Rebel Moon (2023) Film Review

When a colony on the edge of the galaxy finds itself threatened by the armies of the tyrannical Regent Balisarius, they dispatch a young woman with a mysterious past to seek out warriors from neighbouring planets to help them take a stand.

Rebel Moon or Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child Of Fire is directed by Zack Snyder. A film that I’ve been pretty excited about for awhile. This is sort of a passion project for Zack Snyder and Kurt Johnstad (one of the other writers of the film), it’s very clear the film has a ton of inspirations such as Star Wars, Dune, The Last Samurai and many others. So it’s very disappointing to see just how much of a mess and disjointed the movie is.

Before I start I do want to acknowledge that yes an extended cut is coming out in 2024 similar to Zack Snyder’s Justice League cut. We’ll cross that bridge when the cut releases but for now I’m reviewing the movie as what it is right now. Anyway let’s get to the review.

The performances and the visuals are what pushes the movie to the finish line, Sofia Boutella is a fun protagonist who does give a solid performance and Anthony Hopkins while not getting a lot of screentime still manages to land a touching impression on the viewer. The rest of the cast aren’t particularly noteworthy but none of them turn in a bad performance.

The visuals are fantastic, if it’s one thing that Snyder has always been great at it’s making his films visually appealing and that absolutely applies here. Even if we don’t know much about Rebel Moon’s world it’s truly beautiful and really does make you want to explore the place, it’s huge in scale and the attention to detail in a lot of areas is very creative there’s many striking moments that standout as well.

Unfortunately that’s where Rebel Moon ends for me, the characters on paper are interesting they are very neat looking design wise but don’t have the character development to make the viewer care about them. Something that’s very noticeable here is the characters appear, get to do a couple cool things and then are put aside as characters who stand around until a fight scene starts. This repeats throughout the movie and it’s a huge shame because you want to learn more about these characters but the movie doesn’t give any strong development.

The same can be said with the world building, while yes the world itself is very neat to look at. Once again the movie unfortunately doesn’t give the world the proper development it needs, it really leaves the viewer in the dark a lot of the time and not in a good way, I still do very much like the look of it and It does make you want to explore. But at the same time I want to actually learn about it, it’s all very vague and loses the viewer very quickly.

Finally there’s the villains who are pretty by the numbers, Ed Skrein does a fine enough job in the role. But there’s just nothing here that makes the viewer care about this guy as a villain.

Overall Rebel Moon has its moments but it’s mostly a huge misfire, can this be fixed with the director’s cut? Will the sequel that’s coming out next year be better? I guess we will cross that bridge when we get there, but for now this is a huge mess.

Rebel Moon is available on Netflix.

4/10 D+

Dashing Through The Snow (2023)

After a traumatic experience, Eddie Garrick, a social worker, no longer believes in the magic of Christmas. At the request of his estranged wife, he brings his daughter Charlotte to work where a magical adventure begins for them.

There really isn’t a whole lot to say about Tim Story’s latest movie Dashing Through The Snow. It’s the very definition of a forgettable Christmas movie that just sort of exists and has a lot of the exact same problems a lot of modern Christmas movies do. Which mostly consists of slapping a few familiar faces on the movie and not really care about anything else.

It’s nice to see Ludacris attempt to branch out in different roles other then the Fast and Furious series, however that really doesn’t mean all that much when the writing is painfully dull and really does not have the Christmas spirit at all. Lil Rel Howery Santa could have worked if the material was actually funny, he tries his best with what he’s given but it’s nowhere near enough to save this movie from being a chore to sit through.

That’s perhaps the biggest problem here, Dashing Through The Snow feels like a very long chore to finish with no actual reward at the end, the characters are very underdeveloped and the journey they go on is just not very interesting at all. I’ll give the movie some points for it’s cast, despite not giving great performances there were some heartfelt moments during the third act that did work. Unfortunately by then it’s too little too late and we have pointless villain subplot (they could have easily went without a villain.)

Dashing Through The Snow is available on Disney+

3/10 D-

Dark Harvest is a mess.

Teens confront a legendary supernatural spectre that emerges from the cornfields of a small Midwestern town every fall.

After many delays since September 2021, Dark Harvest is finally released and it’s not exactly hard to see why this took so long to release.

I can see what director David Slade was attempting here with the movie but unfortunately that all gets lost with tons of bad performances and some very messy dialogue especially towards the end. The first half you can at least get an idea of what’s going on, as it does have some classic Halloween time type of themes that help the movie stand out a bit.

The creature’s design was decent enough but the parts with CGI completely take you out of the movie, honestly what hurts this movie the most is the second half. Which is mostly due to the movie really not focusing on it’s worldbuilding at all, sure we are given the rules but without much exploration of said rules the end result only puzzles the viewer. Events sort of just happen as the movie goes on with little to no context which admittedly can lead to some unintentionally funny scenes but not enough to save the movie.

There’s admittedly some pretty neat gore that I give credit where credit is due, but that’s really about it. Which is a shame because Dark Harvest had everything it needed to be a future cult classic during Halloween time. But with the movie taking itself way too seriously and a completely messy second half, it’s likely that Dark Harvest will be forgotten about.

Dark Harvest available on all VOD platforms.

4/10 D+

Haunted Mansion (2023) is a terrible and forgettable take on Disney’s ride

A woman and her son enlist a motley crew of so-called spiritual experts to help rid their home of supernatural squatters.

Haunted Mansion is another take that’s based on Disney’s theme park attraction ride The Haunted Mansion. The first movie was of course was the 2003 movie The Haunted Mansion, a silly movie that some people still quite like to this day. Haunted Mansion (2023) however? It’s a complete and total mess as well as being one of Disney’s most forgettable releases this year.

Haunted Mansion has a decent cast and they do the best they can with a script that is incredibly limited, LaKeith Stanfield, Owen Wilson and Danny DeVito in particular are decent enough, what holds them back is the script. Between a lot of painfully bad jokes and product placements such as Baskin Robbins, Burger King, CVS and a few others it starts to become a mess that strangely enough makes very little sense.

At least with the Eddie Murphy Haunted Mansion it had some sort of personality and actually knew what it wanted to be, this one wants to go for a darker tone, have product placements and tell unfunny jokes. It’s not like this movie did not have potential either, the New Orleans setting if it were taken advantage there could have been some really strong moments. The characters are given very little in ways of character traits and development, combine that with such a dull plot that moves at a snails pace and you have a chore of a movie to sit through.

I wish there was more to be said but this is the most nothing movie I’ve seen so far this year, it’s a bunch of product placements and a poorly written script crammed together with some talented actors involved.

Haunted Mansion is available on Disney+ and on all VOD platforms.

3/10 D-

The Last Voyage Of The Demeter is a fun Dracula feature.

The crew of the merchant ship Demeter sets sail from Carpathia to London to deliver a cargo of 50 unmarked wooden crates. However, they soon discover they’re not alone as Dracula’s unholy presence turns the trip into a nightmarish fight for survival.

The Last Voyage Of The Demeter is an adaptation based of “The Captain’s Log” a chapter that is from the 1897 novel Dracula. The movie is directed by André Øverdal who at this point in his career has directed some quite interesting films such as Autopsy Of Jane Doe, Scary Stories To Tell in The Dark, Troll Hunter (2010) and a few others. While I don’t think The Last Voyage Of The Demeter is one of his best films, there is still a whole lot to really like about this one.

The performances are all around quite great, nobody turns in a bad performance and sticks with the period gothic style that Øverdal is going for. The standouts are definitely Corey Hawkins who plays a strong leading man and really helps put this movie to the finish line, Aisling Franciosi is fun here and has decent enough chemistry with Hawkins. Finally there’s Liam Cunningham who plays Captain Elliot and narrates the story which is quite well done and does fit with what the movie is going for.

Dracula’s design is quite interesting and takes on an appearance more like Nosferatu which is always welcomed, some people might have issues with the design looking a bit too generic but it fits with the whole “monster attacking a ship” type of story which the movie is in the most classic way possible.

Øverdal’s atmosphere like in some of his other movies is very effective here, there’s actually one or two emotional moments that are genuinely sort of sad and you really start to feel towards these characters, it really fits with the period piece gothic atmosphere and look the movie is going for which it really does succeed.

The main flaws come in with the huge lack of character development and not a whole lot to the story, a lot of the characters on the ship really just serve to be killed off, there definitely are character moments for Clemens (Corey Hawkins), Anna (Aisling Franciosi) and Captain Elliot (Liam Cunningham) and I said before there are a few emotional moments that are quite great. But in a lot of areas it’s still incredibly lacking, as far as story goes it’s a very simple story of a monster attacking a ship picking apart it’s crew one by one. There really isn’t a whole lot here, it does take a bit to get going and the story starts to run at a very slow pace but the final act is admittedly very fun.

Overall despite it’s flaws The Last Voyage Of The Demeter is a fun time, it takes awhile to get going and writing wise there really is not a whole lot here, but the acting, atmosphere and the fun final act push this one to the finish line.

The Last Voyage Of The Demeter is playing in theaters.

6/10 C+

Nimona is a beautiful film filled to brim with heart.

A knight is framed for a crime he didn’t commit, and the only person who can help him prove his innocence is Nimona, a shape-shifting teen who might also be a monster he’s sworn to kill.

Nimona was about to become Lost Media that we may have never been able due to Bluesky’s closure and Disney just not wanting to release the project. Luckily thanks to Annapurna Pictures reviving the project, DNEG Animation providing the animation and Netflix distributing it worldwide Nimona was released and it’s truly a beautiful film.

Nimona is one of those films where you can tell a lot of love was put into it in almost every single way possible, for starters the voice cast is brilliant the standouts being Chloe Grace Moretz and Riz Ahmed both give such fantastic performances and put so much power and talent into their characters. The characters Nimona and Ballister Boldheart are such fascinating characters who might feel a bit too traditional at first and may follow some common character tropes however you quickly realize that isn’t the case at all, instead what you get is two characters who have so much development put into them that truly make you care about the both of them.

The animation is absolutely gorgeous this is yet another case of being Spider-Verse inspired but it’s also another case of being completely different with it, the film focuses on shapeshifting which really blends well with the style use and the film itself is also based on a graphic novel which really makes the use of the animation quite appropriate. The whole shapeshifter theme is an allegory of embracing your true self which is quite a fantastic way of telling a beautiful LGBT like theme, heck Nimona is non-binary which is fantastic representation the film has no problem having any of these themes and I absolutely respect the film for that. Plus the film itself doesn’t have these themes for the sake of having them or wanting to just pander, these themes are important to the story and a lot of passion plus heart are put into these themes.

Not once did I feel like some studio was in the back saying “put this this and that in” you can very easily tell this is from the heart which you honestly can’t help but smile at, Nimona is quite a fantastic film that I’m very happy was able to get released, it’s a film that I can easily see go on to be a classic in a few years. If you haven’t seen it yet be sure to do so!

Nimona is available on Netflix.

9/10 A

The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster is falls apart during the second half.

Vicaria is a brilliant teenager who believes death is a disease that can be cured. After the brutal murder of her brother, she embarks on a dangerous journey to bring him back to life.

Somewhere in The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster there is a very interesting idea with a solid movie, but unfortunately it’s not fully present here.

Laya DeLeon Hayes gives a solid performance and can quickly switch her tone in performance easily, her talent especially shown with the first half of the movie where it shines. Speaking of which the first half of the movie is quite interesting, it’s a take on the classic Frankenstein story while also including themes of police, drugs, education, socio-economic conditions and a few more. It definitely seemed like the movie was going to explore these ideas and combine them with the whole Frankenstein story…unfortunately that’s not what happened.

Instead it comes off like the movie completely folds and turns into a very generic slasher and creature feature type of movie during it’s second half. It completely abandons the ideas from the first half and goes in the most generic route possible, the monster itself isn’t really all that much either. Think of any generic monster you have seen and you are more than likely correct, it’s an absolute shame to because there was definitely something here. It quite honestly feels like two completely different scrips from two different movies.

At the very least the acting from the rest of the cast is quite great and the movie itself at least looks nice and does a pretty decent job of using it’s location to it’s advantage. But story wise this falls off a cliff during the second half incredibly hard.

The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster is available on all VOD platforms.

5/10 C

The Little Mermaid (2023) is a fun remake with a strong performance from Halle Bailey!

The youngest of King Triton’s daughters, Ariel is a beautiful and spirited young mermaid with a thirst for adventure. Longing to find out more about the world beyond the sea, Ariel visits the surface and falls for the dashing Prince Eric. Following her heart, she makes a deal with the evil sea witch, Ursula, to experience life on land.

I’m going to skip over the whole conversation about Disney’s Live Action Remakes since I already briefly talked about it in my Peter Pan & Wendy review last month, anyway The Little Mermaid had me a bit worried. When the trailer dropped myself and a few others said that Halle Bailey would be the standout but mostly everything else would fall flat, it’s a common pattern that happens with a lot of these live action remakes. However as I said before in my reviews I like to be proven wrong when it comes to film and to my surprise…The Little Mermaid did just that.

The Little Mermaid is very flawed, the underwater parts don’t exactly look all that great as there are moments where the CGI is very noticeable. Javier Bardem gives a pretty poor performance as King Triton, Jacob Tremblay as Flounder is a very lifeless performance and Awkwafina as Scuttle is yet another addition to her bad performances post The Farewell. I’m not going to on a huge rant about the rap Awkwafina sings in the movie. I really don’t have that much to say about it, it’s bad of course but it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever heard. To be quite honest I found it more unnecessary and very unfitting than bad, it comes right out of nowhere and ends shortly after and is never spoken of again.

Now moving on to what really worked for the movie, let’s start with of course Halle Bailey who was the standout. Her film career is going to go very far and it really shows here, she captures the spirit of Ariel while bringing her own direction to the character, her acting really shines through when the film goes to the land portion of the film. Her screen presence is genuinely charming and she naturally connects with the rest of the cast, even if I didn’t like some of the other performances such as Awkwafina or Tremblay there is absolutely no denying that she connects with them easily.

Daveed Diggs as Sebastian took me a little bit to get used to, but he really did a great job. His version of Under The Sea is a whole lot of fun and he really does capture the character quite well, Melissa McCarthy as Ursula was also pretty solid obviously there is no topping Pat Carroll (voiced Ursula in the original) who delivered one of my favorite performances of all time. With that said I do think McCarthy did a pretty good job with what she was given, absolutely far better than some other depictions of iconic Disney villains (looking at you Jafar from Aladdin (2019). Finally there’s Art Malik who plays Grimsby, he’s genuinely fun and is just a very charming character. He’s a prime example of a fun side character that gets the job done quite well.

The music was surprisingly pretty great, I say surprisingly because yes while Rob Marshall director of Chicago (one of my favorite films) is in the director’s chair. This is Disney we are talking about, the music in these live action remakes have always been a hit or miss or some movies will have a few good songs and the rest would just be very forgettable. However that wasn’t the case here with The Little Mermaid, minus the previously mentioned rap. The rest of the songs are pretty well done renditions of the original songs, Under The Sea is a lot of fun, Kiss The Girl is one of the film’s highlights and Part Of Your World is truly fantastic due to Halle Bailey’s powerful singing voice. Which is why the music works so well the singing voices are truly great especially Halle Bailey who as I said before has a tremendous singing voice.

Lastly there’s Rob Marshall’s direction, his approach of “if it isn’t broken don’t fix it” is truly effective here, especially in terms of story. Rob Marshall’s touches on the music is absolutely felt here and he really does a fantastic job of connecting the cast to one another, there’s some genuinely well done moments of chemistry between Halle Bailey and Jonah Hauer-King.

Overall The Little Mermaid (2023) is quite solid, it’s definitely flawed but it’s a genuinely fun little film that manages to be a lot better than a lot of the other live action remakes.

The Little Mermaid is currently in theaters.

7/10 B

The Magic Flute has it’s moments of interesting tunes.

Follows 17-year-old Tim Walker as he travels from London to the Austrian Alps to attend the legendary Mozart boarding school. There, he discovers a centuries-old forgotten passageway into the fantastic world of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.”

The Magic Flute is a German musical fantasy film that is based on the 1791 opera of the same name, I have to give credit where credit is due this movie is completely not what I expected.

The movie is an opera which I have to say some of the singing voices are quite great, there really isn’t anything here that I’m going to remember for years to come or actively listen to. But it does get the job done and at the very least is a bit different from other fantasy movies, Jack Wolfe is definitely standout when it comes to acting, I can absolutely see his career evolve as it goes on.

What mainly hurts this movie is that it does go on for way too long it’s 124 minutes long and unfortunately the pacing doesn’t really help at all, some scenes overstay their welcome. The opera scenes are by far the most interesting but the rest of the movie falls into the “seen it and done far better” category.

With that said I don’t think The Magic Flute is necessarily bad, it’s competently made, has some decent filming and the writing does have some great moments that do have some emotion to it. A lot of it just falls in very familiar territory that is outclassed by several other movies.

The Magic Flute is available on all VOD platforms.

5/10 C

Peter Pan & Wendy is yet another forgettable Disney live action remake.

Wendy Darling, a young girl looking to avoid boarding school, meets Peter Pan, a boy who refuses to grow up. Wendy, her brothers, and Tinker Bell travel with Peter to the magical world of Neverland, where she encounters an evil pirate captain.

I’ve shared my thoughts on the whole Disney live action remake thing that Disney has been doing the last several years, while there are some that are genuinely good (Jungle Book, Pete’s Dragon Cinderella, Christopher Robin and Cruella) a majority of them are just not good and serve the purpose of being made for a quick buck. Peter Pan & Wendy I was hoping would be decent enough since David Lowery did a very solid job with Pete’s Dragon (which honestly could be argued that it’s better than the original), while you do feel Lowery’s direction here it’s nowhere near as strong as it was in Pete’s Dragon.

There is actually handful of things to like here, most notably some of the performances and the filming, David Lowery does what he does best and makes the film very stunning, while Neverland can be dark a lot of the time it does make that up with some quite strong visuals and beautiful shots. The performances that standout here is Jude Law as Hook, Ever Gabo Anderson as Wendy and Alyssa Wapanatahk as Tiger Lily

Jude Law really sells it as Hook he can be intimidating but also be goofy which actually does a pretty solid job of capturing the character, he honestly seemed like he was having an absolute blast playing Hook so that probably helps as well. Alyssa Wapantahk does a pretty solid job as Tiger Lily, while it’s not a performance to write home about she does a very decent job of capturing the character. Finally there’s Ever Gabo Anderson who’s definitely going to be a future star, she does really good job capturing the character of Wendy and ends up having some of the best scenes of the movie.

Where Peter Pan & Wendy falls short is memorability there’s a lot of scenes here that don’t really have anything of note going on, Alexander Molony is just not a very good Peter Pan, while he isn’t flat out bad he doesn’t really bring anything new to the character. His performance is more dull than anything else and technically gets the job done but that doesn’t make it good.

It’s also quite clear when the direction of the movie seems very lost, I hinted at earlier at that while there are some very beautiful shots here Neverland is still very dark and dreary, I’m not exactly sure what is making recent Peter Pan adaptions have this idea that Neverland was a depressing place, Neverland is an adventurous, lively and whimsical place where you never grow up. Although I will give credit Neverland does look far better here than it did in Pan (2015), at least with this movie you have Lowery’s direction and style.

Overall Peter Pan & Wendy isn’t something I would call bad, it just has a lot of flaws that sadly stack up and ultimately hold this movie back. It’s far better than a lot of the recent Disney live action remakes and it’s a huge improvement over Pan (2015) (then again that’s not exactly hard when you have a scene where the pirates randomly start singing Nirvana’s It Smells Like Teen Spirit).

Peter Pan & Wendy is available on Disney+

5/10 C