while replicating waves of hysteria found in the original event. There’s entertainment value in “Dumb Money,” but Gillespie is occasionally stuck between trying to be funny with the subject matter and hoping to reinforce a sobering level of fraud involving a community of characters. Such indecision doesn’t always make for an inspired take on the central crisis. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“A Million Miles Away” tells the story of Jose M. Hernandez, who worked his way through systems of migrant farmwork and government employment to pursue his dream of becoming an astronaut for NASA. It’s the kind of story Hollywood loves, using elements of underdog cinema and “based on a true story” screenwriting to provide a heartwarming understanding of personal drive and the power of family. Against all odds, the feature works, wonderfully at times, with the Disneyfication of the material handled well by the screenplay, and director Alejandra Marquez Abella offers a graceful understanding of time, setting, and especially actors, with star Michael Pena delivering the finest performance of his career in this lovely picture. “A Million Miles Away” makes familiar moves when it comes to depicting the roadblocks to success, but Abella crafts an engrossing study of achievement and support, helping to avoid the roughness of cliché. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After the lukewarm box office reception for 2022’s “Death on the Nile” (which struggled with a mid-COVID-19 moviegoing reluctance), it seemed as though Kenneth Branagh’s reign as Hercule Poirot was over. However, reports of the master detective’s death were premature, with the director/star permitted another shot at the part with “A Haunting in Venice,” which is an adaptation of “Hallowe’en Party,” an Agatha Christie novel from 1969. Branagh and screenwriter Michael Green have their way with the source material, but they conjure a compelling genre adventure for Poirot, with the endeavor trading the opulence of “Murder on the Orient Express” and “Death on the Nile” for something scrappier and within the realm of scary. Instead of a straight detective story, there’s more spookiness to sort through with this murder mystery, giving the production a chance to play with unreality and haunted house tours, making for a livelier sit, while Branagh’s central take on Poirot’s brilliance and arrogance remains the highlight of the series. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer Jim Capobianco has been involved in animation for nearly three decades, creating an impressive resume in the process. He’s been involved in story development for Walt Disney Animation and Pixar, contributing to “The Lion King,” “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” and “Ratatouille,” also bringing imagery to life for “Mary Poppins Returns.” He’s been a part of giant hits and colorful creations, but his first love appears to be the world of Leonardo da Vinci. There was a short film, “Leonardo,” in 2009, and now there’s “The Inventor,” with Capobianco (joined by co-director Pierre-Luc Granjon) offering a feature-length study of Da Vinci’s experience with brainstorms and visions, struggling to realize his ideas in the shadow of religious and royal oppression. Making use of traditional and stop-motion animation, “The Inventor” is a gorgeous movie, with strong displays of artistry running throughout the endeavor. It’s also an interesting introduction to da Vinci’s life for younger viewers, with Capobianco keeping things playful and stirring while exploring elements of the man’s twilight years. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

A directing duo, Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah were once Belgium-born filmmakers making small movies for local audiences. They were eventually brought to Hollywood, tasked with doing something with “Bad Boys for Life” after the troubled production had difficulty getting off the ground. The pair created a hit, and the industry asked for more, with El Arbi and Fallah soon put in charge of the superhero picture, “Batgirl,” which was eventually shelved due to reasons that will probably never be crystal clear. The helmers are back in business with another “Bad Boys” sequel for 2024, but before they return to big-budget extravaganzas, they revive their indie spirit with “Rebel.” Taking on the psychological and physical destruction of Syrian warfare, El Arbi and Fallah (who also co-script with Kevin Meul and Jan van Dyck) make a deeply personal feature that explores the horrors of Islamic State and the influence of radicalization in Europe, mixing raw emotions with unexpected blasts of artful expression that keeps viewers invested in material that would otherwise be extraordinarily difficult to watch. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Love at First Sight” is an adaptation of a 2011 book by Jennifer E. Smith, which carried a slightly more unwieldly title: “The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight.” As to be expected from either title, the story is meant to be a warm one, dealing with all the strange timing and turns of the day facing two young people connecting over a 24-hour period. Screenwriter Katie Lovejoy (“To All the Boys: Always and Forever”) and director Vanessa Caswill (making her feature-length debut) have the challenge of taking a potential gimmick and turning it into something human. They succeed against all odds, working to keep “Love at First Sight” interesting with layered characterizations and muted formula, allowing for real romantic ways to develop between two characters going through quite a lot in their lives. It’s gentle work, with charm and a slight dusting of movie magic, surprising with its restraint and commitment to a deeper study of emotional ache. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Mystery is back this autumn, which welcomes the return of Hercule Poirot in “A Haunting in Venice,” giving adults an option when it comes to their filmgoing choices. For the kids, there’s “Inspector Sun and the Curse of the Black Widow,” which is also a whodunit, albeit one with more cartoon interests to help please a specific demographic. Screenwriter Rocco Pucillo takes inspiration from the “Pink Panther” movies for the work, creating Inspector Sun, a bold but slightly clumsy detective who always seems to find himself in the middle of trouble wherever he goes. The feature is “A Bug’s Life” with a body count, and director Julio Soto Gurpide keeps things relatively breezy during the short run time, cooking up pursuit sequences and sleuthing challenges, which bring some snap to the effort before it succumbs to family film formula. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

One of the great moviegoing surprises of 2009 was the release of “Black Dynamite.” Directed by Scott Sanders, the picture successfully pants the blaxploitation subgenre, doing so with a great imagination for satire and silliness. There were big laughs in “Black Dynamite,” along with an impressively committed lead performance from co-writer Michael Jai White, who did his best to bring a “Shaft”-y screen hero to life, wisely staying steely while delightful nonsense was set up around him. The feature also had the advantage of being 86 minutes long. White (without Sanders) doesn’t go for a straight sequel with “Outlaw Johnny Black,” but he looks to work with a similar level of wackiness for this parody of spaghetti westerns, unafraid to play in the same sandbox as Mel Brooks’s “Blazing Saddles.” Those expecting a return to the inspired goofballery of before are likely to be greatly disappointed in “Outlaw Johnny Black,” which isn’t as well-written or energized as “Black Dynamite,” caught up in a strange desire to be earnest instead of farcical. It also has the disadvantage of being 136 minutes long, which is an insane run time for a project like this, making the whole film feel leaden, despite the cast working hard to sell mediocre foolishness. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Horror anthology entertainment offers a more Latin perspective with “Satanic Hispanics,” which collects five tales of survival and terror from an assortment of filmmakers. It’s the “Creepshow” routine, only here there’s more of an interest in comedy and cultural representation, with the helmers aiming to add their own spin on grim stories of doom. “Satanic Hispanics” isn’t big on brevity, but there’s some interesting idiosyncrasy to enjoy here, especially when the moviemakers focus on the essentials of tension, creating strange conflicts that score some laughs and jolts during the viewing experience. The picture doesn’t overwhelm with creativity, but there’s enough here to satisfy, especially for Halloween viewing. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

One could argue there wasn’t a need for 2016’s “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2,” where writer/star Nia Vardalos attempted to resurrect the brand name with a sequel that wasn’t inspired and mostly mediocre, hoping to give the fanbase a reunion with old faces that could coast on the basics in comedy and heart. And now there’s “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3,” which carries more distance from the 2002 original sleeper hit, bringing back older faces (and their attempts to reverse the aging process) and more Greek energy for a second go-around with the Portokalos family, taking the characters overseas for this endeavor. Vardalos takes directorial control of the picture, and she makes a messy movie with “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3,” which becomes a jumble of characters and motivations, side adventures and slapstick, and Greek culture in its most cartoon form. The film is determined to be a good time for all, but whatever plucky magic was offered in the first feature is long gone at this point. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Every director wants to work, but Michael Chaves has taken brand loyalty to a new level. He’s made three movies, and all of them have been part of “The Conjuring Universe,” with the horror saga expanding rapidly since its 2013 debut, giving the producers worlds of demons and religious issues to explore in many sequels and spin-offs. Chaves has already been involved in 2019’s “The Curse of La Llorona” and 2021’s “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It,” and he returns to familiar territory with “The Nun II,” a sequel to the 2018 smash hit. Mediocrity was a weight that held down the original gothic chiller, and there’s a similar level of fatigue in the second chapter, with Chaves overseeing a routine horror film that has little motivation to bring anything interesting to the saga. “The Nun II” is mostly a lifeless endeavor from screenwriters Ian Goldberg, Richard Naing, and Akela Cooper, who labor to restart the engine of a one-note idea, getting as far as the heavy recycling of scares before the whole thing limps to a dull conclusion. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Now here’s an odd movie. “Sitting in Bars with Cake” takes its title from Audrey Schulman’s 2015 book, where the single woman spent a year bringing treats to dates, hoping to make a love connection via the power of sweets (calling it “cakebarring”). The literary offering was a mix of memoir and cookbook, with Schulman gifting recipes to readers, helping them to play along with her extended experiment. Eight years later, there’s a film adaptation of “Sitting in Bars with Cake,” only it doesn’t really follow the events of the book, with Schulman electing to expand on a blog post about a relationship with her best friend, who was fighting cancer during the cake-y year. The production retains the title but largely heads a different way with the story (Schulman provides the screenplay), preferring to go the tearjerker route with the feature instead of following the debatable fun of the baking journey. This results in a much heavier picture than perhaps most potential viewers are expecting, but the endeavor is certainly well-acted and attentive to the collateral damage of terminal illness, showing needed focus when exploring the delicate support system of friendship. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The books of author R.L. Stine have inspired many media interpretations, but there was a distinct push to turn such kid-friendly horror into a big screen event, with 2015’s “Goosebumps” trying to reach a broad audience with the writer’s distinct love of the wacky and weird. A less effective sequel in 2018 put the kibosh on franchise plans, but producer interest in exploring Stine’s work isn’t going to fade away any time soon, with “Zombie Town” the latest production looking to capture ghoulish events and teen antics for a younger audience. An adaptation of a 2012 book, the feature presents a strange tale of a zombie uprising, with co-writer/director Peter Lepeniotis (“The Nut Job”) tasked with turning 80 pages into a complete movie. It’s a mission that proves to be impossible, with “Zombie Town” certainly earnest in its intention to entertain pre-teen viewers, but the helmer can’t make sense of the bizarre plot, which becomes unnecessarily burdensome for a feature that’s only out to please. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 2021, Beck Bennett left his television home at “Saturday Night Live,” where he found his footing as a sketch comedy player, specializing in portraying blowhard dummies. He provided inspired work on the show, and there was hope Bennett would use this professional momentum to find his way into something befitting his talents. Instead, there’s “Office Race,” an original movie from Comedy Central that’s extraordinarily lame, with co-writer/director Jared Lapidus putting in next to no effort when it comes to the creation and execution of humor in the film. It’s an underdog story in a way, exploring the world of marathon runners and the impact of such dedication on a slacker, but instead of using such behavioral extremity to launch a farce, “Office Race” goes sleepy, showing little interest in the potential of the premise or Bennett, content to aimlessly goof around instead. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

2014’s “The Equalizer” was a cinematic update of a 1980s television series, with director Antoine Fuqua tasked with bringing a different kind of fury to the brand name, shaping a viciously violent revenge story that bore little resemblance to the network show that inspired it. Fuqua went for hardness to achieve his cheap thrills, and the overkill quickly transformed into absurdity. A 2018 sequel followed, offering more of the same, with Fuqua once again motivated to turn his action effort into a ridiculous trip to the gore zone, aided by meandering storytelling. He's been away for a while, but Robert McCall and his cold, dead stare returns for “The Equalizer 3,” and while Fuqua leaves no open wound behind, he’s newly committed to a somewhat intimate tale of domestic disturbance, giving the one-man-army a more direct reason to kill in a movie that does well when it dares to attempt dramatic simplicity, making for a more enjoyable ride of vengeance. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

2012’s “Ernest & Celestine” (released in America in 2014) was a complete surprise. The animated French picture was small, preferring delicate artistry over expensive imagery, electing to put its energy into personality. The feature was an absolute delight, one of the best films of the year, and little was expected of the movie after melting hearts and hitting the funny bone the first time around. A decade later, there’s “Ernest and Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia,” a sequel from a different creative team, out to recreate the pleasures of the original picture while finding a new event for the eponymous pals to manage. “A Trip to Gibberitia” is more plot oriented than its predecessor, but the follow-up is nearly as fantastic, returning to character quirks and connections while opening up this lovable world with fresh challenges for animal friends and, now, family. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com