Spellbound (2024) Film Review

When a powerful spell turns her parents into giant monsters, a teenage princess must journey into the wild to reverse the curse before it’s too late.

Spellbound is directed by Vicky Jenson who co-directed Shrek (2001) and Shark Tale (2004) she directed Post Grad (2009) by herself. 

I think if Spellbound came out 10-20 years ago it would be a lot more acceptable, but due to the bar being raised over the years with animated films this movie falls flat. 

The positives mostly stem from the message being told and Rachel Zegler, the message of how adult problems or broken homes can affect kids is a beautiful one and for the most part it’s executed decently. Combine that with Zegler’s performance that is genuinely sweet and quite fun and you would think you would have solid movie. 

Unfortunately the rest of the movie is just very standard kids movie elements blended into one, why this was musical I will never understand. The songs were not horrendous or anything they just had no real reason to be there, none of them are memorable at all either. They songs felt like they were there to draw out the running time, none of the characters outside of Zegler’s character Ellian aren’t particularly interesting and don’t quite get enough character moments they really need. 

Finally there’s the animation which is just okay, there really isn’t anything groundbreaking going on here. But at the same time there isn’t anything particularly bad here either. It’s nice and colorful and does tell parts of the story well enough but that’s really about it. 

There really isn’t much else more to say about Spellbound it’s fine distraction for children but for everyone else this is a bit of a snoozefest. 

Spellbound is available on Netflix

4/10 D+

The Apprentice (2024) Film Review

A young Donald Trump, eager to make his name as the hungry second son of a wealthy family in 1970s New York, comes under the spell of cutthroat lawyer Roy Cohn. Cohn sees in Trump the perfect protege: someone with raw ambition, a hunger for success, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to win.

The Apprentice is directed by Ali Abbasi director of Shelley (2016), Border (2018) and Holy Spider (2022). The Apprentice explores Donald Trump’s career as a real estate businessman in New York City in the 1970s and 1980s. It also explores his relationship with attorney Roy Cohn. 

For a movie that is about Donald Trump, Roy Cohn ends up being the more interesting person. Maybe it’s because everything that has been said about Trump has already been said, maybe it’s because everything that is shown and said has been known about for years at this point. 

The performances are hands down the best part of this movie and the major reason why you would want to watch it. Sebastian Stan does an excellent job as Trump, Stan focuses on giving an actual great performance rather than an impersonation of Trump. Something we have seen countless times over the years and each one is hardly different from one another, Stan captures Trump’s mannerisms and speech quite well that really does make the movie at the very least stand on its legs. Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn is just as fascinating, the best moments are the ones of Stan and Strong going back and forth between the dialogue it’s truly captivating to see the two completely capture the actions, speech and body language of their respective parts. 

I quite like the cinematography from Kasper Tuxen it gives the movie this 70s and 80s sound at times which kind of brings you the viewer into the time period, it’s especially effective during those moments of Stan and Strong going back forth that I mentioned earlier. It’s moments like these that are the true highlight of the movie, I also do like the decline of Roy Cohn, it’s another one of the movie’s best moments and Strong’s performance (who I really think should get at least an Oscar nomination) only makes the whole part that much more investing. 

The rest of the movie is very standard biopic fluff, as I said before every single thing that’s in this movie is common knowledge. Anyone who had  a general good idea of who Trump was (pre 2016 election) could probably tell you the events explored in the movie and you would get the exact same impact. 

The Apprentice is overall quite forgettable when it comes to retelling the events of it, but the performances do leave an impression on the viewer. If you are going to watch this movie (completely understandable if you don’t I get it) watch it for the performances that’s the main thing you will walk away remembering most.

The Apprentice is available on all VOD platforms.

5/10 C

Lee (2024) Film Review

The story of photographer Elizabeth `Lee’ Miller, a fashion model who became an acclaimed war correspondent for Vogue magazine during World War II.

Lee is directed by Ellen Kuras which is directorial debut. Lee is a biopic about Lee Miller a photographer who went on to chronicle the events of World War II for Vogue Magazine. 

I have to give respect whenever a passion project is able to be released, this movie took 8 years to make its a film that Kate Winslet had wanted to make for a long time and I’m glad it was able to release. Having that said Lee falls into the trap of being a very middle of the road war biopic. 

By far the best part about Lee is Kate Winslet’s performance, it’s undeniable how excellent she really is as Lee Miller. She shows so much talent and really shows why she’s one of the best actresses of her generation, even if the script is on the weaker side of things during the first two acts and plays out like a very traditional war biopic. Winslet is able to turn certain moments into something special due to just how committed she really is to the role, the rest of the performances are very whatever. Andy Sandberg gives somewhat of an interesting performance that you can absolutely make an argument that it’s solid, but Winslet just completely dances circles around everyone else that it doesn’t matter. 

The third act is when the movie actually gets quite great, there’s so many hard hitting moments during the final moments of the movie. It’s crushing in a lot of ways that does leave the viewer with an impression and makes you really want to know even more about Lee Miller. When the movie focuses on how these events affected Lee Miller it shines and really brings the viewer closer into Lee’s mind and what she’s thinking. 

The first two acts as I said before is very middle of the road war biopic stuff, it’s very textbook like and really doesn’t say anything new about Lee Miller. The only thing really keeping the first two acts from completely collapsing is Winslet’s performance, there isn’t necessarily anything terrible just a lot of very typical biopic elements that kind of show that director Ellen Kuras didn’t know what direction to take Lee Miller’s story until the last act. 

Overall there really isn’t much else to say, Lee is a movie that had the potential to be far better told as Lee Miller is a very interesting war photographer and deserves her story to be told in a much more focused and powerful way.

Lee is available on all VOD Platforms. 

5/10 C

My Old Ass (2024) Film Review

An 18th-birthday mushroom trip brings Elliott face-to-face with her wisecracking 39-year-old self. When the older Elliott starts handing out warnings about what her younger self should and shouldn’t do, she realizes she has to rethink everything about family, love, and what’s becoming a transformative summer.

My Old Ass is directed by Megan Park who previously directed The Fallout (2021). 

The Fallout (2021) is one of my favorite films of the 2020s so far, it’s a powerful film that I never stopped thinking about. So I was excited to see what Megan Park had in store for her second movie and unfortunately it’s a huge step down. 

Maisy Stella gives a strong performance and really ends up being quite likable as well if there’s one thing to take away from this movie it’s that I’m excited to see Stella’s acting career evolve. While the movie is nowhere near as well written as The Fallout (2021), Stella is able to turn some parts of the writing into something grounded (I say parts because there’s a lot of dialogue here that’s just flat out not good), her conversations with Aubrey Plaza who plays an older Elliot (Elliot is played by Maisy Stella) is some genuinely touching stuff and really brings in the theme of “what would you ask your older self?” Had the movie stayed where it was with the first act I think this could have been something special. 

Unfortunately when Percy Hynes White enters the movie that’s when things go downhill quickly, White as an actor is terrible and very easily the worst part about this movie. Stella and White have no chemistry between one another, White seems more focused on playing generic love interest number 402 we have seen in multiple other movies rather than giving a grounded performance. It’s a shame because Stella is really trying to make the scenes involving her and White work, but White’s bad acting really sticks out like a sore thumb that never goes away. 

The third act is way too surface level for its own good, sure it’s emotional and executes the message fine enough. But there really isn’t enough meat on its bone to bring a powerful punch to the mix, something this movie needed after a very bumpy second act. The dialogue during the third act is not necessarily terrible it’s just very lacking in the power department, you can absolutely see what it’s trying to go for here but unfortunately misses the mark.

My Old Ass is available on all VOD platforms.

5/10 C

Saturday Night (2024) Film Review

Tensions run high as producer Lorne Michaels and a ferocious troupe of young comedians and writers prepare for the first broadcast of “Saturday Night Live” on Oct. 11, 1975.

Saturday Night is directed by Jason Reitman director of Juno (2007), Thank You For Smoking (2005), Men, Women & Children (2014), Tully (2018), Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2018) and a few others. Saturday Night is about the night of the 1975 premiere of NBC’s Saturday Night which later turned into Saturday Night Live. 

Despite not watching Saturday Night Live in a very long time I was very open to the idea of making a film based on the night it premiered, unfortunately Saturday Night fails to say anything interesting about the show or sketch comedy in general. 

There are positives however mainly from Gabriel LaBelle, Cooper Hoffman and Rachel Sennott. LaBelle and Hoffman have solid back and forth conversations throughout the movie that display their acting talent quite well, which end up being by far some of the movie’s best moments. There are some decent laughs to be had, while there isn’t anything that you are going to remember there is at the very least some level of charm that pops up every now and then. 

The main issue that really hurts this movie is a lot of the performances focus far more on doing caricatures or impressions of Saturday Night Live cast members and celebrities rather than putting in good performances. Nicholas Braun is the worst offense, for some reason he plays both Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson both of which he does a terrible job at playing…I honestly couldn’t tell you which one he does a worse job at doing. A lot of these performances ultimately feel like easter eggs so the viewer watching can point at the screen and say “hey I know who that person is playing” that’s really the entire movie. 

I get that the whole idea of the movie is it’s supposed to be scatterbrained and filled with chaos, which I’ll give credit where credit is due there are moments where this works well which is mainly the first act. Having that said the movie ultimately ends up hurting itself, it tries to fit in as many subplots as it can while not being able to balance them at all. None of which are particularly interesting or say anything that helps the movie in the long run, which is thanks to the severe lack of depth the movie gives these performances and the subplots. 

Overall Saturday Night isn’t necessarily a terrible movie, it’s decently made and has some strong moments. But it’s severely lacking in depth and really misses out on expanding its own ideas. 

Saturday Night is available on all VOD platforms.

5/10 C

Megalopolis (2024) Film Review

A conflict between Cesar, a genius artist who seeks to leap into a utopian, idealistic future, and his opposition, Mayor Franklyn Cicero, who remains committed to a regressive status quo, perpetuating greed, special interests, and partisan warfare.

Megalopolis is directed by Francis Ford Coppola (I really don’t think I need to name the films he’s directed). 

Every once in a while you get a movie that is so baffling you can’t make sense of how it exists…Megalopolis is one of those movies, while I don’t flat out dislike it and I respect the ambition here but at the same time this is the very definition of a “what the hell was that?” moment. This is a very bizarre movie and not really in a good way. 

The main positive here is the visuals and camerawork, if we were solely talking about visuals Megalopolis would be a 10/10 it’s undeniably beautiful and really does a good job of complementing the alternate 21st century New York City, it has this take on Roman history, the Catilinarian conspiracy of 63 BC and the transition from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire. Topics I’ve always been fascinated by and there were moments during the movie where the themes actually land, not in the best way mind you but it’s something. The visuals mostly do a lot of the talking when it comes to these moments as they speak to the viewer due to how grand and massive they are. 

Unfortunately the rest of the movie is a complete and total mess in just about every single way. Adam Driver is fun at least delivering some unintentionally hilarious lines that I have to say made me burst out laughing, everyone else is either flat out terrible or very dull to the point where you almost forget they are in the movie. Which I don’t think is entirely their fault due to just how baffling the script really is, it’s a weird mishmash of being so bad it’s hilarious and just flat out being terrible writing. 

The narrative is unfortunately very dull, it says so much yet says so little. It heavily relies on the viewer to just kind of accept the bizarre acting with a plot that is very thinly put together, the visuals can only do so much sure they can tell the story during certain moments but when you need good acting to really drive home the pain that’s just not present here at all. 

Overall Megalopolis is baffling, there were promises of a good movie in certain areas of the movie but unfortunately it’s just a huge mess. The biggest sin that the movie commits is that it’s not even a largely hilarious bad movie, it’s one of those long and drawn out uninteresting terrible movies. 

Megalopolis is available on all VOD platforms 

4/10 D+

Rumours (2024) Film Review

Leaders of the world’s wealthiest democracies gather for the annual G7 summit to draft a provisional statement regarding a global crisis. They soon become spectacles of incompetence, contending with increasingly surreal obstacles as night falls in the misty woods and they realize they are suddenly alone

Rumours is directed by Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson and Guy Maddin all three of which have worked together over the years they have directed The Green Fog (2017). Guy Maddin has directed many films by himself such as Careful (1992), My Winnipeg (2007) and a few others. 

Rumours is a very strange one, a giant brain ends up in the middle of the woods but the movie only gets stranger from there. While the movie does have a decent start the rest of the movie falls flat from very weak political satire mainly due to how the story ends up being structured towards the end. 

The biggest highlight here is the acting, the performances are all pretty solid across the board especially Cate Blanchett who I do like seeing in absurd roles like this. The cast has solid chemistry with one another and there are moments where the dry humor shines particularly in the beginning of the movie, as I said before the first act is actually quite decent. We get a nice introduction to the characters and the setup is genuinely interesting, a bunch of world leaders discussing how to address a global crisis. It’s clearly a political satire on how incompetent world leaders can be which I think the movie does well at least at first. 

As the movie goes on it begins to really get stale and the political satire begins to get squished into this mix of B-movie horror that ultimately doesn’t mesh well with the rest of the movie. The way the story is structured at this point becomes very repetitive and really does not do anything interesting with the political satire that it established at the beginning. It almost feels like the movie completely forgot about its own satire and decided to throw absurdist elements into the mix none of which really stick. 

Overall I do like what Rumours is going for but the movie really suffers badly after the first act and never recovers after that. I do recommend taking a look at the movie even if I don’t think it’s great, I can see how someone can walk away liking this one. 

Rumours is available on all VOD platforms.

5/10 C

Canary Black (2024) Film Review

Avery Graves, a CIA operative, is blackmailed by terrorists into betraying her own country to save her kidnapped husband. Cut off from her team, she turns to her underworld contacts to survive.

Canary Black is directed by Pierre Morel director of Taken (2008), The Gunman (2015), Peppermint (2018), The Ambush (2021), Freelance (2023) and a few others. 

Oh Pierre Morel you made Taken (2008) a really good action film and never had that home run when it comes to action movies again. Canary Black is arguably his worst movie to date, think of the most cliched and terrible action thriller spy movie and the end result is Canary Black. 

Kate Beckinsale is by far the best part about this movie, she actually gives a surprisingly decent performance that really makes you wish the movie itself was a lot better. The late Ray Stevenson is also pretty decent. There’s a few action scenes that are fine enough especially given this was a movie that was immediately sent to streaming. 

Having that said the rest of the movie is so painfully bare bones that it hurts, as I said before it’s about as cliched as you can get. Running through a ton of bad guys without the elements that make a good action thriller spy movie, sure there are some decent action scenes every once in a while . But that’s all you really get, the writing is terrible and about as predictable you would expect, the characters are bare bones and have no real personalities outside of what’s given to them and the pacing is so incredibly slow that this movie feels far longer than 101 minutes. 

I’m not sure what else I can really say? This is the very definition of release date fodder, a movie that the studio put out there because they needed something to fill in the gap. 

Canary Black is available on Amazon Prime Video 

3/10 D-

Black Cab (2024) Film Review

After a night out, a couple are kidnapped by their black cab driver. Terrified, he drives them to a deserted and supposedly haunted road.

Black Cab is directed by Bruce Goodison director of Leave to Remain (2013). 

Seeing Nick Frost as an unhinged taxi driver is kinda fun…it’s unfortunate that almost everything else surrounding the movie is so uninteresting and is drawn out despite the movie being 88 minutes long. 

As I said earlier Nick Frost is fun, there’s a handful of moments of him just being unhinged and delivering lines in quite humorous ways. The atmosphere I have to say is actually not bad, unfortunately what comes after the movie establishes its atmosphere is about as interesting as a white wall. But the movie does make an attempt to create an atmosphere that’s thrilling, finally the set up during the first act is pretty okay the tense back and forth between the taxi driver and the two passengers is thrilling and creates this tension that stands out. 

Unfortunately after the first act the movie takes a nosedive and introduces the supernatural part of the story. A part of the story where the movie fails to find balance with it, the tension the movie was building up is completely gone at this point and replaced with a very undercooked story that doesn’t bother to gain the momentum it previously had. 

There really isn’t much more to say about Black Cab it’s a very forgettable horror movie that had some level of potential but completely screwed itself over very early on and never recovered after that. 

Black Cab is available on Shudder.

3/10 D-

Brothers (2024) Film Review

Two criminal twin brothers, one trying to reform, embark on a dangerous heist road trip. Facing legal troubles, gunfights and family drama, they must reconcile their differences before their mission leads to self-destruction.

Brothers is directed by Max Barbakow director of Palm Springs (2020). 

Brothers is the very definition of wasting a talented cast, what’s even more shocking is this is from the director of Palm Springs (2020) a film that was very likable and great as well. Brothers is the direct opposite and when you really boil down to it does not have a whole lot going on.

The performances are fine enough, Peter Dinklage, Josh Brolin, Brendan Fraser and Glenn Close all give the type of performances they are assigned. None of them are particularly good but they are still the best part about this movie. There’s actually a few particularly moments between Brolin, Dinklage and Close that are sweet even if the moments lack development. 

The rest of the movie is filled with unfunny gags and a very uninteresting plot about collecting stolen emeralds from 30 years ago. It’s the type of action crime comedy movie we have seen a thousand times before it and we will most definitely see after it, if you have seen one of these movies before you could probably already guess what’s going to end up happening. 

Really don’t have anything else to say here, Brothers is the very definition of a streaming movie that has a very talented cast but doesn’t bother to use them in an interesting way. 

Brothers is available on Amazon Prime Video.

3/10 D-