Ashley and her daughter turn to Matt, her estranged beach bum father, to help escape a ruthless crime boss.
You would be forgiven if you thought The Retirement Plan was a Netflix original, it has a lot of the similarities that make a bad Netflix original an overdone plot, very few good jokes and a chore to sit through.
The cast at the very least does seem like they are having fun, Nicolas Cage, Ron Perlman and Ashley Greene definitely try the best they can with such a lousy script that only has a handful of moments that are passable at best.
Honestly the main issues here are the plot is very by the numbers and a majority of the movie has no impact at all, the movie attempts to use many twists and double crosses but none of that really matters since the characters are written so poorly. The interactions between Bobo (played by Ron Perlman) and Sarah (played by Thalia Campbell) while somewhat decent ultimately doesn’t lead anywhere, it’s just another kid gets kidnapped and talks to one of the henchmen sort of subplot.
Not even Nicolas Cage can really save this movie, he isn’t really given a whole lot to work with and doesn’t have many lines where he could use his charm, it’s a very limited action comedy with no substance to it at all.
The Retirement Plan is available on all VOD Platforms.
Archaeologist Indiana Jones races against time to retrieve a legendary artifact that can change the course of history.
Indiana Jones and the Dial Of Destiny is the fifth and final film of the franchise and serves as a sequel to Crystal Skull. Indiana Jones needs no introduction it’s one of the first films most people think of when they hear the word “movie” or “film” the first three movies of the franchise are fantastic in their own ways, it’s what makes the first three films so rewatchable they all have their own personalities and fantastic moments. Then came Crystal Skull which while it’s not one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, in context with the Indiana Jones series It’s pretty horrendous. James Mangold (Logan, Ford V. Ferrari, and Lost City Of Z) being in the director’s chair gave me some sort of hope that Dial Of Destiny could turn the ship around and get it back on track…it did not.
The movie does have it’s positives, the acting overall is pretty decent. Harrison Ford and Phoebe Waller-Bridge turn in some solid performances and the rest of the cast do a decent job in their own right. John Williams’s score is of course always great and actually gives the movie the life it needed (especially during a lot of scenes that came off as soulless.)
The major problem with Dial Of Destiny is it really lacks the energetic and spark of the first three movies, it strangely feels much slower and tries to fit in with the modern Hollywood landscape. Which ultimately backfires on it and ends up being a very below average adventure movie because of it, when you combine that with a very lackluster script that doesn’t execute it’s story well you have yourself a slog of a movie.
The character’s are just not great despite the acting and chemistry being quite solid, there was very little character moments and development to make the viewer care for a lot of these characters. As much as I liked Phoebe Waller-Bridge her character was just not well written, that goes for the villains as well who completely lack in memorability.
Overall Indiana Jones and the Dial Of Destiny is better than Crystal Skull but is an incredibly weak closer to the franchise.
Indiana Jones and the Dial Of Destiny is available on all VOD platforms.
When the children of the world’s greatest secret agents unwittingly help a powerful game developer unleash a computer virus that gives him control of all technology, they must become spies themselves to save their parents and the world.
Spy Kids: Armageddon is the fifth Spy Kids movie and serves as a reboot to the series, a reboot that was absolutely not needed as well as offering nothing new to the series.
Look I’m well past the age demographic of these movies and I did not go into this movie expecting a masterpiece, however Spy Kids: Armageddon completely misses so much of what made Spy Kids so fun in the first place. I’m not going to act like the Spy Kids movies are well written pieces of cinema but at least the first two had charm too it.
With Armageddon there is very little charm, the cast don’t work nearly as well at all. Zackery Levi and Gina Rodriguez as the parents are uninteresting and really phone it in. Connor Esterson and Everly Carganilla as the leads have some decent moments and at the very least do seem like they are having some bit of fun in certain scenes.
It doesn’t help that Armageddon reuses so many plot elements from other movies and makes them worse, for example there’s the part when the family has to fend off skeletons which is from Spy Kids 2, the movie being centered around video games and set inside a video game that’s Spy Kids 3D. Heck even character traits are reused such as a lot of the jokes being at the expense of the brother, the parents not telling the kids they are spies and the sister having a comeback roast. It’s absolute laziness and wants to come off as a throwback type of movie but it isn’t really a throwback when you are just using the exact same ideas but only somehow making them worse.
Everything else that isn’t reused is quite forgettable, some of the action scenes for some reason take themselves a bit too seriously which is completely odd considering the whole point of why people like the first two Spy Kids movies is they don’t take themselves seriously. It’s a very odd tone shift that completely doesn’t work at all.
Overall Spy Kids: Armageddon was a terrible reboot that offered nothing new to the series, I’m sure the age demographic will get a kick out of this one. Everyone else not so much.
While driving with his two kids, a man receives a phone call from an unknown assailant who claims there is a bomb in the car. Unable to exit the vehicle, he must now follow a series of twisted instructions while trying to figure out how to survive.
Retribution is the third remake of the 2015 Spanish film El desconocido (I haven’t seen that one so I won’t be comparing) this movie is also another you guessed it Liam Neeson action thriller that is in the same vein as Non-Stop, The Commuter, The Marksman, Blacklight, The Ice Road, Run All Night and so many others that have released the last 5 or 6 years.
It’s gotten to the point where I just have very little to say about these movies because a majority of them are the exact same thing just tweaked around a bit, I guess Retribution isn’t as bad as some of the others but that doesn’t really mean much.
Liam Neeson gives a fine enough performance but you can really tell his heart isn’t into it anymore, at least with Non-Stop, The Commuter or Run All Night you can at least tell he genuinely cared and gave a pretty strong performance. With this one you don’t feel that at all, a few moments pop up every now and then but it’s not enough to call his performance good. The rest of the cast do a fine enough job and manage to push the movie to the finish line particularly Jack Champion and Lilly Aspell.
Everything else could honestly be boiled down to generic Liam Neeson action thriller movie elements (the action scenes are actually not awful it’s just they aren’t really noteworthy), they are the same sort of thing they have been in other movies. There is the ridiculous twist that you can easily see coming from ten miles away, it makes very little sense if you think about it for more than a second, I’m not sure how this was executed in the original movie but I’m willing to place bets that it was much better executed and didn’t end up being ridiculous.
Overall if you like these Liam Neeson movies you are going to probably have a decent time with this one, if you are hoping this one is going to be any different than the other movies you are going to be disappointed.
A Monkey and his magical fighting Stick battle demons, dragons, gods and the greatest adversary of all – Monkey’s ego.
The Monkey King is inspired by the classic Ming Dynasty novel Journey to the West. A novel which inspired one of the most popular franchises in the world Dragon Ball (and personally one of my favorites!) I’m not going to compare the two for obvious reasons, The Monkey King and Dragon Ball are two completely different takes on the iconic story. I will say that I was genuinely interested to see how this movie was going to approach the story and unfortunately it’s a very bland approach.
I’ll start with what worked because the movie does have it’s positives, the animation is actually not entirely bad. While yes it does get a bit repetitive as it goes on, early on in the movie there’s some genuinely great moments in the animation that do standout. The character designs while not anything to write home about get the job done and do have a bit of charm to them.
With that said however what hurts this movie mostly is the writing, despite being inspired on such an iconic story the movie really doesn’t do anything special with it. The characters get very little character development, the jokes are incredibly unfunny and the movie plays out exactly how you think it’s going to. While Jimmy O. Yang can be very fun at times voicing Monkey, Monkey is a very one note character both in how he’s voiced and especially how he’s written. He’s the very typical underdog protagonist who’s cocky (also a jerk to everyone around him) and wants to reach his goal, it’s a type of character who’s been done far better before.
It’s a shame because I do think introducing this influential story to kids is quite an interesting idea but it completely lacks the execution and interest from the viewer, It’s definitely not the worst out there but it’s definitely one of the biggest missed opportunities.
A research team encounters multiple threats while exploring the depths of the ocean, including a malevolent mining operation.
Meg 2: The Trench is a sequel to The Meg which came out In 2018, The Meg is a fun enough shark movie that when it first came out I absolutely hated it. Over the few years it did grow on me but it’s still not something I would consider good, Meg 2: The Trench sort of follows that exact same path. Honestly what caught my attention about this one was Ben Wheatley being in the director’s chair who’s previous work consists of Kill List (2011), High-Rise (2015), Free Fire (2016), In The Earth (2021) and many others! Some really great movies here and drastically different from The Meg.
While I do respect Ben Wheatley for tackling something different Meg 2: The Trench is more or less the exact same thing as the first movie, Jason Statham of course does his thing and is very entertaining there’s absolutely no denying that. He works with what he’s given script wise and actually does manage to have a few funny movements.
The movie can mostly be broken down into two sections the first hour of the movie is a lot of uninteresting corporate conversations and not very good build-up, although there are a few moments here and there in the first hour that are decent. The second half is when the movie goes completely over the top and lands into hilarious territory. The Meg and other sea creatures attack which leads to chaos ensuing, there’s a ton of fun moments to be had and a lot of ridiculous moments that make the movie all the more hilarious.
Having that said much like the first movie it’s a huge mixed bag that never quite pins down the premise to it’s full potential, if you took away a lot of the bad exposition from the first hour of the movie and went as campy and wacky as possible there definitely could have been something here.
Meg 2: The Trench is available on all VOD Platforms.
An intelligence operative for a shadowy global peacekeeping agency races to stop a hacker from stealing its most valuable and dangerous weapon.
Heart Of Stone falls in the exact same category as Red Notice and The Gray Man, over expensive and uninspired Netflix original action movies. Sadly this is a trend that I don’t see dying anytime soon, honestly what could I say that’s really thought provoking about Heart Of Stone?
Gal Gadot isn’t good here, the acting all around falls completely flat and the writing gives very little information about any of these characters. Outside of a few action scenes that are decently done, this is a movie that is really trying it’s hardest to be Mission Impossible. Except where as Mission Impossible is entertaining, has a story to follow and even if the characters aren’t the most developed they are still fun to watch. In Heart Of Stone the characters are the most generic spy movie characters you could come up with, they lack any personality outside of being plot devices or exposition.
The running time is a whole other problem as well, it’s 2 hours and 2 minutes and the pacing is about as dreadful as you would expect, there’s nothing investing, nothing that could give the viewer some sort of interest and nothing really to say at all. It’s not helped by bland direction that has no style to it at all, making this another terrible Netflix action movie that lands in the sea of them.
Nick Fury learns of a secret invasion of Earth by a faction of shapeshifting Skrulls; Fury joins his allies, and together they race against time to thwart an imminent Skrull invasion and save humanity.
Secret Invasion is the newest installment of the MCU and is the ninth television series in the MCU, it took me awhile to review this show despite watching the entire series in one day back in July because there truly is not anything interesting or compelling to talk about here.
Which is a massive shame because I do think some of the ideas presented here are interesting they are just very poorly executed, a political thriller Marvel series could have easily worked heck Marvel already showed that in movie form it can work with Captain America: The Winter Soldier (it depends on who you ask, some people consider it a political thriller some people don’t.) so it’s quite baffling to see just how massively Secret Invasion fails in comparison.
The only positive here are the performances from Samuel L. Jackson, Emilia Clarke, Olivia Coleman (pretty much any scene she’s in is such a delight) and Ben Mendelsohn. They all try their absolute hardest with such a messy and unfocused script that really does not give them much to work with at all, Emilia Clarke’s character in particular is very blandly written and only gets worse during the finale (which that in itself is a whole other issue with the series that I’ll get to in a bit.)
One of the main problems here is the character development and a majority of the characters in general, the development for any of these characters outside of Nick Fury and maybe Talos is incredibly nonexistent. Emilia Clarke’s character G’iah had her moments but left so much to be desired, which is frustrating because I do think the father and daughter relationship that Talos and G’iah shined through at times but when it comes to just about everything else her character isn’t interesting at all.
Then we have the main villain of the series Gravik the leader of the rebel Skrulls (the Skrulls were in Captain Marvel I’ll get into why they do not work well at all in Secret Invasion in a bit) who is played by Kingsley Ben-Adir who doesn’t give a terrible performance just not a very memorable one, Gravik on the other hand is one of the most forgettable villains of the MCU and honestly one of the worst as well. Despite the series trying to make Gravik seem more than a villain who is evil for the sake of being evil there really isn’t anything compelling, unique or well written about the character. A majority of the time during the series he’s a hot head who just kills his own men.
Speaking of killing characters this show does a lot of it (I still don’t know how to feel about a certain character’s death in the first episode.) the problem is a majority of them are not interesting at the slightest, making the scenes they eventually get axed in lack any sort of interest. The Skrulls as I mentioned before were in Captain Marvel and while I didn’t like Captain Marvel at the very least in that movie the Skrulls had character to them granted the movie could have done a bit more but the ideas and character ideas were definitely there. In Secret Invasion with the exception of Talos they are restricted to either being henchmen who have no personality or just flat out being poorly written (G’iah and Gravik) as well as being used for a VERY stupid plot twist.
Finally there’s the finale episode 6 a disastrous way to end a series, I know a lot of people were divided on the finale of Wandavision but this is just awful, throughout the series it (for the most part) tried to stick with this political thriller atmosphere where the action scenes weren’t as flashy as a lot of other installments of the series. Even if the political thriller atmosphere was not good at all here, at the very least there was some consistency. However that gets thrown out the window with the final battle, suddenly becomes a flashy mess that even if you wanted to make the argument that it’s the final battle of course there’s going to be flashy action. That doesn’t take away that the CGI used is horrendous, the fight is between G’iah and Gravik two very uninteresting characters making the fight just dull.
Overall Secret Invasion is a gigantic mess, it’s a terrible series that has some decent performances and a few character moments but lacks in every other department.
A series of eerie events thrusts an unlikely trio onto the trail of a nefarious government conspiracy.
They Cloned Tyrone is a very interesting film that I really can’t help but respect, even if the movie’s ideas are not executed perfectly and it does slip up a bit during the middle of the film. There was clearly a whole lot of creativity, passion and fun put into it.
For starters the cast is excellent, John Boyega continues to show how incredibly talented he really is with tons of memorable scenes here that really drive home the point of how fantastic he is. Jamie Foxx is of course really strong here and Teyonah Parris is incredibly fun especially the interactions between her and Jamie Foxx their presence is fantastic and really gives the characters so much more power when it comes to writing.
The film is beautifully shot and directed, They Cloned Tyrone really serves as a quite strong directional debut for director Juel Taylor. Who really gives these three characters some striking character development that really is beautiful, the film definitely has some inspirations from Get Out (although this one is a lot more comedic) and A Clockwork Orange, Juel Taylor makes these inspirations into his own and brings some creative ideas to the table, on top of that he brings the sci-fi genre into the mix which while does get a bit overstuffed at times is executed quite nicely.
Criticisms are mostly the middle of the movie being a bit too predictable and draws out a bit, the story can get a bit convoluted with combining too many ideas at once. However when the final act rolls around the movie gets back on track with tons of fun moments and some more great character development as well.
They Cloned Tyrone might not be one of my favorite films of this year but is a quite solid one and one that I do recommend giving a look.
Agent Chris Redfield and his team investigate a zombie outbreak in San Francisco. They follow a clue that leads them to Alcatraz Island, where a new horror awaits them.
Resident Evil: Death Island is set in the same universe as the video game franchise, it’s also the fifth installment and the fifth film of the animated Resident Evil series. Finally it’s a sequel to the 2017 movie Resident Evil: Vendetta and I believe the 2021 miniseries Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness.
I’ll start off by saying that it is admittedly very neat to see the large group of Resident Evil characters together, Leon Kennedy, Claire Redfield, Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine and Rebecca Chambers (even if she is given very little to do). There are some decent scenes here of them working together and interacting with one another that are pretty fun. The voice acting unfortunately is a bit of a hit or miss here, some of the dialogue really ends up being very flat and doesn’t quite capture the spirit of these characters.
The villain is very forgettable which is unfortunate because there are some quite effective villains in the series so it’s very puzzling to see a villain written in the most generic way possible who lacks so much charisma. The action is fine enough but really isn’t helped out by the CGI animation which does have it’s moments of looking half decent, but a majority of the time you are just looking at this and wishing you could just play the games.
Resident Evil: Death Island is available on all VOD platforms.
Jerome Reviews... 