Category: Film Review

“Rogue Agent” is a very generic title for a highly specific story about a sociopath and his intense efforts to destroy the minds of his female victims. For some, the name Robert Freegard might trigger faint memories of headline news (there was even a Netflix series about his misdeeds), but I’m sure most viewers probably haven’t heard of the man, giving screenwriters Michael Bonner, Adam Patterson, and Declan Lawn (the latter two accept directorial duties) a chance to surprise their audience with a lengthy exploration of Freegard’s case. “Rogue Agent” has the structure of a twisted thriller, and one with a heavy psychological component that allows for some extended displays of sinister behavior. Patterson and Lawn don’t meet the potential of the story, preferring a more glacial take on developing evil, but they achieve a level of unease crucial to the tale, and they have Gemma Arterton, who delivers a fine performance as the lover who decides to try and break Freegard’s criminal activities. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“WifeLike” plays like an episode of a limited series, bringing viewers into a futureworld of on-demand spouses that’s plagued with issues concerning disposability, freedom, and control. There’s enough exposition to power at least eight episodes, and the ending sets up a conflict for the next season. It’s low-budget sci-fi with a few provocative ideas, but writer/director James Bird goes the big screen route with “WifeLike,” and the picture often doesn’t stand up to cinematic standards. Bird aims to make a thriller with the material, working to sweeten mystery and survival elements, but he’s also saddled with explaining large concepts of dreamscape visitation and some basic world-building for this nation of robotic women and the men who seek to possess them. Excitement isn’t valued by the helmer, who creates a flat, uneventful look at what initially seems like a promising idea for genre activity. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

August is a strange month to release “Easter Sunday,” but it’s easy to recognize a studio punt with the project, which is meant to turn comedian Jo Koy into a leading man. He’s not a seasoned film actor, and this much is evident in the picture, which finds Koy struggling to become charming in a completely laugh-free viewing experience. “Easter Sunday” aims to say something about the chaos of family life, and doing so with a Filipino-American focus, hoping to use the culture and its broad personalities to prop up a DOA endeavor directed by Jay Chandrasekhar, who has a rough track record when it comes to making funny movies (offerings include “The Dukes of Hazard,” “Super Troopers,” and “The Babymakers”). Wacky behaviors can’t save the effort, which doesn’t do anything fresh with humor, and it’s a terrible holiday feature, failing to find the warmth of a domestic gathering, putting a lot of pressure on Koy to make anything here appealing. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1987’s “Predator” is an action cinema classic, merging worlds of violent excess and sci-fi cinema into a tightly constructed ride of survival, dripping with testosterone. Producers have attempted to match it for over 30 years, and while a few follow-ups have been fine, the original Schwarzenegger-ian magic hasn’t been recaptured. That was supposed to change with 2018’s “The Predator,” but the big-budget reworking was a major creative whiff, failing to restore excitement and surprise to the franchise, almost coming close to killing the brand name with its ineptitude. Four years later, and now there’s “Prey,” which is a prequel to “Predator,” with screenwriter Patrick Aison taking the adventure back to 1719, introducing Native American characters as targets for an alien hunter that refuses to back down from a fight. “Prey” has the novelty of its setting, which is a refreshing change of pace, and director Dan Trachtenberg (“10 Cloverfield Lane”) oversees some effective suspense sequences. It’s not an especially different take on the central human vs. hunter concept, but it’s definitely an improvement over “The Predator.” Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director David Leitch has built a career out of hardcore action movies, dealing directly with elaborate choreography and bloody messes in films such as “Atomic Blonde,” “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw,” and his biggest hit, 2018’s “Deadpool 2.” For “Bullet Train,” Leitch isn’t interested in taking any creative detours with this adaptation of a Japanese novel, preferring to Americanize the material with plenty of bruising, slicing, and blunt force trauma, recycling the “Deadpool” formula of irreverent comedy and hard-R brutality, as the features are basically the same, even down to the actors involved. However, “Deadpool 2” had a defined sense of humor and some interesting ways with action. “Bullet Train” is a graceless, unfunny endeavor that’s hell-bent on being the most aggressive picture of the year. Leitch puts his faith in the “more is more” way of thinking, content to bash viewers over the head with the cartoonish ways of the material, trying to sell a joke that doesn’t have a punchline. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While it carries a friendly title, “I Love My Dad” is a dark comedy about parental extremes, with writer/director/star James Morosini taking viewers on quite a ride with the material, which is shaped from a true story. The helmer spotlights the bad instincts and big heart of a father who doesn’t understand right from wrong, generating an exploration of askew guardianship from a desperate man doing anything, I mean anything, to spend some time relearning how to engage with his emotionally fragile son. “I Love My Dad” hits a few farcical highs and some profoundly emotional lows, and while Morosini doesn’t always maintain command of the feature’s tone, he takes some interesting storytelling risks with the picture, which results in some major laughs and plenty of wincing along the way, making for one of the stranger films of 2022. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 1980, actor Kevin Bacon was a cast member of the hit slasher film, “Friday the 13th.” The picture helped to change the industry, inspiring countless knockoffs and a passionate fanbase, but Bacon has never celebrated his participation in the endeavor, possibly troubled to be associated with an unsavory feature. For “They/Them,” Bacon finally returns to the deep woods for this effort, which places him in a camp setting where a killer is on the loose, hacking up victims. It’s cause for celebration for some, but writer/director John Logan isn’t making a horror movie with “They/Them,” more interested in a study of young people dealing with the turbulence of their lives. Macabre events periodically occur, but Bacon isn’t back to basics here, playing a supporting part in a heartfelt examination of confusion and shame, but it’s a lousy genre offering. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Skydance Animation is the latest company created to get in on the profitable ways of family entertainment. Their debut feature is “Luck,” and the company hopes to acquire some of the good stuff with the hiring of John Lassiter, the once mighty Pixar Animation honcho who left the company for controversial reasons. Lassiter is here to help secure a hit for the studio, with the man who helped develop “Cars” and “Toy Story” staying strictly within his comfort level with “Luck,” which takes zero creative chances during its run time. It’s also one of the most exposition-packed animated pictures in recent memory, with director Peggy Holmes (“The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning”) desperately overseeing an often absurdly elaborate exercise in world building that’s meant to be explored in additional media, should the initial outing reach its audience. Such an outcome seems unlikely, leaving viewers with the burden of keeping up with the laborious screenplay, which is mostly tell and very little show. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Thirteen Lives” is a dramatization of the Tham Luang cave rescue, where 12 Thai boys and their soccer coach were trapped inside a cave for 18 days, inspiring an operation to retrieve them that required precise physicality and an untested medical leap of faith. The story was also explored in the 2021 documentary, “The Rescue,” but now director Ron Howard gets his shot with the tale, which plays to his career interests in the procedural workings of an unthinkable situation and his love of hope. “Thirteen Lives” doesn’t have a fresh perspective on the event, but Howard does provide a solid you-are-there approach, getting to understand the details of the rescue, the divers in charge of pulling off a perilous journey into the cave, and the team on the other side, who have no concept of the major effort in place to make sure they come out alive. Howard aims for a cinematic understanding of risk, and he achieves it with this mostly riveting feature. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Live-action comic book features are everywhere these days, presenting vivid displays of fantasy action with enough CGI work to technically qualify as cartoons. “DC League of Super-Pets” goes fully animated, with the team behind “Scoob!” and “The Lego Batman Movie” bringing the exploits of superhero animals to life. Family audiences are the target demographic for the endeavor, but directors Sam Levine and Jared Stern don’t skimp on the epic action, giving the effort a few major set pieces to dazzle viewers while also tending to the comedic possibilities of the premise and its colorful characters. “DC League of Super-Pets” has its issues, but it remains a very entertaining picture with periodic explosiveness, keeping one eye on the kid film playbook and the other on the DC universe, trying to give fans a bit of goofy fun to go with all the high-flying activity expected from the brand name. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Andrew Semans manufactures an intense tale of psychological warfare with “Resurrection,” exploring the gradual implosion of a woman losing her grip on reality when triggered by the return of an abusive boyfriend from long ago. Semans has thespian might in lead Rebecca Hall, who’s typically drawn to characters on the verge of complete physical and mental collapse, and he has select scenes of unnerving menace, playing up a sick game of control where the rules are extremely bizarre and invasive. Early scenes promise a more direct character examination, but “Resurrection” isn’t that tidy, with the material blurring reality, growing darker as it goes, and Semans prioritizes his writing, creating a battle of monologues that becomes a bit wearisome as the story unfolds, limiting overall suspense. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

B.J. Novak is a celebrated comedian, author, and a cast member on “The Office,” which, according to the internet, is the greatest television show of all time. He’s hunting for a new challenge with “Vengeance,” making his directorial debut with his take on American characters and podcast culture, also working in a murder mystery at times. Novak also writes and stars in the feature, accepting an enormous amount of responsibility to deliver a tightly constructed whodunit with heavy presence of a Texas insanity. Novak gets most of the way there with “Vengeance,” which pieces together rather cleanly for its first two acts, delivering a rich sense of personality and dramatic purpose, even when the story is uncomfortably similar to the hit show, “Only Murders in the Building.” The helmer can’t stick the landing, but Novak offers amusingly exaggerated observations and behaviors with the film, which remains an engrossing sit. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Making fun of social media influencers is easy, with this world already flooded with such extreme personalities, it doesn’t take much to identify the cartoonish ways of the subculture. “Not Okay” could go for simple laughs, but writer/director Quinn Shephard hunts for a darker tone with the picture, exploring the depths of self-delusion and desperation required to make it big with followers, freebies, and access. She has a sharp idea for extremity, following a character’s evolution when a white lie develops into a major change of status, taking her on a journey of exposure and admiration she’s never earned. There’s a roller coaster ride of black comedy for the taking in “Not Okay,” but Shephard isn’t committed to making a barbed film, instead looking for a more emotionally driven study of a fragile mind coming into contact with authenticity that’s alien to her experience. Such an approach supports dramatic intentions, but Shephard is much better off poking fun at the excesses and vanity of the ego-driven universe. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Lena Dunham made an impression with her 2010 movie, “Tiny Furniture,” joining the indie film scene with her version of a Woody Allen picture, examining the neurotic and unwell with her own sense of humor and love of awkwardness. Dunham went on to create the television show “Girls,” keeping her busy for many years, but now she’s back on the screen with “Sharp Stick,” which carries a similar atmosphere as “Tiny Furniture,” but remains more focused on shock value and strange behaviors. The new endeavor, her first feature-length directorial outing in 12 years, certainly has the vibe of a creator unsure what to do with the material, presenting a series of unfinished thoughts with “Sharp Stick,” which delivers a few moments of fascinating mental health disasters, but not much else. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Billy Porter is a force of nature. He’s found incredible success in front of the camera, recently stealing scenes in “Cinderella,” and now he’s taking his energy behind one, making his directorial debut with “Anything’s Possible.” Porter’s habitual flamboyance is injected into a teen movie written by Ximena Garcia Lecuona, and one that rides the line between an average study of adolescent love during the pressures of senior year performance and a look at the caution that arises when it comes to the complications of attraction. “Anything’s Possible” isn’t interested in a melodramatic examination of gender and hallway power plays, with Porter trying to capture the thrill of attraction and all the challenges it requires. The material attempts to represent a more inclusive vision of romance and relationships, and while formula is often present to get from one side of the story to the other, Porter and Lecuona stay positive and respectful with this examination of self-esteem. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Jordan Peele has a particular way of making a movie. He’s scored commercial and critical hits with his previous endeavors, “Get Out” and “Us,” beguiling viewers with his vision for strange experiences happening to real people. He’s working with genre entertainment to deliver his take on the world and its residents, showing the most interest in the black experience. With “Nope,” Peele inches away from social commentary, playing more with the bewitching magic of filmmaking itself, digging into history and technology as he returns to the comfort zone of the unknown and the threatened. Much like his other two efforts, “Nope” has moments of greatness, but the picture struggles to get past Peele’s directorial fetishes, keeping the endeavor unsteady as it shares an interesting and unusual study of the traditional flying saucer feature. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

As a band raging since the mid-1980s, Gwar is an acquired taste. They’ve been shredding faces and staining t-shirts for decades, making occasional appearances in pop culture before returning to the low-paying comfort of cult fame. The sound of the band isn’t easy to share with others, but their history is a remarkably knotted study of interpersonal relationships and business ethics, with Gwar almost in a constant state of change. And yet, they’re still around, perhaps just to irritate their critics, and such a tumultuous history is recalled in “This is Gwar,” with director Scott Barber (“The Orange Years: The Nickelodeon Story”) assembling an overview of artistic intent, ear-splitting sound, and onstage gore. It’s a deep dive into the foundation and endurance of Gwar, who’ve been through quite a lot while trying to give their fans the messiest, most horrifically violent entertainment imaginable, because that’s what the public needs. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It hasn’t been easy for filmmakers to use the COVID-19 pandemic as a subject for riveting cinema, and most of these features have failed either financially or creatively. It’s a storyteller’s mission to deconstruct a complex situation of divide and fear, but this particular public health emergency needs more time to marinate, allowing for some much-needed perspective when it comes to replicating an often frightfully dire situation of community support. “Alone Together” is the second directorial effort from star Katie Holmes (2016’s “All We Had” being her debut), and she hopes to supply some needed understanding of psychology and human connection with her take on the early days of lockdown life. We’ve been here before, most recently in 2021’s “Together,” and Holmes (who also scripts) has her heart in the right place with this tender exploration of attraction, but she doesn’t have much else to support an overlong endeavor that’s not terribly gripping to begin with. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank” hasn’t enjoyed the smoothest ride to a release. The picture was initially put into production over seven years ago, conceived as an animated tribute to Mel Brooks’s “Blazing Saddles,” only with a samurai setting featuring a cast of animated cats and dogs. Production issues were plentiful, with the project coming to a full stop more than once due to money issues (the movie opens with a very long list of financial partners), taking the long way to completion. And now the feature is finished, and it’s certainly not a disaster, with directors Chris Bailey, Mark Koetsier, and Rob Minkoff trying to make something happen with a blend of slapstick comedy and sword-swinging action. “Paws of Fury” is occasionally energized, but select scenes of entertainment can’t support a largely mediocre offering of silliness. It’s not offensive, just forgettable, missing a special quality to keep the excitement going long after the film ends. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

One year ago, co-producers Randall Emmett and George Furla, director Mike Burns, and screenwriter Bill Lawrence collaborated on “Out of Death.” It was one of the worst films of 2021, with the low-budget VOD offering (reportedly shot in just nine days) doing next to nothing with performances and opportunities for excitement, basically remaining a dull, dim chase picture set in the woods. The team returns with “Wrong Place,” which, weirdly, is nearly the same exact movie, once again following characters as they deal with survival requirements while stuck in the woods. It didn’t work the first time, and it doesn’t have a chance to connect here, finding the production lacking bravery with their plotting and “surprises,” sticking with the same lethargic filmmaking as before. “Wrong Place” is a massive drag to sit through, barely showing signs of life as it hugs formula tight and trusts in the star power of Bruce Willis who, sadly, looks comatose, inspiring viewers to care more about his personal health than anything in the endeavor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com