Brian is a lonely inventor in rural Wales who spends his days building quirky, unconventional contraptions that seldom work. Undeterred by his lack of success, he soon attempts his biggest project yet. Using a washing machine and various spare parts, he invents Charles, an artificial intelligence robot that learns English from a dictionary and has an obsession with cabbages.
Brian And Charles is a genuinely funny little movie about a man and his robot, the performances are all really strong here David Earl and Chris Hayward have this strong chemistry that really matches the character’s bond. The novelty is what makes the movie worth it, it’s such a simple but fascinating idea that it becomes lovable. Sure the movie does run out of steam during the third act as it does start to repeat itself a tiny bit, but that doesn’t stop the movie from having a handful of quiet moments that really let you absorb both Brian and Charles conversations. How they act, feel and tell about each other is truly fascinating and leads to a handful of laughs.
Brian And Charles is available on all VOD Platforms
After a governor issues an executive order to arrest the children of undocumented immigrants, the newly detained youth are offered an opportunity to have their charges dropped by volunteering to provide care to the elderly.
American Carnage is a fun little movie with pretty interesting and grotesque premise, the only main flaw is that it does take a bit to get going but if you can get past that then you are in for a ride. The cast does a really solid job here particularly Jenna Ortega (her fourth major role this year), Eric Dane and Jorge Lendeborg Jr. They all truly give such entertaining performances that the movie run pretty smoothly, the gore and makeup are pretty well done as well when combined together they both stick out. Not every joke in the movie completely lands, but this is a horror comedy where there’s actually some decently funny scenes here, what does help this movie is it takes advantage of the bizarre premise while make it a ton of fun!!
American Carnage is available on all VOD Platforms.
Valerie is a competitive gamer whose impressive skills have landed her a place on her university’s male-dominated esports team. Told she’ll never be a starting player, Valerie forms an all-girl team to take down the guys at the national championship.
1Up is directed by Kyle Newman (Fanboys and Barely Lethal) and it’s a huge mess of a movie, to start out the best part about the movie is the representation. Hari Nef (who’s a trans woman) plays Sloane a trans woman and Lolita Milena (a paraplegic actress) plays Jenna who uses a wheelchair, so it’s nice there was some actual representation here and both of which happen to be the ones who got a few laughs out of me. They worked with what they were given and for a messy script they tried their hardest to make it work. Everything else can be summed up as what if we copied Pitch Perfect, made it about video games instead of singing and it was terrible. Heck the movie his it’s own fat Amy which the movie makes painfully obvious. The major problem here is the writing it’s the same sort of stuff that I’ve said in the past about Buzzfeed studios, they are so dedicated to shoving this “haha #relatable” humor down the viewer’s throat to the point where it becomes insulting. There’s even a Leroy Jenkins joke a meme that came from a video uploaded back that went viral in 2005, I get they used it because it has to do with video games but did they really need to shove a very old meme in here? The other characters are stereotypes who don’t have any defining traits besides the ones they are assigned, Paris Berelc plays the typical main character, Ruby Rose plays the typical mentor character (her acting here is dreadful), D.J. Mausner plays the fat Amy like character I mentioned earlier and Madison Baines plays the typical smart character. What made Pitch Perfect so great was that it knew what the the viewer wanted, some very solid drama, memorable jokes and great music. Aside from the occasional laugh you just don’t get that here with 1Up, If it hadn’t been for Hari Nef and Lolita Milena this would have easily been the worst movie so far this year.
Zed anticipates an athletic scholarship while Addison gears up for Seabrook’s first international cheer-off. Then suddenly, extraterrestrial beings arrive in Seabrook, provoking something other than friendly competition.
I guess one of the more interesting things about Zombies 3 is that it got the Disney+ upgrade treatment, for those that don’t know the previous two movies Zombies and Zombies 2 were Disney Channel Original Movies. And while the movie at times does seem like it still has a made for TV aura to it, there definitely is the noticeable upgrade changes (mostly the songs that were surprisingly catchy). However like the two previous movies unless you are a die hard fan this is going to be more or less be the same thing, the characters are still not investing and the jokes are just not funny, as I said earlier the only fun moments are the songs which even then are something I will probably never look back at.
The life of a legendary sea monster hunter is turned upside down when a young girl stows away on his ship.
The Sea Beast is directed by Chris Williams who partly directed Big Hero 6 and Bolt, Netflix animated films have a huge tendency to go in a lot of different ways much more of the time not very good. While The Sea Beast is pretty much a How To Train Your Dragon clone it still manages to create a beautiful picture and makes some of the elements it’s own, for starters the animation is bright, colorful and very well detailed it adds a lot to the characters world and really makes the sea itself huge. The characters surprisingly get a lot of development, there’s some really interesting dialogue that points to a lot of interesting themes that are used. The scale of the movie completely matches the concept of sea monsters, pirates and the sea itself, it’s a huge world with so much to look at on screen. The film makes the viewer’s eyes go on an adventure which is something that I wish a lot of other films could do, the voice acting from the cast mainly Karl Urban, Zaris-Angel Hator, Jarred Harris and Marianne Jean-Baptiste is truly fantastic and really dives deep into their respective characters. Overall The Sea Beast is definitely a film that is going to be overlooked, so highly recommend checking this one out!!
Claire and Aidan make a pact to break up before college with no regrets and no broken hearts. However, one epic goodbye date may offer them a last chance at love.
Hello, Goodbye, and Everything In Between is yet another addition to the long line of Netflix original romantic comedies. While this one isn’t as bad as some of the recent ones, it still suffers from the exact same problems as a lot of them. Talia Ryder and Jordan Fisher are solid enough as the leads and both have decent chemistry between one another but it’s not enough to spark a huge fire, everything else is very by the numbers. The writing falls flat after the movie loses it’s charm, the comedy is a hit or miss and while there are some genuine raw moments that do help the movie it’s not enough to completely save it from being very below average. At the very least this one was competently made and there was definitely some level of effort to make this work, it just needed to stand out far more.
Hello, Goodbye, and Everything In Between is available on Netflix.
Thor embarks on a journey unlike anything he’s ever faced — a quest for inner peace. However, his retirement gets interrupted by Gorr the God Butcher, a galactic killer who seeks the extinction of the gods.
To say the MCU Phase Four has been divisive would be the understatement of the year, while there have been some really installments that I would actually go as far to say are some of the best of the MCU such as Doctor Strange: And The Multiverse Of Madness, Loki and Spider-Man: No Way Home, there are also ones that completely missed the mark (Black Widow and Eternals) or had a ton of great ideas but settled on playing safe or were just hindered by the 6 episode format (looking at you Moon Knight even though I gave it a 7/10).
Thor: Love and Thunder is truly baffling the way it came out, there was so much here that should have absolutely worked but didn’t for several reasons. I’ll start with what I liked, Natalie Portman who returns as Jane Foster and becomes The Mighty Thor is truly fantastic here. Like in the first Thor films she really captures Jane Foster quite well and absolutely tries her best with the bare bones script she is given, what hurts her character is she isn’t explored nearly enough which is quite odd considering this was supposed to be a huge part of the film. Christian Bale who plays Gorr (or The God Slayer) also gives a strong performance but is the very definition of underutilized, Gorr as a character is very interesting and has a backstory that could have been quite emotional and actually powerful as well. The problem is Gorr is not given enough screentime to make that work, plus his backstory itself is nowhere near as explored as it should have been, Bale goes all out with the role which is just another huge reminder of how good of an actor Bale is. There’s a few fun action scenes here and there but a lot of it feels very empty that goes completely off the rails towards the end in all the wrong ways. Lastly there’s Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie who for some reason gets put into the backseat and just becomes some sidekick, when she does get time to shine she’s really great but Thompson and her character deserved far better than this.
Now for what it is completely wrong with this movie and that’s mostly due to three major things that completely break it. The first being the jokes, while I do understand the criticism of Thor Raganrock having jokes in it at least they worked to an extent and were at least controlled on a tight leash, the jokes in Thor: Love and Thunder are the complete opposite the first half of the movie is filled to the brim of jokes that are painfully unfunny. Even resorting to the screaming goat meme which is from 2012 (went viral in 2013), the first time it might have gotten a chuckle but the film kept doing it over and over again. The biggest problem here is the movie tries to juggle between jokes and serious moments, there’s some okay setups for some emotional scenes but are hindered by poorly written jokes that feel like they should be in an entirely different movie. The second major issue is the writing which can be pretty much summed up as being the definition of bare bones, characters who could be interesting have no character development, plot lines are introduced and abandoned with a snap of a finger and writing that completely prohibits any emotion or depth. Lastly there’s what I hinted at the beginning of this review, this another case of Phase Four having a ton of great ideas but completely wasting them. Particularly with Gorr and Jane Foster, there were many ideas about them that are interesting the movie just completely fails to do anything with them and if the movie does do then it’s barely anything at all, Thor finding out who he really is could be interesting but once again that’s only mentioned a few times throughout the movie but is quickly abandoned. Overall Thor: Love And Thunder is a huge missed opportunity that should have absolutely worked, it’s honestly quite baffling how wrong this went and is just massively disappointing overall.
A wealthy businessman hires a neurotic director to produce his crowning achievement, a brilliant art film.
Official Competition has been on my radar for awhile now and I’m glad I finally watched this one. Penélope Cruz, Antonio Banderas and Oscar Martínez all do a fantastic job, each of their characters are given some quite interesting development and there’s truly something to love about each of them. The film does a fantastic job of showing how some journeys artists will take for their final work, it’s also a nice commentary of prestige films seeking awards. There’s a lot of clever ideas presented with different writing styles that bring the viewer closer to the characters, the direction from Gastón Duprat and Maiano Cohn is really strong, between the comedic elements and some serious moments as well, it’s nicely wrapped in a powerful picture that by the end makes you think about what you just saw.
Two polar-opposite families find themselves sharing a cabin for a week away at camp. With the highly coveted camp trophy at stake, dads Tommy and Eddie end up lost in the woods.
Family Camp is one of those movies where it released and nobody talked about it at all, it’s like it didn’t exist and I can easily see why. I’ll give it this…it’s not the God’s Not Dead type of Christian movie, but that’s honestly not saying much when you look at the quality of the movie. The best thing about this mess is Leigh-Allyn Baker who gives a fine enough performance but isn’t enough to make the viewer look past everything else, the writing is truly awful there isn’t one moment here that feels sincere or meaningful. A lot of it is if you took every bad cliche from the early 2000s family movie era, mixed it all together and this is what you would get. One of the worst things a movie can be is annoying and that’s what this movie is like, the writing mixed with the characters is grating and gets you in the “can this movie please be over” type of mood.
Retired widow Nancy Stokes hires a good-looking young sex worker called Leo Grande, in the hope of enjoying a night of pleasure and self-discovery after an unfulfilling married life.
The best word to describe Good Luck To You, Leo Grande is surprising, this is most certainly not what I expected and I mean that in the best possible way. I’m pretty sure I’ve said before how I like films where all the movie is you have a couple characters who have multiple conversations with each other and that’s it. This film is exactly that and uses that premise quite well, it works mainly due to multiple factors at play first being the acting combined with the chemistry. Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack both do an excellent job in their roles, both performances come off as very raw, genuine and actually quite beautiful. The chemistry is beautifully done it’s very intimate to the point where the viewer feels like they are right there sitting with the two, the film itself enjoys the topics that are discussed such as sex, emotions, self-acceptance and so on. Director Sophie Hyde makes sure to keep this grounded as possible and even includes more taboo topics, it’s a huge key of making this as realistic as possible. There’s so much charm and affection with this film I know I have said this already but Thompson and McCormack truly make this film, they completely capture what it’s like to have intimate conversations while also showing tons of emotions as well. There’s so much beauty to this film that is truly masterful, I’m sure this film is going to go under a lot of people’s radar so I highly recommend giving this one a watch.
Good Luck To You, Leo Grande is available on Hulu.
Jerome Reviews... 