A recently bereaved teenage girl goes to live with her grandmother in a secluded woodland house, unaware that sinister forces lurk within.
Alice In Terrorland is directed by Richard John Taylor a director who’s directed a bunch of very low budget films such as The Winter Witch (2022), The Haunting of Pendle Hill (2022) and a few others.
I’m not going to say a horror version of the classic Alice in Wonderland can’t work, the movie already has a bunch of pretty weird and creepy elements that you could easily fit into a horror film…that is if you actually try.
Alice In Terrorland is one of those movies where it really does seem like nobody cared, you can immediately tell due to how poor the lighting is. It’s so dark to the point where you can’t make out what exactly is going on here. I get this movie was made with a very low budget, but I have seen very low budget films with excellent lighting, heck I have seen films made by YouTubers with better lighting what exactly is going on here?
The acting is about what you would expect, it’s terrible but not in a fun way. A saving grace for this movie could have been that the acting was so bad it’s hilarious, but unfortunately it’s just incredibly dull. The Alice In Wonderland characters are about as bad as the characters from Winnie The Pooh were in Winnie The Pooh: Blood And Honey. They aren’t nearly as interesting or well written as they were in the original story.
This movie also completely fails to feel as magical, creative, or have this sense of wonder. It’s all written as if it was this huge grimdark fanfiction someone read online and wrote a script based on it. Complete and total disaster, don’t waste your time.
Alice In Terrorland is available on all VOD Platforms.
Paul Atreides unites with Chani and the Fremen while seeking revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family. Facing a choice between the love of his life and the fate of the universe, he must prevent a terrible future only he can foresee.
Dune: Part II is directed by Denis Villeneuve director of Incendies (2010), Prisoners (2013), Enemy (2013), Sicario (2015), Arrival (2016), Blade Runner 2049 (2017), Dune (2021) and a few others.
What is there to say about Denis Villeneuve that hasn’t been said already? Villeneuve has quickly become one of the best directors currently working today and Dune (2021) was just one of his many excellent films, it was one of my favorite films from that year and I was very interested to see how Villeneuve would be able to top it…let me tell you he did more than just top it, he made arguably one of the best sequels ever made.
Let’s start with the cast because that’s one of the film’s strongest parts, everyone does a fantastic job here each bring something truly special to the film some of which give career best performances. Timothee Chalamet once again shows he was an excellent choice to play Paul Atreides we get to see his character do a complete turn and it’s quite haunting to see, Chalamet’s powerful and intimidating performance (especially towards the end) only furthers this when he becomes power hungry and it takes over his mind, it’s a huge display of incredibly strong acting that makes Chalamet one of the most interesting actors working today.
Zendaya has a much bigger part in the story this time around and she does an excellent job here, she plays Chani incredibly well and her chemistry with Timothee Chalamet is some of the film’s highlights. There’s so many incredibly moments with Zendaya that truly shows that she is a powerhouse like the little moments of Chani and Paul looking out into the desert which only shows how much bigger this film is in scale (more on that in a bit). Zendaya might not have anything grand in the film, but all of the little moments plus the bigger ones make her performance quite excellent.
Rebecca Ferguson was excellent in Dune (2021) and she is just as excellent here arguably even better, she gives a haunting and powerful performance as Lady Jessica and her interactions with Alia Atreides (voiced by Anya Taylor-Joy) is haunting in it’s own right and builds on what is to come in the film, Ferguson is probably my absolute favorite from the film mainly due to just how raw she goes with her performance, especially when the script gives her so much to work with. She takes advantage of every single moment she can to make this performance outstanding.
Austin Butler gives an absolutely insane performance that I truly did not expect coming at all, he plays Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen an absolutely crazy and bloodthirsty fighter, this is definitely a career best performance for Butler who really goes all out and never holds back. There is one particular action scene with Timothee Chalamet and Austin Butler that truly standouts and is quite intense as well. From the atmosphere and tension it truly is a masterwork of a scene. The atmosphere when Butler enters the film is a very noticeable change in a very good way, intimidation sets in and becomes so much more darker as well.
The rest of the cast are phenomenal, Florence Pugh gives a very strong performance as always even if she doesn’t get the most screentime her acting still brings so much to the film. Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, Léa Seydoux, Dave Bautista and Christopher Walken are incredibly solid here each of which bring power to the film some of them definitely get more screentime than others but as I said before even when someone is given little screentime in Dune: Part Two they still add so much to the film.
The writing is truly excellent here, there’s so much attention to detail with the script and how it progresses the story as well. It moves at a natural pace and has the atmosphere to back it up, it’s written in this way where it might seem like a regular journey at the beginning but becomes far more darker as it progresses. It explores the world of Dune quite a lot more than the first film and that film did such a good job of exploring it already. But here we get so much more additional information and so many highlights of what makes the world so big, the writing also helps connect these characters and why the viewer should invest in them. The character work is truly incredible, the little moments help build the characters just as much as the big moments do which is truly fascinating.
As I said earlier the scale in this film is far bigger than it was in the first film, that’s mainly due to how much exploration there really is here and of course the visuals which are quite an accomplishment on their own, the sandworms, action scenes and cinematography all combine together to create some of the most visually striking and beautiful visuals ever put to film. Heck even after watching the film I still felt like I didn’t explore everything due to just how much is on screen in so many different moments.
Lastly we have Denis Villeneuve’s direction which is truly outstanding, as I said at the beginning Villeneuve not only made an incredible sequel to Dune (2021) that topped it he made arguably one of the best sequels ever made. Everything he does in this film truly shows excellent he really is in his craft and will go further and beyond to top the previous film. Dune: Part Two really shows how the medium of film is special artists like Villeneuve take you into a world that you never thought you would be so invested in and you eventually feel like you are right there with the characters. Dune: Part Two is truly something incredibly special and very rare, it really does feel like you are watching an event happen before your eyes. If you haven’t already be sure to check this one out.
Six months into a solitary research mission to the edge of the solar system, an astronaut, Jakub (Adam Sandler), realizes that the marriage he left behind might not be waiting for him when he returns to Earth. Desperate to fix things with his wife, Lenka (Carey Mulligan), he is helped by a mysterious creature from the beginning of time he finds hiding in the bowels of his ship. Hanuš (voiced by Paul Dano) works with Jakub to make sense of what went wrong before it is too late.
Spaceman is directed by Johan Renck who has directed Downloading Nancy (2008) but is mostly known for his TV work especially Chernobyl (2019).
Spaceman has Adam Sandler in another more dramatic role which I always felt is where he shines the best and this movie is no exception. What did surprise me about this movie however is the direction they went with, while I certainly don’t think this movie is for everyone and will not work for others I couldn’t help but seriously love what this movie did.
As said earlier Adam Sandler gives such a solid performance here, he plays an astronaut named Jakub who’s all alone which centers around this film’s main theme…loneliness it’s not until we are introduced to a space spider named Hanuš who is voiced by Paul Dano that we see the theme of loneliness come into play. Hanuš is a very empathetic character who talks to Jakub about life and at some points human connections but at the same time Dano’s voice sends chills down the viewer’s spine, its haunting and really reminded me of Ansem and Xemnas both from the video game series Kingdom Hearts.
The supporting cast is also quite great here, I was pretty surprised to see Kunal Nayyar (The Big Bang Theory) give a much more heavy and subtle performance which is not seen very often. His character isn’t anything incredible but his performance is enough to leave a lasting impression on the viewer. Carey Mulligan while having a character who really does not have a whole lot going on, it’s her performance that makes it work in the end it does show how incredibly talented Mulligan really is even when she doesn’t have a whole lot to work with.
Max Richter’s score combined with Adam Sandler’s raw performance of him talking about his loneliness and sadness while Paul Dano is talking to him is truly beautiful, it create a very powerful picture that while it is slowly paced but if you are into the story you find yourself completely brought into it. Theres no denying that Spaceman shares a lot of similarities to Ad Astra, Interstellar and even at some points Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind but the movie uses the ideas and manages to make them it’s own. Particularly using Hanuš and Jakob’s discussion as a way to use ideas but do a lot more than just slap them on and call it day, the discussions between the two are incredibly investing and at some points bring a tear to your eye.
Overall Spaceman is not for everyone but if you read the plot and it sounds like something you are into I recommend giving it a go!
When Jessica moves back into her childhood home with her family, her youngest stepdaughter, Alice, finds a stuffed bear named Chauncey. As Alice’s behavior becomes more and more concerning, Jessica intervenes only to realize that Chauncey is much more than the stuffed toy bear she believed him to be.
Imaginary is directed by Jeff Wadlow director of Cry Wolf (2005), Never Back Down (2008), Prey (2007), Kick-Ass 2 (2013), True Memoirs Of an International Assassin (2016), Truth Or Dare (2018), Fantasy Island (2020) and The Curse Of Bridge Hollow (2022).
I have shared my opinion on Jeff Wadlow before he’s one of the worst horror film directors working today especially with his Blumhouse movies and Imaginary is no exception.
Imaginary starts out as a typical story of a family moving into a new house until a stuffed teddy bear named Chauncey which Alice (played by Pyper Braun) grows attached to but Chauncey starts to become more sinister. The first two acts of the movie are painful to sit through, a lot of it is terrible dialogue mixed with tired horror tropes that do very little to make the movie standout. Whats strange about this is the movie takes itself quite seriously during the first two acts but then suddenly decides not to during the final act. Granted there are some hilariously bad moments but not nearly enough for someone to sit through a majority of this movie.
DeWanda Wise gives a solid performance but like other positives about Imaginary it’s not enough to save it, she’s given such a terrible script to work that while does somewhat establish her character Jessica it’s very surface level at best. The exact same can be said for Pyper Braun, she gives a decent performance and is one of the better child performances I’ve seen so far this year. However much like Wise we really do not get a whole lot from her character.
There’s one part in particular that’s straight up a clone of Insidious and its series, some people call it a reskin which is quite accurate. As silly as the Insidious movies got later down the line at the very least they were entertaining, outside of maybe two or three moments Imaginary is completely dull and even fails when it’s trying to use the ideas from Insidious. I absolutely feel sorry for Betty Buckley who is asked to deliver some of the worst lines I’ve heard in a movie so far this year especially with a straight face.
Imaginary is another misfire from Blumhouse and Jeff Wadlow, it’s the definition of a terrible studio horror movie that really feels like it wasn’t even trying. Avoid this one.
A young woman agrees to marry a handsome prince — only to discover it was all a trap. She is thrown into a cave with a fire-breathing dragon and must rely solely on her wits and will to survive.
Damsel is directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo director of Intact (2001), 28 Weeks Later (2007) and Intruders (2011).
The frustrating thing about a lot of these Netflix action movies is they have the ideas and talented people involved they just for whatever reason always fall completely flat. That’s sadly the case here with Damsel a movie that is another attempt of flipping the fairy tale narrative, despite The Princess (2022) coming out 2 years ago I still had hope this would be fresh…unfortunately not the case.
Millie Bobby Brown and Angela Bassett are really solid here and are easily the movie’s strongest parts, the first bit of this movie I will say started out promising. While there wasn’t anything groundbreaking the movie explored the world decently well and we got to know the characters even if they were basically talking fantasy movie cliches. Unfortunately the rest of the movie happens and it ends up being no different than any other fantasy movie that has come out in the last several years.
I will give some credit for is being a surprisingly brutal PG-13 movie, there are some quite satisfying action scenes that I can’t deny are pretty surprising to watch from a PG-13 movie. However that’s where the praise really ends because you need more than some great kills to stick the landing, writing wise it’s very blandly written. Think of any fantasy movie trope and it’s more than likely somewhere in this movie, there’s some similarities to Ready Or Not (2019) which I actually thought they were going to do more with but instead is used for more blandly written story telling.
It doesn’t help that the ending feels very rushed, which is unfortunate because I do think what they went with for the ending is interesting. But there’s just such a lack of character moments and strong writing throughout the movie that by the time the ending rolls around you already checked out of the movie and just waiting for it to be over.
I really do wish Damsel was a better movie, the performances and ideas are there. The writing is just incredibly lacking and leaves a lot more to be desired.
A young woman struggles to save enough money to get her little brother out of their toxic home.
Lola is directed by Nicola Peltz Beckham which is her directorial debut.
When I heard Nicola Peltz Beckham (Transforemers Age Of Extinction, Avatar The Lasr Airbender, Our House) was going to direct a movie I was pretty interested, I like to see actors and actresses throw their hat in the ring when it comes to directing. Unfortunately this is a case where it’s a misfire and a pretty disappointing one, I get what Beckham was trying to go for here. But a lot of this movie sort of reads as being out of touch about how people go through poverty and other struggles. Nicola Peltz Beckham’s father is Nelson Peltz a billionaire who’s a board member of Wendy’s Company, Sysco and The Madison Square Garden Company. I’m not saying that it’s impossible for someone who comes from a very rich family to make a great film about people’s struggles with poverty and other issues. I’m just saying that this is not the movie that tackles poverty well at all.
Before that I will say the camerawork is phenomenal, there’s some quite strong moments that the cinematography compliments quite well, Nicola Peltz Beckham gives a solid performance and is probably her best to date (not really saying a whole since a lot of her performances are really not great). Out of everyone here Luke David Blumm is the one who shines here, while not given a whole lot to work with due to the shallow script Blumm delivers a touching performance that I wish most of the script focused on rather than the rest of the movie trying to mimic what other movies have done.
The main issue here is as I said before the whole movie is incredibly out of touch, the problem here is Nicola Peltz Beckham putting herself in the leading role and is just a very baffling portrayal of poverty. American Honey (2016), The Florida Project (2017) and to some degree Zola (2020) all explored the exact same themes as this movie did such as poverty and sex work, each of them did it FAR better and never once felt out of touch.
Even if you took away Beckham’s status, Lola would still fall flat due to such an empty script that gives none of these characters any depth outside of the brother and sister bond of Lola and Arlo which is admittedly touching but never fully develops due to a choice made in the movie that felt completely unnecessary outside of the movie wanting you to feel sorry for Lola when as a character she isn’t written well at all.
Overall Lola falls flat with a very rough script, cliches and shallow character development.
When three childhood best friends pull a prank that goes wrong, they invent the imaginary Ricky Stanicky to get them out of trouble. Twenty years later, they still use the nonexistent Ricky as a handy alibi for their immature behavior.
Ricky Stanicky is directed by Peter Farrelly director of Green Book (2018), Dumb and Dumber (1994), The Greatest Beer Run Ever (2022), There’s Something About Mary (1998) and among many others.
After directing Green Book (2018) and The Greatest Beer Run Ever (2022) Farrelly returns to raunchy studio comedies, which could have great if it was the same level of quality as Dumb and Dumber (1994) or There’s Something About Mary (1998) but unfortunately that’s not what you get here. Ricky Stanicky believe it or not has six writers and has been in development since 2010 and both of these show in the final result.
The one positive here is John Cena who takes a script that is painfully unfunny and manages to actually get a few chuckles out of the viewer, which is mainly due to Cena’s facial expressions and entertaining performance. Zac Efron while not necessarily terrible plays a very okay performance that you quickly forget about after watching the movie. He’s given a few emotional moments and to his credit he does a decent job but the script lacking in character really holds him back.
Ricky Stanicky feels like a throwback to the raunchy comedy era but not in a good way, it uses the most tired cliches (bunch of dick jokes) a lot of it is very tired bits that you would have seen a bunch of in 2010. What does confuse me however is how a pretty straightforward movie like this was written by six people which includes Peter Farrelly himself, the movie itself is very blandly written and really has nothing noteworthy going on. Between being juvenile, bafflingly joyless and drawn out jokes that go on for an uncomfortably long time it really begs the question of what was going on in the writer’s room?
Honestly Ricky Stanicky is the type of movie where the background of the movie is far more interesting than the movie itself, you can easily sum this movie up as a raunchy comedy that missed the time when the genre was at it’s peak. Even if it came out back in the mid 2010s this movie would still be outclassed by far better movies in the genre.
Ricky Stanicky is available on Amazon Prime Video.
Reclusive author Elly Conway writes best-selling espionage novels about a secret agent named Argylle who’s on a mission to unravel a global spy syndicate. However, when the plots of her books start to mirror the covert actions of a real-life spy organization, the line between fiction and reality begin to blur.
Argylle is directed by Matthew Vaughn director of The Kingsman series, X-Men: First Class (2011), Kickass (2010) and a few others.
Say what you will about Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017) and The King’s Man(2021) despite being nowhere near as good as the first movie at the very least they had a consistent style to them and for the most part kept the audience entertained. Argylle attempts to do the exact same thing but only it ends up being far far worse. The ugly effects in particular stick out like a sore thumb, Vaughn sticks with his usual style here that does not work here mainly due to the story being told. Despite the concept sounding promising a large majority of it is a bunch of spy movie cliches packaged together in a long and drawn out movie that had no idea what it was doing.
The amount of twists and red herrings becomes obnoxious because it’s clear the movie is adding them for the sake of adding them, there’s no real build up, suspense or payoff at all. It’s the equivalent of trying to tell a purposely bad story that makes no sense with Mad Libs, none of the twists or red herrings aren’t really that shocking either. A bunch of them are predictable as they can get and the others really do not make sense at all.
The only positive here is mostly the acting, Bryce Dallas Howard and Sam Rockwell are trying their best but it’s not enough to save this disaster. There’s a few okay moments between the two otherwise they have very little to work with. John Cena, Ariana DeBose, Samuel L. Jackson, Dua Lipa and many others are given the short end of the stick as they appear for a few minutes and are never seen again. They do give solid performances but not enough to keep this movie afloat.
It’s quite a shame because I do think Argylle could have been a great movie if the writing was coherent and the movie itself wasn’t filled to the brim with cliches.
About 45,000 years ago, a desperate band of early humans finds a new land to settle in. As they start to realize that something monstrous is hunting them down, they must confront a horrifying danger that they never could have imagined.
Out Of Darkness is directed by Andrew Cumming which is his directorial debut.
I hate to echo what others have said about this movie but this is a prime example of a very interesting idea executed in a way that really does not go anywhere. The idea of a survival horror movie during the Stone Age sounds like something that can really be investing and have so much potential as well, the movie nails the idea down quite well at the beginning. With the atmosphere that is automatically felt as the movie begins, the movie’s opening moments are among some of it’s best with the characters talking to each other and setting up interesting elements that we sadly don’t get to see in the later parts of the movie.
The performances all around are quite great particularly Safia Oakley-Green who really gives it her all and really delivers especially during the movie’s more emotional moments. The cinematography combined with the atmosphere sets up the movie’s world perfectly and is visually stunning, there’s so many shots that are quite breathtaking and compliments the movie well.
Unfortunately the movie fumbles the ball incredibly hard when the third act rolls around, when we get the big reveal and while I can understand what they were trying to do (conceptually at least) it’s that sort of situation that makes the movie make very little sense and actually takes a lot of way from the rest of the movie.
Out Of Darkness was definitely a bit of a disappointment, while I wouldn’t say it’s a bad movie as there was clearly a lot of effort put into it especially visually, having that said the script needed a lot more preparation and a far better third act.
Out Of Darkness is available on all VOD Platforms.
When Megamind’s former villain team the Doom Syndicate returns, the newly crowned blue hero must keep up evil appearances until he can assemble his friends (Roxanne, Chum and Keiko) to stop his old teammates from launching Metro City to the moon.
Megamind vs. the Doom Syndicate is directed by Eric Fogel who’s done a few My Scene movies (yes those actually exist) and The Barbie Diaries (2006). The movie also serves a sequel Megamind (2010) and is a pilot to the series Megamind Rules.
Megamind is a film that over the years has gained a cult following, while it got mostly positive reviews it was one of Dreamworks’s lowest growing films of the 2010s which is more than likely why a sequel never came to be…that is until one day a trailer popped up and all hell broke loose. To say fans were not happy would be understatement, from the completely different voice cast, to the much cheaper quality that pretty much equals to those straight to DVD sequels Disney was doing for awhile. The movie itself is somehow a lot worse than the trailers made it out to be.
I’m not going to pretend like Megamind (2010) is one of my favorite animated movies ever made, I think it’s a solid movie with some actually pretty strong character work and decently funny jokes. With that said even if you aren’t a fan of the first movie the way they completely changed everything is flat out character assassination.
For starters the cast from the first movie being very noticeably missing does not help at all, part of what made the first movie work was Will Farrell, Tina Fey and David Cross they actually went into their characters and gave plenty of character moments. In this movie all of that character growth that was present is gone and completely replaced with tired tropes such as Megamind being a complete and total jerk and then later learning that he should not be one. It both completely takes away everything that Megamind learned from the first movie and the purpose of it all. There was a balance of good vs evil in the first movie, this whole movie doesn’t seem to know what it’s trying to say outside of cliched plot points that have been done to death.
Roxanne is reduced to a typical side character who has absolutely nothing going for her outside of being a plot device, I’m not trying to say Roxanne had this deep and rich character development from the first movie. But at least she had a point and was genuinely enjoyable, her and Megamind just talking was genuinely funny and she was more than a love interest.
The voice acting is just not good here I’m sure the cast tried the best they could with such an uninspired script which bafflingly enough is from the exact same writers as the first movie. As I said before this movie is basically the equivalent of one of those terrible straight to DVD sequels Disney use to release, only this time it’s straight to streaming since we live in the streaming age.
The villains in this movie are just terrible, they all have one personality trait which is their power and that’s it Lady Doppler manipulates the weather, Pierre Pressure is a mime who uses hypnosis, Lord Nighty-Knight manipulates shadows and Behemoth is a giant lava monster. A complete downgrade from Hal Stewart in the first movie.
The movie also ends on a cliffhanger which sets into the series that was released on the same day which is Megamind Rules. Which I have not seen anyone else can be my guest because Megamind vs. the Doom Syndicate was quite enough.
Megamind vs. the Doom Syndicate is available on Peacock.
Jerome Reviews... 