When Audrey’s business trip to Asia goes sideways, she enlists the help of Lolo, her childhood best friend, Kat, a college friend, and Deadeye, Lolo’s eccentric cousin. Their epic, no-holds-barred experience becomes a journey of bonding, friendship, belonging and wild debauchery that reveals the universal truth of what it means to know and love who you are.
I knew very little about Joy Ride going into it, all that I really knew was that a lot of my peers really liked it and I have to agree there it’s quite a hilarious ride.
What sells this movie is the cast Ashley Park, Stephanie Hsu, Sherry Cola and Sabrina Wu all do a phenomenal job here with the each of them having their own unique personality and humor to really make this for everyone. It’s such an incredible balance that really has been noticeably absent in a lot of comedies, so it’s quite refreshing to see that be present here. The characters themselves are written quite well and do give off this feeling that they really are friends, outside of the mandatory “fallout” scene where it does feel incredibly forced. However that really does not stop these characters from being very entertaining and truly exciting to watch.
The humor is quite great especially in delivery, which the cast is fantastic at there’s so much excellent comedic timing here that it actually shocked me in a few ways, there’s one scene in particular that is quite bizarre that is so much fun and I truly can’t help but love it due to just how insane and hilarious it really is.
The third act is definitely on the weaker side of things, as I said earlier the “fallout” scene feels incredibly forced and I don’t think everything in the third act really comes together all that well. Still it is enjoyable by no means bad, you still have the incredibly entertaining characters and humor to keep you invested. Plus it ends on a great note when it comes to Audrey’s (played by Ashley Park) journey.
Overall Joy Ride is a quite solid film that I had a blast with, it stumbles a bit in the third act as mentioned before it still sticks the landing in the end.
The unbelievable tale of one of America’s most fascinating phenomena — Beanie Babies. Flashing back to the ’90s and early 2000s, an in-depth look at how the era-defining zeitgeist came to be.
The Beanie Bubble is yet another film released in 2023 about a very popular brand or product, so far we have had Air which was about Air Jordans, Tetris which told the incredibly wild true story behind the iconic game, BlackBerry which told the rise and fall of the once popular cellphone and Flamin’ Hot the story about the Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, the story told ended up being a huge lie outside of a few details. Tetris, Air and BlackBerry were fantastic films that did a fantastic job of telling the story of these products in very creative ways. Flamin’ Hot was definitely the worst of the bunch, while it wasn’t terrible it was a very beat by beat biopic that really did not do a whole lot.
The Beanie Bubble is about the Beanie Babies and the craze that was going on in the 90s, everyone I grew up had at least one of these guys heck I had a bunch of them. So I was pretty interested to see how this movie would go and while I will say that this is better than Flamin’ Hot (at least this movie is not based on a total lie), but very strangely this movie suffers from some of the exact same problems.
Let’s start with the positives because there is a decent amount to really like here, for starters I do think the cast does an excellent job with what they are given. Zach Galifianakis, Elizabeth Banks, Sarah Snook and Geraldine Viswanathan all give excellent performances that each add to the movie quite well, the three leading ladies for most of the movie aren’t in any scenes together so it’s quite neat to see them together later on in the movie.
Ultimately the main point with this movie is showing that the founder Ty Warner did not give any credit to three women who helped design and think of ideas for the Beanie Babies the three women being Robbie, Shelia and Maya. Which is a very important detail to talk about, unfortunately the conclusions of the movie are way too simplistic and reductive to really leave the viewer with any kind of impact.
That’s honestly the major problem here and what I hinted at earlier when I said that The Beanie Bubble suffers from some of the exact same problems as Flamin’ Hot it’s a very typical biopic that follows a lot of familiar beats and really doesn’t do anything to standout. The Beanie Bubble at gets the edge mainly due to trying to say something about giving credit, but even then it’s told in a way that is way too simplistic.
Forced to drive a mysterious passenger at gunpoint, a man finds himself in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse where nothing is as it seems.
All I really knew about Sympathy For The Devil going in is that Nicolas Cage was in it and if you have been following me for awhile you know that I’m always down for a Nicolas Cage film not matter what the quality looks like. Luckily this isn’t a case of Left Behind (2014) where Nicolas Cage isn’t given any material that could get a laugh out of the viewer.
Let’s get the obvious out of the way, Nicolas Cage is his classic self here, his role as a character who is simply called “The Passenger” is quite hilarious, the movie has the classic Nicolas Cage moments sort of like Ghost Rider or The Wicker Man (2006) he has so many random outbursts to the point where here part of the movie’s suspense comes from what Cage is going to say next. His performance is menacing, hilarious and surprisingly electrifying it has this high energy to it that actually works quite well here.
Joel Kinnaman plays a character called “The Driver” who’s real name is David who just wants to see his wife who is in labor again following a recent miscarriage. David ends up at gunpoint from The Passenger and that’s when we see the two’s completely different behavior and personalities. David is calm and really tries his hardest to get through this situation, he does anything he can for survival and to see his wife. The Passenger is very menacing, can be set off with a flip of a switch and has no problem harming people. It’s an interesting comparison of the two that actually does balance out quite well, granted the movie doesn’t do a whole lot with but it’s still interesting to see from their interactions.
As I said before a lot of the suspense comes from what Nicolas Cage is going yell out or do next which does work in this movie, but if you are looking suspense in the overall atmosphere department you aren’t really going to get that here. The atmosphere can have it’s thrilling moments but for the most part it really comes down Nicolas Cage. It also doesn’t help that the movie is a tad bit predictable, which leads to a very weak ending that really fails to end the movie on a high note.
Overall Sympathy For The Devil might be a bit of a mess, but it’s a fun one that is worth watching!
Sympathy For The Devil is available on all VOD platforms.
Depicting the aftermath of a sleepover birthday party hypnotism gone wrong as best friends Megan and Paige, along with soon-to-be step-sister Veronica, wake up with absolutely no memory of the night before.
The Slumber Party is a DCOM (Disney Channel Original Movie, I’m just going to use DCOM from this point going forward) that was released on Disney+ a day later. I haven’t reviewed a whole lot of DCOMs but I’ll go ahead and talk about this one since it was on Disney+.
Anyway The Slumber Party is basically a PG version of The Hangover, I’m already not the biggest Hangover fan out there. But I will say that this movie actually did have it’s positives. The cast is at least charming and actually do feel like they are friends as opposed to some other DCOMs (I’ve seen some of the latest DCOMs but as I said before I just haven’t reviewed them), there’s a few jokes here that did get a laugh out of me but like some of the later DCOMs a lot of the jokes are just not very funny.
The Slumber Party is also the fourth movie this year to use Bonnie Tyler’s song “Holding Out For A Hero” Tetris, Shazam: Fury Of The Gods and The Super Mario Bros Movie being the other three. The use of the song here is fine, it gets the job done but honestly really demonstrates how overused the song is really becoming. Obviously this isn’t the movie’s fault as they really couldn’t have predicted that many other movies would have used it in the exact same year. It’s just frustrating that’s all.
Side tangent aside the main issue is the movie is ultimately just The Hangover but with kids in it, there really isn’t anything else here to really stand out. Having that said this is absolutely a movie where I do think younger audiences will love it, it’s completely harmless and I can imagine it does get the job done by entertaining it’s target audience.
After being kidnapped and transported to a strange world, Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman unite to form a resistance and lead the planet to freedom.
Justice League: Warworld is the newest installment to the Tomorrowverse and well it sure is a DC animated movie that most certainly exists.
I hate having to repeat myself over and over again when one of these movies comes out, but once again this yet another DC animated movie that has some decent ideas but executes them in the most forgettable way possible.
The whole premise here is that Wonder Woman is in the old west, Batman is in a primordial Barbarian clan and Superman is in a 1930s mystery, interesting stuff yet the movie barely does anything with these ideas. It goes about as deep as a house tour where the guide just says “this is my living room” and doesn’t say anything else.
I guess the different styles are kind of neat and the voice acting is actually pretty decent, Darren Criss in particular does a solid job as Superman, plus I did enjoy Ike Amadi as Martian Manhunter. But really outside of that there is truly nothing here that is very memorable, granted I do think it’s a lot better than some of the last few installments in the Tomorrowverse. As this one genuinely tries to make it’s ideas work and there’s definitely a lot more effort put into this one.
It’s just mainly the writing that really holds Warworld back from being anything very memorable or having it’s ideas being executed well, the movie doesn’t do nearly as much with it’s characters as it should have. They ultimately feel like action figures being moved along in different scenery rather than actual well written characters.
Overall Justice League: Warworld is definitely one of the better installments of the Tomorrowverse but given the quality of the Tomorrowverse so far that’s really not saying all that much.
Justice League: Warworld is available on all VOD platforms.
A year after her divorce, 32-year-old Helen Carpenter lets her brother persuade her to sign up for a wilderness survival course. Through this experience she discovers that you have to get lost to find yourself.
Happiness For Beginners is yet another Netflix romantic comedy movie, while it is a lot better and a bit more focused than some recent ones. It still runs into some of the exact same issues.
Ellie Kemper gives a very solid performance as well as the rest of the cast, the filming is actually quite decent here maybe it’s because the movie largely takes place during a wilderness survival course which gives us some shots that are quite nice to look at.
The main issue here is predictably it hits all of the very typical Netflix romantic comedy story beats that have existed and will continue to exist, the characters don’t have quite enough development isn’t quite enough for the viewer to really latch on to.
I really don’t know what else to say here, each time I review these movies it gets much harder to say something that I haven’t already said. This one just has Ellie Kemper in it and is a bit better than a lot of the other ones that have been released.
Barbie and Ken are having the time of their lives in the colorful and seemingly perfect world of Barbie Land. However, when they get a chance to go to the real world, they soon discover the joys and perils of living among humans.
A live action Barbie film has always been talked about for years, it was bound to happen at some point in time it was just a matter of who was going to be involved and who was going to make the film into something really special? When Greta Gerwig who previously directed Lady Bird and Little Women (both fantastic films) was announced for the project I knew almost immediately we were going to get something truly beautiful. I’m really glad to say that’s what ended up happening here, there is so much to absolutely love here and so much that is surprisingly really moving.
Starting with the cast which are all absolutely fantastic in their own way, even if some of the cast don’t get much screentime such as Dua Lipa and John Cena they are still such a treat to still have and are still a lot of fun. Margot Robbie as Barbie or Stereotypical Barbie gives one of the most charming and fun performances so far this year, she was made to play Barbie and that really shows here. She adds a huge amount of surprising depth to the character especially during the second half of the film where there’s a few dramatic moments that are actually quite impactful to the viewer.
Ryan Gosling gives such a fascinating performance, Gosling plays Ken who is just so entertaining to watch. His singing performance of “I’m Just Ken” is a highlight of the film and really gives one of the most energetic moments in a film so far this year, much like Barbie we see a lot of development from Ken and while there isn’t as many dramatic moments with Ken there’s still some that really are quite powerful and give the character a lot of depth. Finally Ken is just a whole lot of fun to watch, Gosling’s performance gives so many laughs that add up quickly, the balance of Ken being hilarious and his attitude later of the film is truly spectacular and is only boosted from Gosling’s performance.
America Ferrera gets a moment towards the end that is truly beautiful and really matches the tone the film is going for (which I’ll get to in a bit), Will Farrell actually gives one of his best performances in quite a long time. He’s genuinely hilarious here and he adds a lot of the satire elements to the film since he plays the CEO of Mattel, he also gives the viewer some quite great laughs as well. Lastly Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae, Alexandera Shipp, Emma Mackey and Hari Nef as the various Barbies are all a lot of fun. Sure they don’t get the most screentime but it works for the film since they are all quite entertaining and actually contribute to the film with their own personalities. Rhea Pearlman also gives some of the most powerful moments of the film that leaves such a massive impact on the viewer.
The production design, filming and just the overall look of the film is incredible, this is exactly what you would think when you think of somebody saying “Barbieland” pink, colorful and this world that you the viewer can quickly grow attached to. There’s so much attention to detail in every single shot of the film and matches the satirical and goofy nature of the characters, the world building is straight to the point while also being quite entertaining. You quickly learn the many parts of Barbieland and the film does a fantastic job of building them up for future scenes.
The music is phenomenal it has this stage performance type of feel to it that I truly wasn’t expecting at all, there’s tons of songs here that are truly well done particularly “Dance The Night” by Dua Lip, “I’m Just Ken” which Ryan Gosling sings as mentioned before and “What Was I Made For?” by Billie Eilish which is one of the most touching scenes of the film, it’s such a meaningful scene that really gives Margot Robbie’s Barbie a huge amount of development along with such a strong acting moments from Rhea Pearlman and Margot Robbie. All of the songs match each of the scenes they are in and really do a fantastic job of telling the story along with the writing.
Finally there’s the themes of the film I mentioned earlier about the tone the film is going for and while it is this Saturday morning cartoon a long with a comedic satirical tone. The film does talk about feminism and the patriarchy, the film does this in such a passionate and very caring way that really makes the viewer invested, I’m not going to say what it says because that is sort of a moment where you really need to see it to get the full impact. But honestly what makes it truly special is the film is so lovely and earnest about what it’s saying. There’s so much passion and heart poured into it’s message that is truly touching and ends up being quite meaningful which makes the message relatable and easy to connect with.
Overall Barbie is phenomenal, Greta Gerwig truly delivered something incredibly special, combining elements from her previous films with Barbie and some new ones was very clever way to make the film work!
A terminally ill prisoner gets to spend his final few weeks under house arrest with his estranged daughter and her 12-year-old son.
It’s quite disappointing to see Catherine Hardwicke’s career (director of Twilight, Thireen, Lords Of Dogtown, Red Riding Hood, Mafia Mamma, Miss Bala and a few others) go in this direction, her early work had so much more style, quality and a rawness feel to them (talking about Thirteen and Lords Of Dogtown in particular). Prisoner’s Daughter is definitely an attempt to try and go back to what Hardwicke was best at but ultimately becomes a gigantic mess.
Prisoner’s Daughter at the very least has solid performances from Kate Beckinsale and Brian Cox both of which are quite solid and do the best they can with such a lacking script that doesn’t offer very much discussion about the topics the movie attempts to tackle. There’s a few moments that are genuinely touching and make you wish that the movie had a lot more of them.
The main problem here is the writing and it’s attempt at trying to tackle so many different topics but says almost nothing about them, some topics include bullying, a parent wanting to redeem themselves (in this case a father) being financially insecure and so on. None of these topics are explored with any sort of way to make them feel meaningful, a lot of it is very surface level cliches that pretty much become the character’s identity.
Maxine (played by Kate Beckinsale) is a mother who is just getting by with the money she has and doesn’t have a strong relationship with her father Max (played by Brian Cox). Max is a father who was granted house arrest after helping his fellow inmates, he wants to rebuild his relationship with Maxine. Finally Erza (played by Christopher Convery) is Maxine’s son who constantly gets bullied by this other kid. I just told you almost everything about these characters it’s really that lazy.
Which is definitely a shame because there is absolutely a way to explore these themes while also giving these characters so much more depth to them, Prisoner’s Daughter is really just a dull drama that goes in the direction you think it’s going to and really doesn’t offer any sort of conversation about these topics.
Prisoner’s Daughter is available on all VOD platforms.
Taking matters into his own hands, Detective Bob Hightower tries to infiltrate an evil cult to save his kidnapped daughter and avenge the murder of his wife.
God is a Bullet is directed by Nick Cassavetes (director of The Notebook, Alpha Dog, Other Woman, My Sister’s Keeper and a few others), the movie is based on the 1998 novel of the same name.
Going to be honest here there isn’t a whole lot to say about this one, I will clear up that for some reason a lot of sources say that God is a Bullet is 156 minutes long which is not the case it runs for 2 hours (I’ve actually been told that the movie is 156 minutes long but only the theater version I’m not sure what is right since I didn’t see it in theaters but I’ll put this here just in case) which is still a bit too long especially considering how dreadful the pacing is with this movie. But I thought that should be cleared up either way.
Anyway the acting and the filming are by far the highlights of the movie, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is a pretty solid lead but the one who stands out is Maika Monroe once again she really shows her talent and completely takes over any scene she’s in really well. Everyone else did a pretty decent job but really nothing to write home about.
The trashy violent tone the movie is going for is quite interesting and actually pretty effective during first half of the movie, but slowly starts to get a bit old mainly due to just how repetitive the movie gets along with how dreadful the pacing is. It truly felt like a chore sitting through the last 30 or so minutes of the movie.
Honestly the main problem here is God is a Bullet is really nothing more than a revenge action thriller trying to be way more than it really is, it’s a simple enough premise that drags on for way too long and really doesn’t say or do anything very investing. It’s a well made and well acted movie but that’s really where it ends.
God is a Bullet is available on all VOD platforms.
Ruby Gillman is a sweet and awkward high school student who discovers she’s a direct descendant of the warrior kraken queens. The kraken are sworn to protect the oceans of the world against the vain, power-hungry mermaids. Destined to inherit the throne from her commanding grandmother, Ruby must use her newfound powers to protect those she loves most.
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken is a film that a huge amount of potential, despite the trailer doing a poor job of making the movie stand out I went into it hoping for a surprise. Unfortunately that’s not what happened here and really lines up with what was presented in the trailer (quality wise.)
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken does have it’s positives mostly from the animation, character designs and the voice cast. In particular Lana Condor as Ruby Gillman, Toni Collette as Agatha Gillman, Colman Domingo as Arthur Gillman and Jane Fonda as Grandmamah. It is worth noting that nobody really gave a bad performance everyone seemed like they had a genuinely fun time being part of this movie so I do think that counts for something. The character designs are well detailed and actually really blend in beautifully with the animation as well, there isn’t any jaw dropping moments but there are some beautiful ones that you can’t help but appreciate.
Having that said what hurts this movie mainly is the writing department, there’s a ton of similarities to Luca, Turning Red and The Little Mermaid both of which execute their main ideas far better than Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken. Granted the movie doesn’t execute these ideas poorly it just adds nothing new to the table, nothing to really say or comment on or really discuss.
The main problem here is the characters and how poorly they are written, sure each of the characters are given one or two character traits but that’s really about it. Sure we are told a few things about these characters and their past, the whole rough relationship between the mother and the grandmother could have been something very interesting to elaborate more on. Instead we are just given a very vague backstory like “my mother was controlling.” Ruby Gillman herself had a lot of potential to be an interesting character but ends up being just another teenage character trying to figure out who they are, which I’m all for movies to tell this lesson as it is important. It’s just that this has been done far better already in far better films like the previously mentioned Luca and Turning Red.
Overall Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken isn’t horrible, there was clearly a huge amount of effort to try and make the movie work but unfortunately it falls incredibly short in the writing department.
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken is available on all VOD platforms.
Jerome Reviews... 