Category: Film Review

Writer/director Ben Sharrock examines the refugee experience with “Limbo,” and he approaches the rough edges of this subject matter with unusual tastes in comedy and drama. He initially offers a Jared Hess-ian take on the experiences facing a young man from Syria who’s found himself in Scotland, seeking asylum. It’s “Napoleon Dynamite”-esque for its first half, dealing with static shots and offbeat events with peculiar characters. It’s all very strange before Sharrock decides to sober it up, hoping to delve deeper into heartbreaking areas of isolation and depression to give the feature some much needed weight. “Limbo” is uneven and not entirely compelling when it reaches a mild level of irreverence, but interesting ideas on fragile people in tough situations are provided, with the movie finding its footing during scenes of psychological exploration that don’t require comedy or stagy filmmaking. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Mortal Kombat” was just a video game back in 1992, offering players some character histories and the creation of weird realms to support a fantasy fighting game that offered striking visuals and, of course, ridiculous amounts of graphic violence. It was Grand Guignol for the arcade generation, but its producers didn’t stop there, offering video game sequels (the latest chapter was released in 2019), comic books, merchandise, and, of course, movies. There have been a few attempts to bring the video game universe to the big screen, mostly notably a 1995 offering from director Paul W.S. Anderson. The new “Mortal Kombat” endeavors to launch the brand name to new cinematic heights, offered a sizable budget to detail flashy visuals and boasting an R-rating to preserve the core appeal of the game, maintaining its gore zone standards. It also happens to be an entertaining picture once it gets past mountains of exposition, delivering heavy fighting between strange combatants, and bodies are appropriately destroyed in a myriad of ways.

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Movies about space travel or exploration usually dip into thriller cinema to help connect the dots for viewers. It’s a way to maintain audience participation, giving them some nail-biting sequences to hold attention, with most filmmakers using some level of science to help buttress a vision for blockbuster entertainment. Think “Gravity” or the recent “The Midnight Sky.” “Stowaway” has a cast of familiar faces and a healthy visual effects budget, and it initially appears to be more of an intellectual and emotional tale of survival in deep space, asking hard questions about sacrifice when disaster strikes, examining the value of human life in an unwinnable situation. “Stowaway” initially seems interested in a dramatic offering of debate and introspection, and it does its best work in quieter moments. Co-writer/director Joe Penna doesn’t remain in the stillness for the length of the picture, eventually succumbing to marketplace demands, but he delivers two acts of fascinating distress in need of a better ending.

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How does a filmmaker get their arms around the world of “Sesame Street” and everything it’s inspired? Arguably the finest, most creative television show ever produced, “Sesame Street” has lasted for over five decades, reaching out to generations of viewers raised on its blissful mixture of education and entertainment, stacked with human and monster characters who’ve helped to create amazing moments of learning and laughing, giving the audience a chance to understand the world around them in a way other programming carefully ignores. There’s a lot to unpack when it comes to this show, and director Marilyn Agrelo (“Mad Hot Ballroom”) has the unenviable task of assembling an origin story. Adapting Michael Davis’s book, “Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street,” Agrelo doesn’t bite off more than she can chew with the documentary, providing a look at the formative years of “Sesame Street,” focusing on producing and performing forces that helped to establish the mission of the series, eventually launching a show that achieved the impossible: it changed the world.

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It takes something special to make a relationship story work these days, and writer/director Nikole Beckwith has exactly that with “Together Together.” It’s a story about love developing between two vastly different people, but it remains careful about the tentative union, keeping the material away from a sitcom approach. It’s also a pregnancy tale, but Beckwith doesn’t turn the experience into a wacky event with nervous parents. She avoids most cliches with the endeavor, preferring a human approach to the complications of parenthood and partnership that arrive in the movie. “Together Together” works extremely hard to remain focused on feelings, and Beckwith is triumphant in that regard, creating an intimate but approachable odyssey of connection during a special experience, working with a terrific cast to bring it to life.

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Family issues and a device apocalypse compete for screen time in “The Mitchells vs. the Machines,” the latest offering from Sony Pictures Animation, who recently enjoyed a creative and financial breakthrough with 2018’s “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” Keeping the visual style of the hit film, but losing the superhero, writer/directors Michael Rianda and Jeff Rowe hunt for a comfortable balance between sensitive material about the familial experience and the frantic scope of the titular war. “The Mitchells vs. the Machines” is superbly crafted and cast, maintaining a sharp sense of humor that plays into today’s meme-saturated world, and it’s guaranteed to please younger viewers eager to watch something that’s silly and speedy. Rianda and Rowe show difficulty sustaining such storytelling velocity, getting lost in the manic energy of the effort, but there are moments of cartoon clarity that keep the movie together.

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It’s about time someone made a film about the world of tabletop gaming, which has experienced a resurgence in popularity over the last five years. Mercifully, writer/director Michael Lovan doesn’t make a documentary with “Murder Bury Win,” instead using the mechanics of gameplay and the ruthlessness of the marketplace to inspire a comedic rendering of board game horrors playing out in the real world. Lovan doesn’t have big bucks to bring his vision to life, instead offering an inspired screenplay that, for the first half, secures a playful understanding of creative partnerships and failure, soon adding some macabre business to twist the material in all sorts of directions. “Murder Bury Win” could use an editorial pruning, but it’s highly amusing at times, offering committed performances and periodic darkness to keep the whole endeavor enjoyable.

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James Cameron likes water. More specifically, he’s fascinated by the depths of the ocean, spending his career exploring strange deep-sea discoveries (1989’s “The Abyss”), aquatic tragedies (1997’s “Titanic”), and has personally spent time in various submersibles, using his incredible wealth to fund voyages into oceanic darkness, offering viewers a chance to experience the underwater world alongside him. Heck, the man even made a movie about flying fishes (1982’s “Piranha II: The Spawning”), so clearly there’s something about this Earthly kingdom he can’t flush out of his system. For “Secrets of the Whales,” Cameron takes an executive producer position, overseeing the creation of a four-part documentary on these magnificent creatures, with directors Brian Armstrong and Andy Mitchell doing the heavy lifting, sending cameras to the far reaches of the world to capture the behavior of whales, getting to understand what makes them tick and identify how much in common they have with humans.

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“Wildcat” is a great example of misleading movie marketing. The production knows it doesn’t have an exciting picture, but there’s no way to sell a story about an American prisoner suffering inside an Iraqi safe house for 90 minutes. That static nature of the material doesn’t lend itself to outside interest, resulting in the creation of a poster that features a tank, marching soldiers, and a fresh image of star Georgina Campbell (none of these elements are present in the effort), and the trailer attempts to portray the endeavor as some type of tense thriller, with plenty of charged confrontations and physical activity. “Wildcat” barely moves during its run time, as writer/director Jonathan W. Stokes is focused on creating a study of endurance in the face of Middle Eastern evil, keeping the script to silences and monologues. It’s a supremely dull offering, but for those electing to watch the film, keep in mind the final cut isn’t anything like the movie the studio is trying to promote.

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“Here Are the Young Men” is an adaptation of a novel by Rob Doyle, which is the first of many problems facing the production. It’s book that takes 304 pages to work through the angst and anger of juvenile characters on the precipice of adulthood, embarking on a destructive summer before responsibility seeks to divide them, possibly forever. Doyle had the benefit of pages to work out these personalities and their tenuous grip on sanity. Writer/director Eoin Macken has 95 minutes to make it through some impossibly bleak and surreal storytelling, and it’s a marathon he can’t complete. “Here Are the Young Men” has ideas on the nature of masculinity and psychopathic tendencies, even squeezing something resembling a commentary on media influence, but Macken is working uphill with this material, struggling to make sense of motivations and subplots, and his taste in casting leaves much to be desired.

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It’s not easy to introduce a vampire film to the masses these days, as the subgenre is loaded with competition, with each endeavor attempting to have fun with monster thrills while dealing the challenge of familiarity. Just last week there was “Jakob’s Wife,” a clever reworking of master/slave relationships, and now there’s “Boys from County Hell,” which brings bloodsucking problems to rural Ireland, combining beer-soaked camaraderie with the dangers that come with a creature of the night. Writer/director Chris Baugh has the right idea with the picture, but doesn’t give the effort enough urgency. “Boys from County Hell” delivers violence and retains interest in becoming a creature feature, eventually, but the path to a payoff is unexpectedly slow, and Baugh struggles with tonality, bringing together fantasy survival challenges and the real-world pain of personal loss, making for quite an uneven movie at times.

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Older action heroes have been created with Liam Neeson and Keanu Reeves, and now it’s Barry Pepper’s turn to throw bits of blue steel around the frame while taking out numerous bad guys. In “Trigger Point,” Pepper portrays a disgraced CIA agent out to clear his name, racing around upstate New York, taking time to engage in shootouts and charged confrontations. Screenwriter Michael Vickerman is tasked with generating a world for “Trigger Point,” creating a fresh franchise for Pepper that’s intended to carry on in multiple sequels. Trouble is, the first installment isn’t all that inspired, with director Brad Turner trying to do something with tight COVID-19 filming restrictions (the movie was shot six months ago), ordered to manufacture some mayhem with writing that doesn’t have interest in such a mood, while Pepper’s hard focus eliminates any personality, making the endeavor glum, with only a few lively elements to keep it passably engaging. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The trials and tribulations of a longstanding marriage are filtered through genre filmmaking in “Jakob’s Wife.” It’s a pairing of domestic disappointment and vampirism that gives the material a special twist, with writers Kathy Charles, Mark Steensland, and Travis Stevens (who also makes his directorial debut) doing something inventive with horror formula and marriage therapy, coming up with an oddball chiller that attempts to offer a little heart before it sucks it dry. Terrific performances from star Barbara Crampton and Larry Fessenden carry the endeavor, which isn’t always confident with tone, losing its way at times. However, the movie is memorable and periodically wicked, managing to bring something different to screens as the story examines common relationship problems while keeping things drenched in blood. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Chinese comedies can be very odd, and “The Rookies” is no exception. It’s an action film with heavy doses of slapstick, trying to merge the worlds of Michael Bay and Jerry Lewis for an extravaganza that’s simply out to entertain, nothing more. Of course, when one considers a freewheeling adventure with wacky personalities getting into all sorts of scrapes, a scene that details one character getting her legs cut off doesn’t seem like a natural fit for the picture that hopes to be hilarious, but this is how “The Rookies” works. The spy movie deals in all sorts of extremes, including casting, with Milla Jovovich collecting a big payday to appear in a few scenes, adding some western star power to an eastern endeavor that’s primarily about grand chases and scenes of silliness. Well, not the dismembering part, but the rest is eager to please. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I’m not sure who’s funding this next generation of VOD films, but they’ve developed a soft spot for George Gallo. Forever billed as the screenwriter of “Midnight Run” and “Bad Boys,” Gallo has recently revived his dormant directorial career, trying to make a noir-ish mystery with 2019’s “The Poison Rose” and make some funny with 2020’s “The Comeback Trail” (which is currently awaiting a U.S. release). For 2021, Gallo teams with writer Samuel Bartlett for “Vanquish,” which is meant to be a lean, mean actioner following an enforcer as she endures dangerous situations to help retrieve her kidnapped child. What’s really going on in “Vanquish” is absolutely nothing. Gallo doesn’t have the first clue what to do with material he co-wrote, pumping in acidic stylistics and clumsy stunts to give the effort some edge, but it doesn’t take. The feature is a complete bore, marching from one dim-witted scene to the next, almost coming across as an attempt from Gallo to win a wager for the world’s most inert movie. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“For the Sake of Vicious” is a collaborative effort from writer/directors Gabriel Carrer and Reese Eveneshen. The twosome attempt to live up to the promise of the title, but there’s something of a story to work out before the carnival of pain begins, with the filmmakers showing less interest in dramatic development. The picture isn’t a striking example of low-budget imagination, finding an already thin plot stretched awkwardly to a short 76-minute-long run time, but once “For the Sake of Vicious” starts to get mean, it perks up substantially, wisely doing away with the demands of screenwriting to create a rough revenge tale featuring the repeated slicing, hammering, and blasting of participants, making the feature much more effective as a visceral viewing experience with limited dialogue exchanges. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The big selling point of “In the Earth” is the story of its creation. Feeling restless during the first few waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, writer/director Ben Wheatley decided to keep marching forward with his filmmaking career, electing to bring a small crew and group of actors into the deep woods to realize a horror movie about the damaging effects of isolation and the mysteries of nature. “In the Earth” plays into the whole iffy idea of a COVID-19 picture released during COVID-19, and I’m not sure there’s going to be much of an audience for the endeavor, but timing is the least of feature’s problems. After attempting to broaden his career with last autumn’s “Rebecca,” Wheatley’s back to his usual helming habits with his latest effort, trying to summon a brain-bleeder with moments of extreme violence, laboring to transform the world around us into a blistering cinematic threat. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s difficult to label “The Banishing” as an unnerving horror movie, but it’s an effective one with periodic moments of successful unease. What writers David Beton, Ray Bogdanovich, and Dean Lines do particularly well is avoid predictability within a premise that’s been seen hundreds of times before. The material deals with the serpentine ways of the Catholic Church and the dark corners of a haunted house, yet “The Banishing” doesn’t surrender itself entirely to formula, with the screenplay working smartly with known quantities to manufacture a descent into Hell that doesn’t go exactly how one expects it to. Director Christopher Smith (“Black Death,” “Detour,” and “Severance”) also has the benefit of a talented cast doing a fine job capturing the Hammer Films atmosphere of the endeavor, giving the drama some needed authority to sustain audience interest. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s been established that writer/director Ben Falcone and actress Melissa McCarthy enjoying working together. The real-life married couple recently collaborated on last November’s “Superintelligence,” and now they’re back with “Thunder Force,” which is their fifth film together. It’s been a problematic partnership, with Falcone a permissive helmer and McCarthy a devout improviser, and while they seem to have the best intentions with their endeavors, it’s been difficult to cheer on the twosome as they consistently create underwhelming pictures. “Thunder Force” is no different, this time putting Falcone and McCarthy in charge of a superhero comedy that’s big on visual effects and limited when it comes to laughs. There’s something to the concept of fortysomething women saving Chicago, but the writing isn’t alert, with Falcone too busy chasing DOA bits instead of mounting a thrilling-but-silly adventure. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

To create his latest film, writer/director Neil Burger finds inspiration in the 1954 William Golding book, “The Lord of the Flies.” The novel has been reworked and reimagined many times over the decades, but Burger has the idea to take mounting tensions between young people into space, creating a sci-fi take on power plays and situations of survival. It’s an interesting way to refresh the concept, giving the helmer a different approach to a familiar story, with Burger’s take more about primal adolescent behaviors running wild inside a spaceship. “Voyagers” isn’t as taut as it could be, but the production has a captivating first half, examining the slow unraveling of order as control involving kids is lost, creating chaos in a confined setting. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com