Tag: film review

Film Review: “Love Hurts”

What hurts more… Love? Or watching this movie?

Marvin (Ke Huy Quan) wants a home for you!

Ke Huy Quan and Ariana DeBose deserve better. The two Supporting Actor Oscar winners, for Everything Everywhere All At Once and West Side Story, respectively, can tackle dramatic and comedic material while holding an audience’s most focused attention. When used right, Quan and DeBose can elevate a film from good to great. Unfortunately, Love Hurts isn’t good. Instead, Love Hurts results from an inexperienced filmmaker who doesn’t understand how to utilize the valuable toys he has to play with. The film is excruciatingly overwritten and poorly edited, with Quan’s inherent charm as its sole saving grace. Continue reading “Film Review: “Love Hurts””

Film Review: “You’re Cordially Invited”

Cordially uninvite yourself from seeing this unfunny clamor

Jim (Will Ferrell) and Margot (Reese Witherspoon) feign politeness.

You’re Cordially Invited is built around the sort of romantic-comedy conceit you’d find supporting a plethora of its ilk from the 1990s and early 2000s: a wedding venue is unknowingly double-booked by two eccentric families. This logline is a promising opportunity for comedic hijinks, set-pieces, and confrontations. Unfortunately, You’re Cordially Invited stumbles through its vignette-styled plot without a shred of consideration for how and why anything is happening. Despite noble attempts by the film’s two leads, Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon, to hold it afloat, You’re Cordially Invited is a middling straight-to-streaming title, destined to play unwatched in the background of more engaging home activities.  Continue reading “Film Review: “You’re Cordially Invited””

Film Review: “Wolf Man”

Wolf Man has a simplistic horror appeal, but is that enough?

Charlotte (Julia Garner) stares into the increasingly lupine eyes of Blake (Christopher Abbott) in ‘Wolf Man.’

From Leigh Whannell, the Australian director of Upgrade and the masterful modern-day reimagining of The Invisible Man, comes his new take on a Universal Monsters horror classic, Wolf Man. Distilling the werewolf mythos into a visceral it-all-happens-in-one-night movie, Wolf Man is efficient in its pacing and scares. However, the film lacks the emotional gravitas of a romantically strained family trying to reconnect during extreme circumstances. So, because Wolf Man clocks in at under two hours, is pleasantly ultra-predictable, and contains quality thrills, it’s a great choice for a frivolous movie night. Continue reading “Film Review: “Wolf Man””

Film Review: “Mufasa: The Lion King”

Mufasa is a princely improvement, but still no match for the original King

The 2019 photorealistic remake of the 1994 classic The Lion King was a global box office sensation, but lacked the joy, energy, and instantly-memorable character portrayals of the original. When Oscar winner Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) announced he’d be directing a follow-up to the 2019 film, the choice seemed a peculiar one for the accomplished filmmaker. Upon watching Mufasa: The Lion King, however, we can clearly see (and feel) that Jenkins cared passionately about the thematic elements of the proposed prequel. Combined with original songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda and improved character designs, Mufasa: The Lion King is a superior follow-up to the 2019 film, even if it still fails to break new ground in any meaningful way. Continue reading “Film Review: “Mufasa: The Lion King””

Film Review: “The Order”

Hoult and Law bolster The Order’s thrilling real-world drama

This has been a monumental year for Nicholas Hoult. He has starred in four films: The Garfield Movie, Juror #2, The Order, and the upcoming Nosferatu. It’s difficult to envision a wider-range of films for an actor in one year, and The Order may be his most consequential role. In The Order, Hoult shares the spotlight with Jude Law, who is also playing against type. The film follows a series of real-life events that took place in the Pacific Northwest in the 1980s, with themes that continue to be relevant given the U.S.’s turbulent state of current political affairs. Procedural and moody, The Order avoids preachiness in favor of character exploration and thrilling action set pieces. Continue reading “Film Review: “The Order””

Film Review: “Red One”

Red One is a cacophony of borrowed ideas and lazy jokes

Each year, movie lovers share a communal hope that a new holiday film will earn a spot among the pantheon of great holiday classics, becoming a new beloved title to watch annually with family and friends. This year, Red One isn’t it. Bloated with ideas borrowed from a wide range of superhero and other Christmas films, and prioritizing action above comedy or the Christmas spirit, Red One is simply a colorful distraction that fails to achieve emotional liftoff.  Continue reading “Film Review: “Red One””

Film Review: “We Live in Time”

We Live in Time rides out a thin, scattered story on the backs of its two leads

Somewhere between the time-jumping emotional cuteness of About Time and the grounded indieness of Like Crazy lives the new romantic drama We Live in Time from director John Crowley (Brooklyn). Many of the films within this genre tend to live or die according to the chemistry between their two leads. Whereas everything around the two leads – the jokes, the sub-plots, the meet-cute setups, the best friends – are truly secondary, unable to sway whether a film is considered effective. The chemistry between Florence Pugh (Little Women) and Andrew Garfield (The Social Network) in We Live in Time is the movie’s biggest strength, and raises the film’s level of emotional effectiveness. However, the secondary factors fail by comparison, leaving the film fizzling in its search for more laughs and more profound meaning within its vignette structure. Continue reading “Film Review: “We Live in Time””

Film Review: “Civil War”

Civil War is bravura filmmaking with humanity at its core

Alex Garland directed Ex Machina in 2014, Annihilation in 2018, Men in 2022, and now, Civil War. That’s four definite or near masterpieces, in my humble opinion. Each film in his directorial oeuvre has served as a cinematic discussion about the impact an ever-changing issue has had on humanity, sometimes overt and other times metaphorical: artificial intelligence, environmental degradation, toxic masculinity, and now, divisive American political idealism. It would be easy to criticize Civil War as “teaching us nothing new,” but that would be missing the point. The film is not intended to be a blaring warning siren. Instead, Civil War is a disturbing sensory vision of the future, featuring a distinct set of strong characters to help ground its grand-scale and daring filmmaking, meant to elicit a potent sense of current anxieties. Continue reading “Film Review: “Civil War””

Film Review: “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One”

Dead Reckoning keeps the franchise flying high!

Death-defying stunt. Fight and chase. Team regroup. Death-defying stunt. Fight and chase. Team regroup. Death-defying stunt. Fight and chase. Team regroup. Although repetitive, this formula has been successfully carrying the Mission: Impossible franchise forward. It’s now on its seventh film, Dead Reckoning – Part One. The newest film showcases, once again, the finest action stunt work choreography in the film industry. Although the franchise continues to steer away from the intricate spy work that the original television series and first few films featured, there’s no denying that with Tom Cruise on screen and Christopher McQuarrie in the director’s chair, a thrilling cinematic experience is guaranteed.

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Film Review: “The Eight Mountains”(Le Otto Montagne)

Tenderness and solitude are at the forefront of this epic tale of male friendship

Against a calm snow-capped vista of the Italian Alps, two friends come together and stand in silence. They don’t need to speak much. They’ve known each other for long enough that words don’t carry the same value. They part ways once again, for how long neither of them knows, to continue finding themselves and hoping that the other will do the same. Amidst these characters’ experiential subtleties, The Eight Mountains, based on the best-selling novel by Paolo Cognetti, unfolds as a (sneakily) epic tale of friendship and discovering one’s natural place in the world, while making a cinematic statement on the fragility of all living things.

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