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Spellbound (2024)
Skydance Animation's sophomore effort is a marked improvement from Luck with a stronger emotional core, even if they still have some rough spots to iron out
Set in the magical land of Lumbria, Princess Ellian (Rachel Zegler) along with royal advisors Bolinar (John Lithgow) and Nazara (Jenifer Lewis) have been attempting to maintain order in the kingdom for the past year as the King (Javier Bardem) and Queen (Nicole Kidman) have been transformed into wild destructive monsters. Having nearly exhausted excuses to quell suspicion among high ranking figures such as General Cardona (Olga Merediz), Ellian enlists the aid of Oracles Sunny (Tituss Burgess) and Luno (Nathan Lane) to find a way to break the curse which sets Ellian on an adventure with her two monster parents to find it, only to be challenged with the reality of the situation.
Spellbound is the sophomore feature of Skydance Animation, the animation division of Skydance Media which is notable for its controversial association with former Disney Animation head John Lasseter. Much like 2022's Luck, Spellbound was one of the two projects announced by the company during its initial formation under the working title of Split when it was setup at Paramount. Following Paramount's decision to depart from Skydance's projects the film along with Luck wound up at Apple TV only for Apple to drop Spellbound after Luck's release and the film along with a continuing distribution agreement wound up at Netflix who will now be the distributor for Skydance Animation's films going forward. Spellbound much like the company's previous effort Luck has a lot of talent behind it including Shrek director Vicky Jenson returning to the director's chair for the first time in 15 years and noted composer Alan Menken composing the music, but unlike Luck it actually has a story and stakes that feel fleshed out with an emotional core even if there are still some rough spots thanks partially to studio growing pains as well as trends in modern animation that I'm not a fan of.
In terms of its visuals, the film looks great and everything from the textures, to the architecture, to the creature and character designs looks and feels very vibrant and alive. The animation ranges from playful and comedic such as with Ellian's chipmunk-like sidekick Flink or the oracles Sunny and Luno wonderfully played by Nathan Lane and Tituss Burgess and stealing all their scenes, to more dramatic and emotional sequences in which Ellia longs for things to return to how they once were or getting brief glimpses of her parents as the people she once knew. Rachel Zegler is quite good playing Ellian and definitely gives her a strong sense of youthful energy while also expressing a frustration at being the one to hold things together for the sake of normalcy in spite of her parents' monstrous tantrums. Javier Bardem and Nicole Kidman are also quite good as the king and queen with Bardem's king being more of a strong willed but goofy character while Kidman's queen is more pragmatic but still nurturing and level headed and they do a good job in showing them regain their human faculties throughout the runtime.
Admittedly some of the writing occasionally does the thing a lot of modern animated fantasy films do where they add forced modern day lingo for awkward laughs such as phrases like "keeping it cazh" or other things of that nature. Granted this isn't a strictly new issue with animation as it's been a quasi-mainstay of animation ever since 1992's Aldaddin became the highest grossing film of that year with many attributing it to The Genie, and and then with 2001's Shrek sort of building upon the humor and style of The Genie it sort of developed from there. I also wasn't a huge fan of the way the screenplay has Ellian break the fourth wall in the beginning and end of the movie to directly address the audience but this is more a personal preference thing than an issue with the movie. I also admit that Alan Menken's song were just okay as while I didn't dislike any of the songs I'm kind of struggling to remember them even this soon after watching.
While the movie's story doesn't stray too far from this kind of animated fairy tale (you can definitely see shades of Frozen, Tangled, and Brave) despite having a fair share of flaws, I actually did like how it tackles the issue of divorce in a way that's approachable and fits relatively well within the world the film creates. Films aimed at children certainly are no stranger to discussing divorce as Mrs. Doubtfire had it as a major plot element and even shows like Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street have tackled the subject, and I feel Spellbound does a nice job of giving the message that sometimes two people just can't be together but they can still love their children and be a happy family. A harsh truth, sure, but one you can also take comfort in.
I honestly liked Spellbound a lot more than I expected. While it does have some flaws that are sometimes its own and sometimes of mainstream filmmaking's expectations for "animated films", it has a good heart and a good message that's told in a mostly successful way. It's a marked improvement from Luck because it does tell a more cohesive story with a set direction and it's made optimistic enough about the potential of this studio.
Luck (2022)
Well-made and with a promising enough concept, Skydance's debut animated feature has plenty of surface level polish without providing all that much substance.
Sam Greenfield (Eva Noblezada) is an 18 year old woman who having been passed over for adoption several times is now living on her own while still weathering a barrage of bad luck. As her young friend still at the orphanage, Hazel (Adelynn Spoon), prepares for a visit and potential adoption Sam wishes she could give her something to help her luck while lamenting she can't give what she doesn't have. After sharing her meal with a stray black cat, she finds a lucky penny and experiences good luck for an entire day until a mishap leads to the penny being lost. Sam sees the cat again at the same spot and voices her frustration at having lost the penny leading to the cat revealing he can talk and then rushing off in a panic. Sam follows the cat through a portal and winds up in the Land of Luck much to the cat's annoyance. The cat introduces itself as Bob (Simon Pegg) and tells Sam the penny she lost was a luck penny and the two form an alliance and Sam disguised as a tall leprechaun explores the Land of Luck with Bob intent on finding the penny to keep Bob from being banished to the Bad Luck side of the land and also finding luck for Hazel.
Luck is a 2022 animated film which is the inaugural release of Skydance Media's animation division which saw release through Apple's Subscription VOD service. The production of Luck began in 2017 when it was a co-production between Skydance and Paramount with Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger credited as the initial writers of the screenplay. In 2019 when Skydance hired former head of Disney Animation, John Lasseter, to head their animation division, this caused a schism with the Paramount side of the production due to the allegations that led to Lasseter's departure from Disney which led the Paramount dropping the project and Apple picking it up. The film became subject to significant re-writes and cast departures with the original premise of a "millennia old conflict between good and bad luck" re-engineered into more of a workplace comedy with fish-out-of-water elements and slapstick with comedic stylings of Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, and silent film comedians cited as influences on the direction. When the movie was released, it was mostly to scores of indifference and while I can't confirm viewership figures Apple opted not to release Skydance Animation's follow-up film Spellbound with the company next setting up with Netflix. Luck as an animated movie has a lot of polish and color as you'd expect, but it's also incredibly light without leaving much impact.
In terms of plotting, Luck is very much a "accidental traveler" story where a grounded real-world proxy, in this case Eva Noblezada's Sam, reacts against the strangeness and whimsy of an unfamiliar land or world. The defining trait of Sam is as someone who maintains her optimism in the face of a near continuous string of bad luck which includes the rather harsh reality of having lived as an orphan for 18 years without ever being adopted. This is one of those elements that doesn't really mesh with the "happy go lucky" tone the movie goes for because things like this do have significantly more weight and impact than just a "run of bad luck" you let wash over you and the whole approach feels like it's making light of the situation. In terms of the world building, the movie has had significant comparisons made between it and Pixar films like Monsters Inc., Inside Out, and Soul where you take abstract or fantastical concepts and place them in a bureaucratic environment similar to how Beetlejuice approached the afterlife, but perhaps due to all the re-writes there's not a whole lot of identity to this world making the world building rather spotty. They do offer some tidbits like "good luck keeps hope alive" or "we exist to bring luck to your world" and in the case of bad luck it "teaches you to pivot" (rather iffy about that myself), but then you have things that don't make sense like if luck distribution is so randomized why does so much of it inordinately affect Sam? Luck is the kind of movie where it looks fine on the surface, but once you peel away the upper layer you see just how empty it is beneath. Luck has the look and feel of something that's desperately trying to be like a Pixar film even down to the obligatory John Ratzenberger cameo only without the polish and care you associate with a Pixar film (certain exceptions notwithstanding).
Luck clearly has plenty of money, resources, and talent behind it, but the end result is such a confused hodgepodge of half formed concepts and ideas that were it not for my knowledge otherwise I'd swear this was a first draft. If you have kids who just want something colorful for 90 minutes I suppose you could do worse, but you can also do better.
Cactus Flower (1969)
A well-made farce with incisive commentary on relationships an encapsulating its late 60s social sensibilities
In New York City, dentist Julian Winston (Walter Matthau) feels he has found a good balance to his life as he leaves the finer details of his working day to his assistant Stephanie Dickinson (Ingrid Bergman) while maintaining a relationship with record store clerk Toni Simmons (Goldie Hawn) who thinks Julian is married as Julian lied to create an illusion of transparency with her while keeping their relationship from becoming more serious. After Julian cancels one date too many with Toni, she attempts to commit suicide through use of the stove in her apartment only to be saved by her writer neighbor Igor Sullivan (Rick Lenz). Despite her attempts to keep Julian from learning about the attempt and never seeing him again, Julian learns what transpired and realizing how badly he's treated her tells her he'll marry her. Concerned over the welfare of Julian's non-existent wife whom he claims wants a divorce as much as he does, Julian enlists the reluctant aid of Stephanie to play the part of his wife and complications arise.
Cactus Flower is a 1969 comedy film adapted from the 1965 Broadway play of the same name which itself was an adaptation of a French play. A considerable financial and critical hit in its day, the film became the ninth highest grossing film of 1969 and also launched the film career of Goldie Hawn who had been a regular on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and made her feature debut in this film that won her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. A sharp and witty film with lots of quick exchanges and flawed but compelling characters, Cactus Flower serves as a very funny film that while somewhat dated also works as a time capsule in its analysis of relationships.
Walter Matthau is once again very good as he plays Julian as someone who is despicable in his treatment of women and is on some level aware of it but also goes for the most objectively wrong decision rather than face up to his responsibility. Ingrid Bergman is also very good as Julian's assistant Stephanie who cares for him arranging his appointments, meals, and clothes while maintaining a professional wall between herself and work and like her titular cactus flower comes into bloom softening her seemingly hard exterior as the film goes on and creating a spark between Julian and Stephanie. Goldie Hawn is also very good as Toni who on the surface is a ditzy pixie but also possesses a high level of emotional intuition and insight that pays off in a big way in the climax. The movie has some solid insights on its relationships including the age gap between Julian and Toni with a conversation between Julian and Stephanie wherein Julian says it's acceptable with an older man and younger woman while claiming the inverse to be improper met with good decisive tear down by Bergman's Stephanie and you get an interesting sense of the transitional period as it came to gender roles and relationships of the era.
Cactus Flower is an entertaining and very sweet farce that is certainly dated in some degrees to its takes on relationships and sex, but it's also an intriguing capture of the era in which it was produced while also possessing razor sharp wit and precision timing from its ensemble.
V/H/S/Beyond (2024)
One of the weaker VHS entries though not without some strong points
As a documentary detailing a popular alien abduction site in Toronto plays, the footage is interrupted by various vignettes showing supernatural (though mainly extraterrestrial) encounters.
V/H/S/Beyond is the seventh entry in the V/H/S franchise that starting with soft reboot V/H/S/94 has become a regular staple of horror streaming service Shudder. The producers opted to have this installment being sci-fi based (as a sort of in-joke on horror franchises such as Hellraiser and Friday the 13th going into space in certain entries) and what results is something that's not without charm, but is in my opinion one of the lesser entries in the series.
The main narrative thread, Jay Cheel's Abduction/Adduction, following a documentary involving investigating a popular alien abduction spot in Toronto and anonymous alien proof tapes from a Redditor is nicely produced I guess and feels like something you'd see on one of those "Aliens: Fact or Fiction?" type shows, but while it's well produced with some humorous moments it doesn't really have a big payoff nor is it all that scary even with its ending stinger that was kind of disappointing.
The next segment, the Jordan Downey directed Stork written by Downey with Kevin Stewart, follows a group of cops who are part of a unit called W. A. R. D. E. N. investigating a rash of kidnapped infants (one of whom is a team member's child) and the raid reveals the abductors are not of this Earth. Essentially a police ride-along where the perps are monsters, it's an idea that's certainly been done before such as the short lived series Death Valley or the standalone X-Files episode X-Cops, but for what it is it delivers even if the monsters sometimes veer into silliness.
The second segment, the Virat Pal directed Dream Girl which Pal writes with Evan Dickson, follows two Paparazzi in Mumbai seeking to get footage of Bollywood star Tara only to discover beneath Tara's delicate beauty lurks something colder and deadly. The short covers very familiar territory satirizing the cult of celebrity and impossible beauty standards albeit transplanting it outside the usual Hollywood setting and into the Indian entertainment industry through a western lens. It goes through the motions well enough, though the reveal as to what Tara is goes into territory so ridiculous and prompting further questions that its brutal finale is more funny than scary.
The third segment, The Justin Martinez directed Live and Let Dive which Martinez writes with Ben Turner, follows a group of characters celebrating the birthday of one of their own by taking him skydiving only for the celebration to be cut short with the arrival of a UFO, some military fighter jets, and a mid air collision that sends the survivors hurtling downward. The segment has some good buildup and an excellent middle portion where we follow the POV through a go-pro struggling to open his chute in mid-air, but once on the ground it goes into very standard territory with characters rushing around an orange grove with an alien monster that's not all that unique or special. In short: excellent setup, standard payoff.
The penultimate short, Fur Babies written and directed by brothers Christian and Justin Long, follows a group of animal rights activists investigating a dog daycare run by Becky (Libby Letlow) by going undercover as dog boarders only to discover Becky's professed love of dogs manifests as a violent hatred of humans. Largely throwing away "sci-fi" theme of this short, Fur Babies instead goes into more bodily mutilation territory similar to Human Centipede or Tusk (rather funny because Justin Long was in Tusk). The biggest asset to the short is definitely Libby Letlow as Becky who's just fantastic in the role playing someone cloyingly sweet who can turn on a dime and reveal an ugly darkness within. I'd honestly compare it to something like Kathy Bates' performance as Annie Wilkes from Misery she's that good. Even as someone who didn't like Human Centipede or Tusk, I actually did kind of like this one for how insane it got with the directions it takes.
The final short, Stowaway directed by Kate Siegel and written by her husband Mike Flanagan, follows a woman named Halley (Alanah Pearce) who having left her family behind travels to the Mojave Desert to investigate alien sightings and finds and boards an alien ship where she uses technology that's not "user friendly" when it comes to humans. This is probably the best realized take on the whole sci-fi concept as Siegel and Flanagan create something truly memorable and alien without even having a traditional antagonist as the aliens seem largely unaware or indifferent to Halley's presence on board. The ship features some excellent creepy production design and a healing technology leads to some solid body horror that's reminiscent of something like Croneberg's The Fly.
As with many anthologies V/H/S/Beyond is a mixture of peaks and valleys, but ultimately I felt the peaks were outnumbered by the valleys. While I liked Stowaway, the frame story and other sci-fi based shorts were very underwhelming in my opinion. And while I respected the insane turns taken by Justin and Christian Long's Fur Babies as a spiritual sequel to Tusk of all things with a great performance by Libby Letlow, I do have to question its placement here when it strays so far from what's supposed to be the core theme of this installment. Some good things to appreciate, but definitely the lesser of the Shudder era franchise entries while being better than V/H/S and Viral.
Azrael (2024)
Stylish and brutal, Samara Weaving gives a solid visual and physical performance in this dialogue free action horror that delivers
In the aftermath of the Rapture, Azrael (Samara Weaving) and her lover Kenan (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) are outcasts from a cult that have renounced the "sin of speech" by surgically removing their vocal chords. When the two are captured by the cult with Azrael sacrificed to the burned creatures that prowl the land she narrowly manages to escape and embarks on a quest of retribution against the cult.
Azrael comes to us from director E. L. Katz and writer Simon Barrett. The film came about as something personal for Barrett as per an interview by Katz with Comic Book Resources, Barrett came from a religiously oppressive upbringing and incorporated that with a dream he had that served as the basis for what would become Azrael. Uncompromisingly brutal and atmospheric, Azrael creates an engaging and immersive experience thanks to a strong lead and an effectively atmospheric world.
While Azrael covers well trodden ground of stories involving aftermath of the Rapture (such as the multitude of unimpressive Left Behind films), Azrael largely acts as a subversion of those films and is less about reaffirming faith with fear and more about creating a twisted world of faith gone wrong to the point it robs its followers (willing or unwilling) of their ability to speak leaving them in a cold unforgiving world without reason or argument. Being a dialogueless film, the actors have to rely more upon facial expressions, action, and suggestion to create character and build the world and they do so quite effectively with Samara Weaving particularly good as the titular Azrael. While the film is relatively small scale and features another visit to the all too familiar location of the woods with many films inspired by the likes of A Quiet Place (such as the recent and underwhelming Never Let Go) I felt it did a good enough job with its creation of the cult compound and the surrounding atmosphere to largely avoid the traps of some other similar films from this year. The movie has an absolutely fantastic ending that pays off the carnage in a memorably disturbing fashion and it made me think of the underrated Gareth Evans horror film Apsotle from 2018 and makes a great companion piece.
I really enjoyed Azrael. While it does cover familiar ground, it also creates a stylish and unique atmosphere and useless the increasingly common "no dialogue" gimmick to solid effect and creates a memorably brutal and engaging ride.
Nutcracker (1986)
The film adaptation of the Pacific Northwest Ballet's The Nutcracker with production and costumes by Maurice Sendak is an adequately surreal interpretation of the ballet
Set on Christmas Eve, a young girl named Clara recounts a dreamlike evening involving her Godfather, Drosselmeyer, and an adventure with a magical Nutcracker.
Nutcracker: The Motion Picture is an adaptation of the Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB) production of The Nutcracker from 1983 that featured production design and costuming by Maurice Sendak. Despite Sendak initially turning down the opportunity as he didn't like the largely plotless nature of the ballet but would change his mind when company director Kent Stowell said they'd work the concept from scratch and adapt more of the themes from the source novel, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E. T. A. Hoffmann. An immediate critical and commercial success, it wasn't long before executives from the Walt Disney Company convinced Stowell and Sendak to adapt their version of The Nutcracker to film. Filmed on a tight budget, the team had initially wanted to incorporate more elements from the Hoffmann story for the film version (namely the "Hard Nut" plot element often omitted from adaptations) but due to the rushed nature of the production and the producer's desire for something cheap for the Christmas season this didn't come to pass. Given mixed reviews from critics and largely ignored at the box office, the film mostly came and went without much fanfare. Despite not really leaving a lasting impact, Nutcracker: The Motion Picture probably ranks among the better adaptations of the ballet for film.
From the opening scenes in Drosselmeyer's workshop to the production design that features more elaborately designed take-offs on the stage production, the Sendak designed production does an adequate job of creating a surreal environment that's whimsical while also possessing some more unnerving elements. Going back to the Hoffman source novel, Sendak and company have tried and mostly succeeded in giving the largely anemic Nutcracker a more psychological bent focusing on Clara's coming of age and the distance she takes from Drosselmeyer no longer being a child. There's certainly a lot to read into there (especially since in the original stage production Drosselmeyer was portrayed as something of a "dirty old man" before being reworked as a distant loner obsessed with toys and whimsy) and it doesn't dive especially deep into that side of things, but it does add some more subtext to something that originally was largely plotless. In terms of the dancing and staging, director Carroll Ballard does a solid job of adapting the wordless stage production to film, keeping the world familiar while also incorporating more dynamic camera work and a sense of immersion in the world. The choice to keep the sets and props deliberately artificial looking may have been done due to budget reasons, but it actually does work to the film's advantage and helps immerse the viewers in the dreamlike atmosphere of the production.
For those who aren't enamored with the Nutcracker I don't think this will change too much of your stance on it, but for me personally it's probably the best way to experience it on both a stylistic and thematic level. Sendak's production and costume designs are beautifully realized emphasizing both bright whimsy and darker surrealism Carroll Ballard captures and films the dances and world quite nicely.
A Gnome Named Gnorm (1990)
Anthony Michael Hall's final attempt to become a capable leading man is a strange little mash-up of E.T. and buddy cop comedy that doesn't quite work
Set in Los Angeles, Detective Casey Gallagher (Anthony Michael Hall) is seen as a joke by most of the force due to his unconventional and lackadaisical attitude and is given the opportunity by Captain Stan Walton (Jerry Orbach) to run point on a sting involving diamond smuggler Zadar (Eli Danker). With Detective Samatha Kennedy (Claudia Christian) and Detective Kaminsky working backup, the sting seems poised for success until an unknown assailant arrives knocking Gallagher unconcious. Having lost the diamonds and the cash Gallagher is blamed for the failure and is taken off the case and after finding a satchel with a stone returns home. Gallager soon discovers a strange little creature named Gnorm (Rob Paulson) has followed him home and wants the stone back, but Gallagher will only give it back if Gnorm can identify the assailant he witnessed in the park.
A Gnome Named Gnorm (aka Upworld) is a 1989 action comedy (though released in 1994) directed by Stan Winston and written by producers and occasional screenwriters John Watson and Pen Densham who are best known for writing Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. The film came about from Watson wanting to do a mash-up in the style of. As he described it "E. T. meets 48 Hrs." which laid the groundwork for the initial idea. Initially intended to be a theatrical release, the film found itself in limbo after the original distributor Vestron Pictures went bankrupt and the film sat on a shelf for four years until being released direct to video. A Gnome Named Gnorm is a strange little experiment in its mixture of 80s stalwarts like buddy-cops and magical creatures, but not one that's altogether successful.
Being directed by someone who specializes in special effects, I will say that Winston and his team are to be commended for the work done in bringing the titular Gnorm to life. Created using a mixture of animatronics and puppetry, the creation of Gnorm from a technical perspective is well done and avoids some of the issues that have plagued similar productions (such as Howard the Duck for example). Outside of that however, A Gnome Named Gnorm isn't all that interesting as it goes through a very mediocre retread of standard buddy cop cliches without any real meat or substance to the mystery or the characters. While the film tries to do a parallel of Gnorm and Gallagher being "outsider oddballs" who are disregarded by their peers, there's very little time spent developing them beyond broad archetypes delivering one liners and clumsy slapstick. Gnorm himself is essentially a mix of an Ewok by way of Johnny 5 (Paulson's voice even sounds similar) and aside from being horny and using a spouting a lot of euphemisms for women's posteriors and breasts there's not a whole lot there character wise. Anthony Michael Hall once again shows why he struggled to become a leading man following his failed efforts with Out of Bounds and Johnny Be Good and while the character as written is mostly an inept doofus who has no real busniness doing what he does, Hall comes across as very stiff without any strong showcase of comic timing or leading man charisma.
A Gnome Named Gnorm is the kind of movie where you can definitely feel it was the product of the producers because it feels like the creative thought started and ended with the pitch of "E. T. meets 48 Hrs." before handing it off to the production team to make a purse out of a Sow's ear. It's really just the last dying gasp of two worn into the ground 80s genre formats haphazardly tied together in a vain attempt at squeezing blood from a long drained stone.
Out of Bounds (1986)
Anthony Michael Hall tries to escape his Brat Pack identity in a clumsily plotted potboiler
As his parents experience turbulence in their marriage, Iowa farm boy Daryl Cage (Anthony Michael Hall) travels to Los Angeles to spend the Summer with his older brother Tommy (Kevin McCorkle) and wife Chris (Linda Shayne). At the airport, Darryl's duffel bag is mixed up with one belonging to crook Roy Gaddis (Jeff Kober) containing 10 kilos of heroin. Roy tracks down Tommy's address killing Tommy and Chris, and when Darryl discovers their bodies bad timing by a neighbor's arrival results in him being framed for their murders and forced on the run. Without any friends or family to turn to, Darryl enlists the help of a waitress/aspiring actress Dizz (Jenny Wright) he met on the plane with the two trying to navigate their way to the true owner of the bag in order to clear Darryl's name.
Out of Bounds is a 1986 action-thriller directed by Richard Tuggle and written by Tony Dayden. The film came about from a desire by executive producer John Tarnoff to do a "fish out of water" story set in the L. A. club scene with Tuggle and Kayden crafting the film around the idea while also making it Hitchcockian style "innocent man on the run" story. Anthony Michael Hall was cast as the lead as Tuggle thought he had a vulnerability that would play well to the audience, while Hall himself was interested in distancing himself from his "Brat Pack" image and had struggled to get projects like The Basketball Diaries adaptation or being beaten out for the lead in Full Metal Jacket. When the film was released, it received mostly mixed to negative reviews and was mostly ignored at the box office opening in 11th place behind several Summer holdovers and making a little over $5 million against an estimated $9 million budget. Out of Bounds has a certain curiosity factor marking the beginning of a slump in Hall's career, but as a movie itself: it's a very generic and not very well made product.
In terms of Anthony Michael Hall's try at something more dramatic, it's not particularly interesting. A large part of that could be the writing as Hall's Darryl Cage is a very generic Iowa farmboy with little personality and his little more than a sounding board against the L. A. club scene. I suppose he does well enough during the action beats, but he doesn't really have much of a character and we've seen better dramatic turns from Hall in films in comedies like Vacation and The Breakfast Club so it doesn't even really use Hall all that effectively. In terms of plot, Out of Bounds is held together with duct tape and hope. While every "innocent man on the run" story like this requires a certain level of suspension of disbelief, it usually helps when you create compelling characters, witty dialogue, or passionate romance to help sell the scenario. The logical leaps the movie goes through to have Darryl involve Jenny Wright's Dizz on the plot are baffling and the impetus for forcing Darryl on the run in the first place requires so many stupid decisions by Darryl, the villain, and the police that it felt like I was watching a first draft.
Out of Bounds as a test vehicle for Hall as a leading man is a failure as while he's shown to be capable enough in the action beats, he's played as such a personality free stiff that he doesn't really engage romantically with co-star Jenny Wright or as a sympathetic figure to the audience. There's a certain curiosity to how it captures contemporary L. A., but by that same measure there's other films that have done that and been good films in their own right.
Caddo Lake (2024)
The writing directing duo of Celine Held and Logan George create an engaging mystery with strong performances by Dyaln O'Brien and Eliza Scanlen
Set in and around the Caddo Lake area boardering Texas and Louisiana, a young man named Paris (Dylan O'Brien) is still mourning the death of his mother from a seizure that has no clear explanation. Meanwhile, a young teenager named Ellie (Eliza Scanlen) who is at odds with her mother Celeste (Lauren Ambrose) over her husband Daniel (Eric Lange) still processes lingering grief caused by her father having allegedly died. When Ellie's half sister Anna (Caroline Falk) disappears one day on the lake, Ellie's search efforts cause her to stumble upon a decade spanning mystery that ties not only to her sister, but her father as well.
Caddo Lake from filmaking duo Celine Held and Logan George is their sophomore feature following their 2020 film Topside which led to them directing some episodes of the M. Night Shyamalan produced horror series Servant. Initially written under the title Vanishings, Shyamalan produced the film through his production company Blinding Edge with Warner Bros. Releasing it through streaming service Max. Caddo Lake is a nicely made small scale thriller with lots of twists and humanity and it's a shame Warner Bros. Didn't give it a theatrical run like they did with Shyamalan's other projects like Trap and The Watchers.
As the movie starts, Caddo Lake does a nice job of establishing the small and isolated community of its titular area with Held and George approaching the material in a manner similar to a movie by Jeff Nichols or Michael Sarnoski. It's a very character based story and the lake itself is very much a character and it's used well in telling painting a depiction of the Southern United States highlighting the positive aspects of the community while also emphasizing the very real problems faced by the denizens. Both Dylan O'Brien and Eliza Scanlen are very good broken protagonists who are working their way through their unprocessed grief and while the movie does veer into high concept territory when the mystery begins it works in well with the character drama. I will say that while I was satisfied with the resolution, it did feel like it didn't coalesce as neatly as I expected it. While the two plot threads start (as expected) pretty detatched from each other, Paris and Ellie's stories do become more connected as it goes on and but it did feel kind of like it wasn't fully explored as there wasn't really an intersection point for the two characters (and that's about all I can say without going into spoiler territory).
Caddo Lake is a solid small scale mystery that mixes high drama and high concept quite effectively thanks to Held and George's direction and writing and some solid performances by O'Brien and Scanlen. While I wish the third act had tied the plot threads together more fully, it's still an engaging film that kept me watching until I had the answers.
Transformers One (2024)
This Transformers prequel delivers on the aspects of the franchise people love while eschewing the pitfalls of many of its live-action predecessors
Set on the planet Cybertron, a race of robots live in the subterranean Iacon City under the leadership of Sentinel Prime (Jon Hamm) where society is divided based on those who can transform at the top, while those who can't are relegated to menial labor mining their fuel source energon. Miner Orion Pax (Chris Hemsworth) dreams of becoming more than their society will allow him while his best friend D-16 (Brian Tyree Henry) feels they shouldn't challenge the status quo. When the two are relegated to salvage duty with B-127 (Keegan-Michael Key), they find an old distress signal from Alpha Trion (Laurence Fishburne) one of the Prime robots who supposedly fell in battle against the Quintessons. Using the coordinates from the message and the reluctant help of Elita-1 (Scarlett Johansson), the four embark on a journey to find the lost Matrix of Leadership in the hopes of restoring Cybertron to its former glory and soon find themselves confronted with a new reality contradicting everything they've been told.
Transformers One is the long in development animated prequel to Paramount's Transformers films franchise that has been in various stages of development for the better part of 10 years. Josh Cooley writer of Inside Out and director of Toy Story 4 was hired to direct the film and the creative team of Eric Pearson, Andrew Barrer, and Gabriel Ferrari crafted the film with the intent of telling an epic story but also injecting humanity and humor into the characters as unlike other films in the franchise it had no human characters. Transformers One is easily the best entry in this franchise even accounting for the very good Bumblebee.
Transformers One makes a great impression from the outset as its depiction of Cybertron its robot society are visually interesting and rich in detail. The movie plays as a sort of suped up version of the 80s animated series stylistically speaking as the characters retain the familiar designs of their Generation One counterparts only with some slight streamlining done to take advantage of the animation resources. While I'm not as entrenched in Transformers lore as many others are, there's certainly a lot to appreciate here if you remember the old cartoon and there's a ton of good use from cameos and easter eggs (but there are some forced references such as how they work in "more than meets the eye"). Chris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree Henry are really good as Orion Pax and D-16 respectively and they have solid chemistry together playing more youthful versions of Optimus Prime and Megatron where despite being relatively more carefree you can see seeds of who they'll eventually become and the journey from being friends to becoming enemies is a strong emotional core upon which the movie is built. Scarlett Johansson I thought was good as Elita-1 and made a good serious counterpoint to Hemsworth's Orion with her stern attitude making her a solid straightman to the humor even at times where Keegan-Michael Key's B-127 flirted with becoming grating (though maintained good balance for the most part). The one point I'd say could've used some polish was the movie doesn't really explain the Quintessons who are a pretty big part of the "why" of a certain plot point and there's heavy lore drops that the movie kind of takes for granted the audience knows, but luckily it keeps the story mostly pretty simple and with only a handful of characters so it's still reasonably approachable even if you're not super familiar with this franchise.
I really enjoyed Transformers One and it's a shame it opened in such close proximity to The Wild Robot with much of its target audience going to it. While The Wild Robot is the superior film, Transformers One is definitely worth checking out as it's an enjoyable character based adventure that gives Transformers fans what they've wanted ever since the first live-action film in 2007.
The Wild Robot (2024)
Possibly a high point reached by Dreamworks, but also a beautifully told story touching on themes of nature, technology, family, and the ability to adapt
Set on a secluded island, service robot ROZZUM unit 7134 "Roz" (Lupita Nyong'o) has been inadvertently activated with no humans to assist and is instead forced to learn how to communicate with the island's wildlife. Unable to gain the trust of the animals who view her as a monster, Roz attempts to signal a retrieval signal to manufacturer Universal Dynamics only for a series of misshaps to result in Roz accidently crushing a nest of Geese save for one egg that Roz cares for and protects from fox named Fink (Pedro Pascal). When the egg hatches, Roz manages to find a purpose with herself in raising a runt goose she names Brightbill and with Fink's help from an arrangement where she feeds him tries to prepare Brightbill for the world.
The Wild Robot is the latest film from Dreamworks Animation (and their final film to be done entirely in-house before relying more on outside contractors) and is written and directed by Chris Sanders and adapted from series of novels of the same name by author Peter Brown. Sanders had apparently been introduced to the book when Dreamworks acquired the rights and upon reading the book became intrigued by the possibilities as it allowed him to use some ideas he'd abandoned for Lilo & Stitch (such as Stitch bonding with wild animals) and also allowed him to explore parenthood. The Wild Robot has been a critical and commercial hit and rightly so because it easily ranks alongside Dreamworks' best and grandest works.
Playing like a mixture of Cast Away by way of WALL-E, The Wild Robot takes many familiar elements of survival stories and unconventional family stories and mixes them quite nicely into an engaging experience. From the first time we meet Roz where she is awakened by otters on a beach and her pre-programmed greetings do little other than scaring away those she encounters, we get an interesting look at a machine stumbling (literally) over its programming in unfamiliar territory before it's forced to adapt by watching and learning in order to communicate with the creatures on the island. The animation used to convey the wooded island uses a mixture of backgrounds with a painted aesthetic and more simplistic shapes for the characters and it creates a very stylish picture book aesthetic that is complemented by a more naturalistic approach to the environments and characters.
There's a lot to like with The Wild Robot because while it does feature Sanders returning to themes he tackled in Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon like family or distrust of the outsider, it also has a lot of subtext beneath it's simple story by giving a sense of depth to its world and characters that rewards repeated viewings. Even in the background there's an underlying theme of the preservation of the world and kindness being a survival skill with some truly haunting background images that bring to mind similar approaches from films like Samson & Sally. Lupita Nyong'o is really good as Roz as she starts off as a very standard digital assistant who slowly becomes more emotional as she adapts to her new surroundings and she's well paired with Pedro Pascal's Fink who starts as a self interested opportunist who develops a friendship with Roz. We also get some good supporting work from Ving Rhames, Catherine O'Hara, and Mark Hamil and while the film tells a complete story leaves enough ground for a follow-up that I'm excited for.
I really enjoyed The Wild Robot and feel it easily ranks among the best works DreamWorks has made. With a likable cast, beautiful designs, and a simple story boasting deep themes it's the kind of film that caters to kids and adults on multiple levels and is sure to be adopted as a generational classic.
Here (2024)
Robert Zemeckis reteams with his Forrest Gump writer and leads to deliver an impressive technical showcase built on overly saccharine and sentimental material
Set primarily within the living room of a New England colonial house and the surrounding property, the film goes in non-linear fashion to various inhabitants of the house and surrounding property from indigenous peoples on the undeveloped land to the original and subsequent owners of the house.
Here is an adaptation of the 1989 six panel comic turned graphic novel by Richard McGuire that is based around the concept of focusing on a single area (in this case, a living room) and showing that area at different points in time. The rights to Here were acquired jointly by Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks with Eric Roth set to write the script with the three having previously been behind Forrest Gump. With an Autumnal release date and impressive talent in front of and behind the camera, Here seems like it has all the ingredients for a potentially great film....but the end result can't help but feel somewhat out of balance.
In terms of describing exactly what Here is, I guess it belongs to that category of films like Cloud Atlas and The Tree of Life that try to tell small scale human stories within a larger scale context. Simultaneously playing itself in very limited location while also spanning millennia, Here tries to play with themes like nostalgia, family, regret, or history repeating itself and to a degree there are some effective moments (such as covering both the Spanish Flu and Covid-19 pandemics), but there's often a contrived feeling to some of the family dynamics on display with certain sequences sometimes feeling like they're playing to melodrama or others feeling more in line with an old sitcom (not helped by the stationary camera adding to that feeling). It really feels like as a team Eric Roth and Robert Zemeckis are playing to a similar level that Forrest Gump did in the 90s and given the harsh realities experienced in real life situations portrayed in this film it has a similar feeling of detached reality like you'd get when comparing an episode of Leave it to Beaver with contemporary 50s life.
Here certainly has its heart in the right place and is bold in its unconventional style of filmmaking that ages and de-ages the actors in real time (to reasonable effect), but the material is less drama and more melodrama and has a rose tinted approach that just feels too detached from reality (even with scenes addressing Covid or a black family advising their teenage son to always keep his hands visible when getting pulled over by the police). The cast are all perfectly fine in their roles, but while I appreciate the experimental nature of Here I really don't see myself returning to it due to just how little I felt was there beneath the surface.
Absolution (2024)
Neeson's latest genre flick gives the actor slightly more meat to chew on, but it's also often meandering and unfocused
Set in Boston, the film follows a former boxer turned low level enforcer (Liam Neeson) working for local crime boss Charlie Connor (Ron Perlman). After he starts forgetting things, the enforcer goes to a doctor who informs him that a lifetime of taking continuous blows to the head has left him with CTE. With no treatment or medicine available and an unclear estimation of how much time he has left, the enforcer starts preparing to get his affairs in order including re-establishing contact with his estranged daughter Rosie (Frankie Shaw).
Absolution is the latest vehicle for Liam Neeson who in over the past 20 years has become synonymous with these mid budgeted thrillers and crime films that while not the blockbusters they were 20 years ago are still profitable thanks to "downstream revenues" (streaming rights, international sales, etc.). Absolution sees Neeson reteaming with director Hans Petter Moland after the two collaborated on Cold Pursuit (remade from Moland's own In Order of Disappearance) and written by writer Joe Gayton. Despite being marketed as another Neeson fronted action film, absolution is really more of a noir tinged drama with some genre elements that while more ambitious than some films he's done isn't all that successful.
As per usual Neeson is playing a very standard "seasoned tough guy" as his career has taken a route previously taken by actors such as Charles Bronson, but there is at least an attempt to give him something as he plays a character slowly losing his cognitive faculties and now taking stock of his less than admirable life. The scenes where he's struggling to remember things like his dead son or what he actually intended to do are the highlights of the film and it honestly makes me wish the movie had just ditched the well worn thriller/noir trappings and been more of a character drama as it really wants to be. During the first two thirds Absolution juggles many different plot elements like his relationship with a woman played by Yolonda Ross (who disappears after the second act), the jobs he's running for Charlie Connor, or a recurring dream sequence involving his father and a boat that just feels really out of place. Once we're in the third act it basically just gives up and becomes a standard Neeson rampage but by that point those who came expecting it may feel it's too little too late while those invested in the character drama will be disappointed that it doesn't really payoff. If you want to see a movie like this that's a character study of a degenerative brain decease with crime thriller elements, you're really better off just watching Knox Goes Away from earlier this year as it did a better job of combing the two elements (with some minor missteps) and actually felt like a more fully formed vision.
Absolution tries to add a little something extra to the well worn conveyor of Liam Neeson led genre films but it's such a rough mixture of haphazard character drama and noir cliches without doing either well enough to warrant even a minimal recommendation. If you want this kind of movie but better, just watch Knox Goes Away.
Saturday Night (2024)
Jason Reitman's "fly on the wall" portrait of Saturday Night Live's debut night is a wonderfully acted origin of one of TVs most endearing staples
Set on October 11, 1975, producer Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) has been given the greenlight for a new variety show known as NBC's Saturday Night featuring a group of untested young comedians and writers. In the 90 minutes leading up to the premiere, Michaels must deal with temperamental writers, cut happy censors, actors with personal and professional grievances, and the very real possibility of NBC brass putting a rerun of The Tonight Show in their place.
Saturday Night is the latest film from director Jason Reitman and has been a passion project for the director for about two decades. Following his success on Ghostbusters: Afterlife, this gave Reitman and co-writer Gil Kenan the momentum they needed to set the film up with Sony. Produced with an undeniable affinity for its subject matter, Saturday Night not only captures the cultural relevance of Saturday Night, but also the Herculean amounts of effort required to bring the show to air in the first place.
Gabriel Labelle is quickly becoming one of my favorite up and coming actors having given strong performances in the likes of The Fablemans and Snack Shack and he does well playing a wet behind the ears producer who is given his chance at a new show and is facing an uphill battle to get the pieces together from temperamental actors and belligerent writers to unreliable technical resources. Shot as if in real time following the 90 minutes leading up to Saturday Night's premiere, Reitman's "fly on the wall" style filmmaking is well utilized in capturing the behind the scenes chaos while also allowing for genuinely humorous deliveries from its talented cast as well as more tender human moments. The casting is on point from all involved with Matt Wood almost uncanny in his portrayal of John Belushi and Cory Michael Smith effortlessly channeling Chevy Chase's persona and comedic style to solid effect. Pretty much the entire cast does well channeling their real life counterparts like Kim Matula and Ella Hunt as Jane Curtin and Gilda Radner respectively and Nicholas Braun pulls double duty as both Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson and nails both. Dylan O'Brien also disappears into his Dan Akyroyd portrayal.
Despite the movie clearly having an affinity for its subject matter, it's very much a "warts and all" portrayal as it does touch upon aspects such as Chevy Chase's prima donna behavior and even Belushi's drug usage (though thankfully in a more tasteful and less sensationalized way than Wired did it). The movie also touches aspects such as Garrett Morris' frustration with given very little apart from parts that require a token black actor which greatly under utilizes his background and ability. You get a strong sense of just how much of a "break from the mold" especially with a sequence that contrasts the material on Saturday Night against a fiction variety show called The Rumpus Hour that features Milton Berle (despicably played by J. K. Simmons with wonderful hatefulness) where it's vapid tackiness is nicely contrasted with the more guerilla authenticity of Saturday Night.
Saturday Night is one of the best times I've had at the movies this year and not only is it another winner for Jason Reitman, but it's also both an entertaining film as well as a near perfect time capsule of its subject matter and a pivotal moment in TV history.
Hysteria! (2024)
A compelling mystery with a nostalgia tinted ride through a moral panic offering sharp and satirical thrills
Set in the town of Happy Hollow, Michigan in 1989, teenager Dylan Campbell (Emjay Anthony) along with his best friends Jordy (Chiara Aurelia) and Spud (Kezii Curtis) are members of an aspiring heavy metal band named Dethkrunch which has yet to garner any attention. After popular quarterback Ryan Hudson (Brandon Campbell) disappears with an occult pentagram symbol the only clue to his disappearance, whispers of Satanic rituals and occult activity start permeating throughout the town as Sheriff Ben Dandridge (Bruce Campbell) tries to dispel while maintaining a proper investigation. Noting how publicized Hudson's death has become thanks to the occult connections, Dylan floats the idea to his band mates to capitalize on the rumors by rebranding their band with Satanic imagery which Jordy and Spud are hesitant to do before ultimately going forward with it. The rebrand gets the band their long sought after attention as well as winning Dylan the affection of his crush Judith (Jessica Treska), but when a moral crusade led by Christian activist Tracy Whitehead (Anna Camp) starts garnering support among the atmosphere of fear and paranoia, Ryan and his friends are placed in their crosshairs.
Hysteria! Is the newest series from NBC/Universal streaming service Peacock from creator Matthew Scott Kane. Kane first wrote the pilot script back in 2019 and having been inspired by prevalence of misinformation and reality distortion that had taken up much of real life discourse and wanted to explore that by paralleling it with the Satanic Panic of the 80s. Now premiering in time for Halloween, Hysteria! Proves to be a smart and entertaining good time with a sharp satirical edge with just a bit of nostalgia mixed in.
While undeniably cut from a similar cloth to Stranger Things (with that series having tackled Satanic Panic in season 4), Hysteria! Largely goes a different direction with the series possessing a more vaguely supernatural/psychological bent in contrast to the sci-fi trappings of Stranger Things. The main kids of Dylan, Jordy, and Spud are well played by Emjay Anthony, Chiara Aurelia, and Kezii Curtis respectively and the series does well playing the long game in playing with their characterizations. While Anthony's Dylan isn't all that likable for much of the series, the show is aware of it as it calls him out for putting his friends in danger in his exploitative pursuit of popularity and the superficial attention of his "dream girl" who as time goes on reveals herself to be less in line with his idealized romantic fantasies with her "girl next door" allure slowly eroded to reveal less Molly Ringwald and more Susan Atkins. Jordy is definitely something of a stealth protagonist as despite her goth exterior she's also the most rational and down to Earth member of the trio who also has painful history with former friend Faith Whitehead played by Nikki Hahn after a schism developed between them courtesy of Faith's mother Tracy wonderfully and despicably played by Anna Camp. Kezii Curtis also adds some nice bits of levity being the eccentric oddball of the group complete with him spouting insane conspiracy theories.
Outside of the primary cast, the supporting players are also quite good in their roles and help create an engaging ensemble. Julie Bowen plays Dylan's mother Linda and convincing plays a downward trajectory of a woman slowly unraveling in the face of fear and uncertainty that the literal devil may be among them. Nolan North (whom I know best for voicing Nathan Drake in the Uncharted games) is really good playing the anchor of the Campbell family who tries to keep things rooted in reality only for him to frustratingly possess a multitude of questions without answers. We also have the always welcome Garrett Dillahunt playing a slimey character who is effortlessly loathsome. Last but certainly not least is Bruce Campbell as the town's sheriff Ben Dandridge. While Campbell is always a welcome addition thanks to how much energy and passion he brings with him, more often than not he's usually called to play a winking self-awareness. Here however, Campbell feels like he's going for a more dramatic (though not without humor) route for his character, a frustrated lifelong lawman trying to keep his town sane, and it's probably the most "authentic" (for lack of a better word) role Campbell's done since The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. In the 90s.
I really quite enjoyed Hysteria!. While it does take a few episodes to really settle into a groove, there was a compelling atmosphere and story at play that kept me engaged even in instances where the characters made boneheaded (by design and with context) decisions. While the show doesn't overtly season bait, it does leave the door open for more while telling a complete story and assuming Universal and Peacock are inclined I'd love to see Matthew Scott Kane and co. Return to the compelling world created here.
Don't Move (2024)
Nicely crafted minimalist thriller that elevates its simple premise with a pair of engaging leads and tight film making
Iris (Kelsey Asbille) is a young woman mourning the death of her young son from an accidental fall on a family camping trip. Waking up early and without telling her husband, Iris makes her way to her son's memorial in the park intent on jumping off the same cliff only to be stopped by an engagement with a seemingly well-intentioned stranger named Richard (Finn Wittrock) who tells her his own experience of loss with his girlfriend Chloe causing the two of them to walk back to their cars together. However once there Richard reveals himself to be a serial killer and kidnaps Iris knocking her unconscious. Thanks to a Swiss Army knife Iris manages to make Richard crash the car and escape only to be informed by Richard he's injected her with a paralytic agent that will work its way through her system over the next 20 minutes rendering her completely immobile.
Don't Move is the new Netflix thriller produced by Sam Raimi and directed by Adam Schindler and Brian Netto who are no strangers to working with Raimi having directed Grey Cloud Island (Minnesota) for Raimi's Quibi anthology series 50 States of Fright as well as collaborating on their own solo projects like Netto's Delivery: The Beast Within or Schindler's Intruders. The film was announced in 2022 with a script by Schindler's Intruders scribes T. J. Cimfel and David White with shooting commencing in 2023 with Netflix acquiring distribution rights the following year. Don't Move doesn't reinvent the wheel when it comes to this kind of "cat and mouse" thriller, but it utilizes the format effectively to generate palpable tension thanks to brisk efficient direction and an engaging heroine and villain.
If I were to compare Don't Move to something, I'd probably say the best comparison is a serial killer version of the movie Red Eye from 2005. Much like how that film was built around the tension and chemistry generated between Rachel McAdams and Cillian Murphy, a similar effect is achieved between Asbille and Wittrock. Kelsey Asbille does well playing a grieving mother who feels trapped by the world following the death of her son and it's incorporated well into her struggle for survival that gives her an arc for being able to live again. On the opposite side we have Finn Wittrock (who I mainly know from season 4 of American Horror Story before I stopped watching) who is very good as the man calling himself "Richard" whose good looks and charismatic charm are nicely contrasted with the darker nature that reveals itself and creates a terrifying character who can bend and twist reality on the fly to meet his ends. In terms of mining a feature length ride from the central premise of character being paralyzed I'll admit I was more than a little skeptical as while it's a terrifying idea it's incredibly difficult to stretch to feature length especially when purposefully limited (such as 2007's Awake which went to some inexplicable areas in its usage of Anesthesia awareness). Despite the challenges inherent in working with such a concept, Cimfel and White's screenplay does well in creating high concept scenario's that inhabit just enough believability (implausible as it may be) that we get some very memorable sequences in which Iris needs to communicate other than words to get help as it's out of reach only inches away. I also have to applaud cinematographer Zach Kuperstein who manages to take his largely wooded setting and keeps it looking interesting especially as it relates to POV shots from Iris making you feel her helplessness and desperation.
I liked Don't Move and felt it was a nicely done thrill ride perfect for either a Halloween viewing with friends or just by yourself. What it lacks in originality it more than makes up for in craft, acting, and follow through.
Canary Black (2024)
It's serviceable enough, but it doesn't do much to elevate itself much from a pack of prior films that have used the template.
Set in Zagreb, Croatia, Avery Graves (Kate Beckinsale) is an agent for the CIA unbeknownst to her husband David Brooks (Rupert Friend) who works logistics for Doctors without Borders. When Graves returns home and sees her apartment a mess and finds David missing, she is told by a mysterious voice on the phone that if she wants her husband back alive she will steal a file called "Canary Black". Driven to desperate measures Graves finds herself hunted by her mentor Jarvis Hedlund (Ray Stevenson) and Agent Maxfield (Jaz Hutchins) at the behest of Deputy Director Evans (Ben Miles) and must not only elude her own agency but also the shadowy forces of her husband's kidnappers all while trying to learn what Canary Black actually is.
Canary Black is the latest actioner from Pierre Morel who directs from a script by Matthew Kennedy. Canary Black has all the hallmarks of one of those international action co-productions with a mildly recognizable lead and budget and tax friendly location shooting that's designed for international film sales and festivals and film markets. Premiering on Amazon Prime as one of their originals, Canary Black does work well enough provided you can forgive its usage of a template mined many times before.
With a movie like Canary Black, the biggest stumbling point is inevitably going to be the feeling of "haven't I seen this movie before?" because these kinds of rogue CIA agent on the run movies are a dime a dozen (Aaron Eckhart's done three this year alone with The Bricklayer, Chief of Station, and Classified just a few days ago) not to mention the massive debt most female led assassin films owe to the framework established by Luc Besson's Le Femme Nikita. On occasion you do get something that's more bold or stylish with this concept (such as The Long Kiss Goodnight or Atomic Blonde) but more often than not you're going to get something that rigidly follows the templates of the genre to a "T" only maybe with some attempts at aping the Bourne franchise or paying lip service to a post-Snowden era espionage landscape. Kate Beckinsale is perfectly fine in the role and is more than capable of doing this kind of action role as her work in the Underworld series shows, but there's really nothing to her character that's particularly compelling as the opening half of the movie is basically True Lies only without the humor of the situation (though given Morel's prior attempts at comedy that's probably for the best).
I will say that once we get to the second half the action does become more engaging in contrast to the interchangeable scenes of Graves running through Zagreb by going for larger scale and more outlandish setpieces with one sequence involving Graves' usage of a large drone to infiltrate and then escape a secured facility being quite engaging, and once we get to the climax it does actually feel like there's some good world shattering stakes at play. The movie gets WAY too confident with itself at the end because it actually sets itself up for franchising (with Graves recruited for reasons that are dubious and confusing) and much like The 355 or Heart of Stone I doubt there's going to be much luring audiences or even producers for a second go around.
Canary Black is the definition of serviceable product because that's exactly what it's designed to be: something identifiable without being memorable and meant to be sold and exchanged internationally so it can be used as fodder for streaming services or rental kiosks. There's nothing wrong with it, but there's not much that makes it stand out from scores of similar films.
Strange Darling (2023)
An impressive game of cat and mouse with strong performances by Fitzgerald and Gallner that twists audience perceptions and expectations in a knot
Set in rural Oregon, the final rampage of a serial killer active between the years of 2018 and 2020 culminates in a game of cat and mouse between two characters known as the Demon (Kyle Gallner) and the Lady (Willa Fitzgerald).
Strange Darling is the sophomore directorial effort of JT Mollner (whose previous film was Outlaws & Angels) who also writes the screenplay. Mollner was inspired by the common horror trope of the "final girl" running through the woods and incorporating a non-linear chapter structure in order to throw the audience off guard. The project was picked up by Miramax where Mollner faced pushback from executives from filming through post production with the film actually shutting down briefly due to executives dissatisfaction with the dailies and demanding Fitzgerald be recast and even during post production there was pressure by the producers to drop non-linear structure until a successful test screening prompted them to apologize to Mollner and allow him final cut. Strange Darling covers well trodden ground, but the way in which Mollner plays with the material results in a thrilling and twisty ride that plays with audience expectations.
In terms of what Strange Darling is, the movie is essentially a battle of wits between Fitzgerald's The Lady and Gallner's The Demon with the film chronicling their initial meetup to its ultimate conclusion. On its own it would be considered a strong character based chase thriller, but Mollner's choices to tell the story are cleverly integrated which adds an extra layer of playing with the audience expectations as the movie starts off with The Lady running through the woods screaming and while audiences are sure to think they know where this goes, the story proves to be anything but ordinary as the structure's unveiling of key details coupled with a non-linear narrative keeps the audience on their toes and allows for some well placed shocks. Both Fitzgerald and Gallner give incredible performances conveying both intensity and vulnerability when the situation calls for it and you're never sure to what level the two are being authentic as it may be yet another opportunistic play. I should also mentioned Giovanni Ribisi's debut work as cinematographer (who serves as executive producer and used his own equipment for the production) as his usage of 35 mm film and staging gives the film a very 70s look complete with a voice over intro that evokes memories of John Larroquette's Texas Chainsaw Massacre narration.
I really enjoyed Strange Darling and my experience was definitely helped by going in blind. Not only does it convey strong tension throughout its runtime, but any time you feel certain you know where it's going it pulls the rug out from under you in a way that plays with your own expectations but still holding together internally.
La mesita del comedor (2022)
An exercise in dread and unpleasantness that's as captivating as it is ugly
Maria (Estefania de los Santos) and Jesus Barobia (David Pareja) are parents of a newborn baby boy named Cayetano. While shopping for a new coffee table, an argument erupts between Maria and Jesus over the one showcased by the salesman and motivated by pent up resentment Jesus buys the table which will serve as the impetus for a Hellish day.
The Coffee Table is a 2022 Spanish horror tragicomedy directed by Caye Casas who co-writes along with Cris Borobia. Casas stated in interviews that he'd had an idea for a horror film that would be more based around the cruelty of real life than the traditional avenues of horror like ghosts, killers or monsters, shooting the film over the course of 10 days at a friends house on a low budget. The movie is one of those that is truly horrific in its depiction of horror with an absolute dark as black sense of humor mixed in with the tragedy from which it's as impossible to look from as it is nausea inducing.
I can't tell you exactly what happens in the film because a big part of the experience is simply seeing how something as seemingly innocuous as a coffee table can lead to such a nightmarish sequence of events that snowballs into the worst possible scenario. Estefania de los Santos and David Pareja are really good as the main characters and the two do a good job of showing a couple who the more you get to know them probably shouldn't have gotten together. In many ways, the opening act is almost like watching a bomb's fuse slowly burn down to ignition with the second and third acts very much taking us through the fallout. This is a movie that will turn your stomach and while it certainly is bloody and ugly as the poster promises, the true horror comes in its implications that sometimes the worst horror isn't any malicious force but the inevitable end result of seemingly innocuous decisions leading to horrific conclusions that are beyond imagination until you see them first hand.
It'd probably be an inaccurate statement to say I liked The Coffee Table, but at the same time I've been unable to shake it from my mind these past few days because it shocked me in a way that reached the very core of my being. It's the kind of horror film that is less roller coaster exhilaration and more a key unlocking a Pandora's Box of existential dread that shakes you not only because you didn't know it was there, but also because it felt colder and darker than you could've imagined.
LaRoy, Texas (2023)
There's a certain level of charm from Shane Atkinson's debut film, even if its Coen Brothers inspired comic noir escapades lack the polish of their inspiration
Set in the town of LaRoy, Texas, Ray Jepperson (John Magaro) is a soft spoken pushover of a man working a menial job under his brother Junior (Matthew Del Negro) at their family hardware store and is told by his acquaintance Skip (Steve Zahn), a would-be private detective, that he has photos of Ray's wife, Stacy-Lynn (Megan Stevenson), coming from a rendezvous in a seedy motel. Feeling like there's nothing left for him, Ray purchases a pistol intent on ending his life only to be mistaken by a stranger (Brannon Cross) for a hit man he hired giving him bag of money with the address of the target. Ray goes along with the misunderstanding which drags him into a complicated mess of double crosses and blackmail and sets him on a collision course with the real hitman (Dylan Baker) who's none too thrilled at having his job and money taken.
LaRoy, Texas is the feature directorial debut of screenwriter Shane Atkinson. Inspired by his love of hardboiled novels, Atkinson wrote the screenplay in a little over three months and intended to start production in 2020 only to be delayed until 2022 due to the pandemic. Upon its premiere at various film festivals it was met with considerable acclaim and stylistically speaking it is true to form of its inspirations, even if I don't think it quite reaches that bar.
Atkinson definitely knows how to make the town of LaRoy, Texas a character in and of itself with the sparse landscapes beautifully photographed to create a portrait of a town that's very stagnant without much ambition or prospects. Dylan Baker is effortlessly creepy as the hit man, Harry, and due to his work both comedically as well as dramatically he has an unassuming quality to him that sets him up quite nicely in his introductory scene. Steve Zahn steals every scene he's in as the aspiring but inept private detective Skip whose loud cowboy inspired wardrobe and false swagger are wonderfully counter balanced by his actually lack of cases or respect. I also think John Magaro is quite good as Ray playing an absolutely milquetoast simpleton who even when confronted with the reality that his former beauty queen wife is cheating on him he's unwilling or unable to see the truth making a bad situation worse with every step. I guess that's probably where I differ a bit from others on LaRoy, Texas because I personally think it was a mistake to center the film on Ray as the protagonist. With a plot, setup, and style that feel very much inspired by that of the Coen Brothers, there's definitely some apt comparisons to be made between Ray and William H. Macy's Jerry Lundegaard from Fargo or Martin Freeman's Lester Nygaard from the first season of the Fargo TV show. Unlike those two projects, Ray is more at the forefront of the movie and serves as an anchor point (where Fargo was more an ensemble) and I feel like by anchoring the film around Ray it becomes a repetitive cycle of watching someone cartoonishly pathetic making the worst possible decisions and it feels a little monotonous. I also couldn't help but compare it to a similarly Coen inspired film with The Last Stop in Yuma County which felt much tighter and more novel with its take on the "money in a bag" format.
LaRoy, Texas is a good first impression from Shane Atkinson as a director even if I appreciated its style and craft more than I did the actual writing. If you're a fan of quirky small town noirs of this type there's definitely things to appreciate, even if I personally feel like it could've used some extra polish and tightening.
The Last Stop in Yuma County (2023)
A solid debut feature from Francis Galluppi that makes strong use of its limited location
At an isolated rest stop in Yuma County, Arizona in the 1970s, several characters are forced to wait at the nearby diner after the resupply truck for the gas station is running late including two bank robbers who stole $700,000.
The Last Stop in Yuma County is the feature debut of writer director Francis Galluppi who began his career in music before transitioning to film with short films High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. A passion project for Galluppi, he spent years trying to get the film made with a larger studio only for disagreements between the financiers and Galluppi over the direction of the material to stonewall progress. After that point Galluppi accepted the offer of his executive producer, James Claeys, who sold his home in order to acquire the film's estimated $1 million budget. Using a roster of smaller names and character actors to fill out the cast, the film was a true independent project with the cast mainly coming together through goodwill and shared passion. The film has received a lot of considerable acclaim with director Sam Raimi so impressed with the film he personally hired Galluppi to direct a film in the Evil Dead series. The Last Stop in Yuma County is a solid showcase of Galluppi's strengths as a writer director who creates an engaging thriller with a limited location, talented cast, and guerilla ingenuity.
The Last Stop in Yuma County's premise is simple in that it takes a bunch of different characters with big personalities and builds tension in a small location using the old standard of the "money in a bag". Galluppi does a nice job of establishing his characters who range from overworked waitresses and hard luck traveling salesman to bank robbers on a hair trigger or youthful crooks who fancy themselves as romanticized versions of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate while ignoring what happened to them. The cast made up mostly of smaller character actors do well with the mateiral including Jim Cummings' unnamed knife salesman who's very much a wrong man at the wrong place at the wrong time or Richard Brake and Nicholas Logan as the bank robbing duo who start on simmer until building to an explosive release. The film stays great for 70 minutes but once it reaches its conclusion it does kind of feel like Galluppi struggled to wrap the film up in a way that was up to the level of its first two thirds. There's nothing really wrong with the film's ending as it's more or less the old ironic standard that's been the basis for this kind of story seen as far back as The Treasure of Sierra Madre, but it does feel like a case where it's kind of stretching itself in order to get to that point.
The Last Stop in Yuma County is an effective small scale thriller that uses its limited resources and location to strong effect using characters with strong personalities to create a tense thriller that works its way up from simmer to a boil. I personally wasn't a fan of the third act as I felt it paled in comparison to the first two thirds, but it's a strong and effective showcase of Galluppi's abilities as a writer and director.
Woman of the Hour (2023)
Anna Kendrick gives a great performance and solid directorial debut in this gripping true life inspired story.
Set in 1978, Cheryl Bradshaw (Anna Kendrick) is an aspiring actress trying to make it in Hollywood to no avail. In order to get her name out there, Cheryl reluctantly accepts a spot on game show The Dating Game set up by her agent unaware that Bachelor #3 is serial killer Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto).
Woman of the Hour is based on the true story of serial killer Rodney Alcala who during his estimated ten years of murders appeared as a contestant on The Dating Game in 1978. The Ian McDonald penned script, initially under the title of Rodney and Cheryl on the 2017 annual Black List of best unproduced screenplays. The project was initially picked up by Netflix in 2021 with Anna Kendrick set to star and Chloe Okuno only for Netflix to drop the project the following year where it was produced independently and with Kendrick now in the director's chair and ironically acquired for distribution by Netflix after it was completed. The movie respectfully covers its subject matter free of feeling exploitative and showcases not only Kendrick's prowess as an actress but also the start of a promising career as a director.
Much like 2022's serial killer film The Good Nurse, despite centering around a serial killer that's really only part of what the movie is about as it frames Rodney Alcala's actions within the context of social attitudes of the 70s as well as the world of show business. Anna Kendrick showcases strong likability as Bradshaw portraying her as someone with drive and humor who wants to get her foot in the door while also maintaining her self respect and refusing to stoop to the degrading demands made by casting directors or chauvinistic producers as Bradshaw's encounters are juxtaposed against sequences detailing Rodney Alcala's methodology for enticing his victims by playing up the promise of immortalizing their beauty only to exploit them to feed his depraved appetites. Daniel Zovatto is chillingly good as Alcala as he walks that fine line of being charming while also only barely able to conceal his dark side and it's an unnerving performance because the audience knows from the getgo what he is and how his charm is utilized in the same way a Venus Flytrap lures unsuspecting prey to its demise. While Alcala is legitimately creepy, he's not the only antagonistic force at play as the movie makes clear that elements like societal attitudes, procedural negligence by the network, and the apathetic and indifferent attitudes by law enforcement are as much to blame as Alcala himself because they failed to recognize and address the warning signs. Despite such heavy subject matter, the movie also manages to find opportunities for humor and catharsis especially during the scenes on The Dating Game where Bradshaw has frank and candid discussions with the make-up Department and also gets to take smug game show host Ed Burke (ably played by Tony Hale) down a peg by effortlessly upstaging him on his own show.
Woman of the Hour is a really strong showcase of Kendrick's skills as an actor and director while also documenting a stranger than fiction story and contextualizing it in a way that comments on everything from show business to society's attitudes towards women. The movie never becomes overwrought as there's some good bits of humor mixed in to keep from feeling overwrought and it's one I'm pleased to recommend.
The Silent Hour (2024)
It's a very familiar genre exercise, but Brad Anderson's tight direction along with good performances from Kinnaman and Frank make it engaging
Set in Boston, 11 months after suffering massive head trauma in the line of duty, Homicide Detective Frank Shaw (Joel Kinnaman) is struggling to adapt to his life with reduced hearing necessitating the usage of hearing aids and the prospect that within a year's time or less he may lose his hearing completely. An off duty Shaw is approached by his former partner Detective Doug Slater (Mark Strong) who is investigating the murder of two drug pushers and with the Department's interpreter unavailable, Slater enlists Shaw's help in interviewing deaf witness Ava Fremont (Sandra Mae Frank) as Shaw has been taking American Sign Language classes at the behest of his daughter Sam (Katrina Lupi). Shaw reluctantly accompanies Slater to a dilapidated apartment complex with only a few stray tenants as the owner is in the process of evicting the former tenants in favor of condos where the two confirm she has a video of the murder and take her official statement. As Shaw makes his way home, he realizes he left his phone at Ava's apartment prompting him to return where he finds Ava under attack by a team of corrupt cops who intend to stage her as an overdose and Shaw manages to save Ava briefly lose the cops. Without a gun or a phone, Shaw and Ava play a dangerous game of cat and mouse navigating the dilapidated apartment complex in search of either escape or help.
The Silent Hour is the latest from genre director Brad Anderson and is being released on VOD via Paramount's Republic Pictures label. Written by first time credited writer Dan Hall, the AGC Studios produced thriller on paper seems like the kind of film you often associate with VOD releases, modestly budgeted genre pieces that in this theatrical climate are considered "too small" for theaters and more often than not feature lower tier actors like Mel Gibson or Aaron Eckhart. I'm pleased to say that The Silent Hour is actually quite an entertaining experience, even if I attribute that more to the direction and acting than the script itself.
At its core, The Silent Hour is a mash-up of Die Hard by way of 16 Blocks with the added gimmick of hearing impairment of our two leads. While the genre side of things covers standard "protecting a witness" territory from the likes of Clint Eastwood's The Gauntlet or the minor 50s film-noir classic The Narrow Margin, it helps that Brad Anderson is in the director's chair because if you look at his filmography he excels in confined character based thrillers (Transiberian, The Machinist, Session 9, etc.) and not only brings out the best in good material, but can even make more middling material engaging like 2019's Fractured. The Silent Hour's script really doesn't do anything wrong but it's very much a standard genre template and while the gimmick of deafness is there it's not used as memorably as something like Mike Flanagan's Hush or The Quiet Place films used it and when it's used it's usually more for dramatic moments between our leads Joel Kinnaman and Sandra Mae Frank (who is deaf in real life) who are really good in the movie and have some good insights on people who were born deaf versus those who became deaf where Frank signs the line "a single missing piece doesn't make you less whole". The rest of the cast do well playing their roles such as Mekhi Phifer and Mark Strong, even if the familiar script doesn't leave them a lot of standout moments but they're servicable for what's required of them.
The Silent Hour is the definition of "solid rental" as it has an intriguing high concept while not quite having that extra layer of polish to the script that would demand it be shown theatrically. Thanks to a strong pair of leads in Kinnaman and Frank and the tight reliable direction of Brad Anderson, the Silent Hour makes for a quick, effective, and mostly entertaining 90 minutes.
Salem's Lot (2024)
Third time gives us....a mixed result
In the town of Jerusalem's Lot, Maine (also known as Salem's Lot), writer Ben Mears (Lewis Pullman) has returned to his childhood home seeking to gain inspiration from the town and ominous and historied landmark The Marsten House only to find it has been purchased by the enigmatic Richard Straker (Pilou Asbaek) and his hereto unseen associate Kurt Barlow. In the course of wandering the town, Ben meets Susan Norton (Makenzie Leigh), secretary for the local real estate office, and the two strike up a romance with Susan having been a fan of his books despite her meddling mother, Anne's (Debra Chrsitofferson) objections. Not long after Ben's arrival in town a series of tragic deaths of mysterious and often unexplainable circumstances suggests something evil has ensnared the town and may be related to Straker and Barlow.
Salem's Lot is the third (not counting the in name only sequel A Return to Salem's Lot) adaptation of Stephen King's 1975 novel of the same name following the 1979 and 2004 miniseries adaptations. The movie comes to us from writer and director Gary Dauberman who's no stranger to King adaptations having written the first and second parts of Andy Muschietti's It adaptation as well as having writing credits on a number of films in the Conjuring universe. Following its completion, the film spent a lengthy amount of time in post production limbo with Dauberman stating the film had been condensed from an initial three hour runtime with further concerns arising when it was removed from its initial 2023 release in favor of Evil Dead Rise with a lengthy period of silence leading to speculation the film would be written off similar to Batgirl or Coyote vs. Acme. Now having debuted on Max, Salem's Lot does have a lot to admire but also a lot of issues that come from cramming a novel as dense as Salem's Lot into an under two hour runtime.
To start things off on a positive note, Dauberman definitely gets the setting and initial atmosphere down quite nicely. Unlike either the 1979 or 2004 miniseries adaptations which were shot in California and Australia respectively, Salem's Lot was filmed in Massachusetts which definitely helps make the story's Maine setting the most fully realized and tangible out of the three adaptations. The movie per the book is also set in 1975 and the production does a nice job of capturing the aesthetics while also putting its own spins on the book's characters (such as Mark Petrie, Anne Norton, and Dr. Cody who still feel like they're key characterizations despite some changes). In terms of casting I felt like Lewis Pullman was a good choice for Ben Mears (a marked improvement from Rob Lowe from the 2004 version, but more or less on par with David Soul from the '79 version). I also thought Mackenzie Leigh was very good as Susan Norton and captured the spirit of the character very well in her performance. Jordan Preston Carter's performance as Mark Petrie was also quite good and he does well playing the role with a nice bit of humor and has a charming screen presence. I was a little mixed on Bill Camp as Matthew Burke, but he did grow on me especially in how Dauberman deviates from the book so he's not confined to a hospital bed for the latter half of his time in the story. The movie's villains on the other hand are a major misstep in my opinion. While Pilou Asbæk is a fine actor, I felt he was miscast as Straker and is unfortunately the weakest incarnation of the role (and that's even accounting for Donald Sutherland's take from the 2004 version with which I was underwhelmed) as he feels way too young for the role and doesn't capture the characters quiet and refined old world mannerisms masking his sinister intentions, and Kurt Barlow is only slightly more verbal than his 1979 counterpart.
I can definitely believe Salem's Lot was initially a longer movie because as a story it often feels like it's playing its delivery at 1.75x speed where the slow rot dread of the book is replaced in favor of much more bombast and more "in your face" sequences that take the film in what sometimes feels like more of an "action movie" direction. We really don't get to know Salem's Lot in the same way we did in the book or either of the prior miniseries and a lot of characters and characterization is either shrunk down or just jettisoned completely. There are still some references to certain characters from the book or prior adaptations, but unless you've read the book you're really not going to notice or care about them. For all the issues with condensing Salem's Lot into a two hour movie (an issue that caused the creation of the 1979 miniseries in the first place) I actually thought the first half did a good job being thematically and tonally faithful even if it had to condense or remove a lot of material, while the second half really felt like it was trying to be more along the lines of John Caprenter's Vampires or 30 Days of Night that while possessing some entertainment value (particularly the climax in a Drive-In) didn't feel like Salem's Lot.
If you can forgive some of the changes in the adaptation or the deviations taken in its second half, this new incarnation of Salem's Lot is entertaining even if it's nowhere near a "definitive" version of this story and carries many of the flaws of prior adaptations (as well as a few of its own). Okay for what it is and I probably liked it more than the 2004 version so take that for what it's worth.
Never Let Go (2024)
Halle Berry gives a committed performance in an all too familiar horror film with very little spin on well trodden ground.
Set in an isolated house in the woods, twin brothers Nolan (Percy Daggs IV) and Samuel (Anthony B. Jenkins) live with their momma (Halle Berry) in hiding from a force known as The Evil which has taken everyone else from the world including their father and grandparents. As Momma enforces a strict set of rules such as religious reverence to the house and only leaving the house with a rope attached to your person from the house, a schism develops between the more doubting Nolan and the more faithful Samuel.
Never Let Go is a 2024 horror thriller directed by Alexandre Aja and written by Kevin Coughlin and Ryan Grassby. Originally written under the title Mother Land, the script was acquired by producer Shawn Levy's 21 Laps and Lionsgate Films during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in August of 2020, no doubt due to its limited location and small cast which would make filming easier, but it wouldn't be until June of 2023 that production would actually commence. Never Let Go isn't a poorly made or poorly acted movie, but it's one that feels like it's a victim of being "late to the party" after several other films of a similar nature beat it to release.
In the simplest terms, Never Let Go is basically what happens when you mix A Quiet Place with The Lodge as it has a similar "secluded hideaway with gimmick" premise like A Quiet Place (in this case always having a rope attached to the house) as well as the religious and parental distrust themes of The Lodge. Halle Berry is good playing momma and you can see why she was attracted to the part as it's a very hard edged role where the character is driven by love, fear, distrust and obsession. Despite both Percy Daggs IV and Anthony B. Jenkins feeling a little green in roles that require them to be front and center without much acting support from an extended cast, I think they do okay even if they don't quite meet the benchmarks seen in other comparable genre pieces. My primary sticking point when watching Never Let Go was an inescapable feeling of "haven't I seen this before?" as there's undeniable similarities to the likes of the A Quiet Place series, the Bird Box films, The Silence, Arcadian and several others that fit within this genre of limited location survival horror stories. While there's nothing wrong with revisiting a well traversed template, Never Let Go doesn't really feel like it has much of a spin on it that substantially differentiates it from any of the plethora of examples mentioned. Even with the nature of "The Evil", the movie takes a rather wishy washy approach to the antagonist not really committing to The Evil as a tangible presence or psychological one all the way through to a climax that just left me befuddled with how it decides to "resolve" the conflict. But aside from a rather disappointing payoff, Never Let Go often feels repetitive and like it's looking for reasons to spin its wheels to feature length as it's clear that this was a project written during Covid which is bending over itself to justify keeping itself as limited and small as possible without really having the substance to justify it.
Despite the producers voiced desires to make this a franchise this is most likely a one and done affair as it didn't do all that well at the box office and I doubt many are actually curious to see where this concept goes. This is a movie that definitely suffers from a glut of similar movies to it having preceded it, but it doesn't even really do anything all that good with its concept even when taken on its own and just settles for being well made mediocrity.