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

Influencer is a fun social media horror film.

While struggling on a solo backpacking trip in Thailand, social media influencer Madison meets CW, who travels with ease and shows her a more uninhibited way of living, but CW’s interest in her takes a darker turn.

Influencer is another one of those social media/influencer type of horror films, I’ve said before that I really enjoy the genre quite a lot and this one is pretty entertaining.

While Influencer does follow a lot of the typical plot points these movies typically have, the movie manages to tackle these plot points much differently, it definitely has this Ingrid Goes West (which if you haven’t seen that movie I highly recommend doing so) vibe where it balances this wacky yet atmospheric nature to the movie.

The performances from Emily Tennant and Cassandra Naud were both a lot of fun, particularly Naud who’s performance at times did remind me of Aubrey Plaza from Ingrid Goes West. The movie itself also does a pretty great job of combining atmosphere with the beautiful location, it throws you off guard when events unfold.

The ending was a bit on the weaker side, it comes off as bit too “we need to quickly wrap this up” however that doesn’t stop Influencer from being an engaging little movie that does overall do a pretty solid job.

Influencer is available on Shudder.

6/10 C+

Love Again is a Celine Dion commercial.

Coping with the loss of her fiance, Mira Ray sends a series of romantic texts to his old cellphone number, not realizing it was reassigned to journalist Rob Burns. Rob becomes captivated by the honesty of her words in the beautifully constructed texts. When he’s assigned to write a profile of superstar Celine Dion, he enlists her help to figure out how to meet Mira in person — and win her heart.

Are we absolutely sure that Love Again wasn’t a Celine Dion music advertisement?

Part of the main focus of the movie was that Celine Dion (who plays herself) gives love advice, which to be absolutely fair she is one of the better parts of the movie and is genuinely entertaining. She even talks about her father René Angélil who sadly passed away in 2016, so I do think that was sweet and kind of touching.

Priyanka Chopra was pretty solid as the lead and Sofia Barclay who’s part while small actually manages to have great chemistry between the two leads. Everything else however is about what you expect from a Hollywood romantic comedy movie.

Honestly the most annoying thing about this movie is the traditional third act breakup, look the cliche isn’t going away anytime soon perhaps it never will. However if you are going to do it, don’t make it something so easily preventable to the point where the viewer is yelling at the screen. I honestly couldn’t tell you how many times Rob Burns (played by Sam Heughan) had the opportunity to come clean but for whatever reason decided not to.

It’s a shame because there’s parts of Love Again that are genuinely enjoyable it’s just a lot of the writing and the third act that are really holding this one back.

Love Again is available on all VOD platforms.

3/10 D-

Quick Review: What’s Love Got To Do With It (2023)

In London, an award-winning film-maker documents her best friend’s journey into an assisted marriage in line with his family’s Pakistani heritage. In the process, she challenges her own attitude towards relationships.

What’s Love Got To Do With It? Is certainly a romantic comedy that exists.

Performances are overall very solid particularly Lily James who gives yet another pretty strong leading performance, Shabana Azmi is also pretty great here as well. Lastly there’s Emma Thompson who seems like she’s having the time of her life and I can’t help but really enjoy her performance.

There’s some decent chemistry going on between Lily James and Shabana Azmi and some admittedly cute moments, however the rest of the movie is definitely on the forgettable side of things. There really isn’t enough here to bring in the viewer and the comedy element of the movie is very light at best. Outside of a few scenes were there are some jokes, if you removed the comedy completely very little would change.

What’s Love Got To Do With It? Is available on all VOD platforms.

5/10 C

Quick Review: Blood & Gold (2023)

At the bitter end of World War II, a German deserter and a young woman are drawn into bloody battle with a group of Nazis hunting for hidden gold.

I’ve said it before but Netflix has been having a very rough year when it comes to original movies, Blood & Gold is at the very least a decent one there’s just honestly not whole lot to comment on here.

The movie serves as a nice little love letter to the Italo western and World War II exploitation movies from the 60s and 70s, if you are a fan of those types of movies you are going to get that here. The movie also does have a similar atmosphere that Sisu had although I would say Sisu is definitely the better movie.

The acting is overall not bad, the filming is actually quite nice to look at and there’s a lot of action scenes that are quite thrilling and atmospheric. Blood & Gold is overall not bad at all just nothing really that special.

Blood & Gold is available on Netflix.

6/10 C+

Cracked (2023) falls through the cracks.

Ruja inherited the painting from her deceased father and hired Tim, an art restorer to repair it, but they don’t know that this invaluable art came with invaluable horror.

I like the concept of haunted art, but unfortunately Cracked does very little with the whole idea despite it being the main plot of the movie.

The main problem here is Cracked might seem like it’s saying a lot on the surface but when you really boil down to it the movie really isn’t saying anything profound or anything new. It throws in a whole lot of cliches of the horror genre, very weak jumpscares that the casual horror movie watcher can see coming a mile away and the pacing is dreadful.

The movie also strangely just forgets it’s important themes and aspects of the plot midway through the movie for some reason, whether that was due to the movie rushing to the finish line or the writers throwing absolutely everything they can at the wall to see what sticks is unknown.

Outside of the acting and the filming which is admittedly nice to look at, there is nothing here that hasn’t been seen or done in far better horror films.

Cracked is available on all VOD platforms.

3/10 D-

Huesera The Bone Woman is a terrifying pregnancy horror film.

Valeria’s joy at becoming a first-time mother is quickly taken away when she’s cursed by a sinister entity. As danger closes in, she’s forced deeper into a chilling world of dark magic that threatens to consume her.

Pregnancy horror is a sub-genre that is very hard to get right, most of the time it sort of falls in line with a lot of exorcism like horror movies which can come off being more or less the same thing. However Huesera The Bone Woman takes the concept of pregnancy horror and manages to do something completely different with it that really makes the film standout.

The performances are all quite fantastic here, they all feel very natural and really work well together especially the film’s lead Natalia Solián who plays Valeria, she absolutely steals the show and gives one of the best performances so far this year. She really nails down this balance of giving a sweet motherly type performance while also giving an anxiety induced one as the film goes on.

The film is ultimately about postpartum motherhood anxiety which quickly catches up with Valeria and quickly devolves into madness, the sound of cracking bones throughout the film completely catches the viewer off guard and really sets the atmosphere of the film. It’s a noise that really gets under your skin and does not leave you throughout the film.

The way the film uses pregnancy as body horror is quite well done, it doesn’t go exactly the way you think it would like having a ton of gore and such, instead the movie uses the anxiety and the postpartum depression slowly breaks down Valeria, the direction from Michelle Garza Cervera is atmosphere, natural and incredibly well done. She really makes the concept of pregnancy horror as raw as possible.

Huesera The Bone Woman is one of the best films of 2023 thus far, if you haven’t checked this one out please do so!

Huesera The Bone Woman is available on Shudder.

9/10 A

Victim/Suspect a documentary that will make you angry.

Investigative journalist Rae de Leon uncovers and examines the pattern of young women being ignored by authorities after reporting sexual assaults.

“This is why victims don’t come forward” is a phrase that is used when people victim blame victims of rape, sexual abuse, sexual assault and other sex crimes. Normally it’s used by a lot of internet users who are either just downright awful people or are trying to troll, but what happens when the police join in the victim blaming and declare the victim as the suspect and accuses them of making up a false report without any evidence or even attempting to investigate? In the cases of Emma Mannion, Nikki Yovino, Dyanie Bermeo and Megan Rondini (who sadly took her own life) that’s exactly what happened.

Victim/Suspect highlights a few cases where the police didn’t even bother to look at the case whether they were incompetent, biased due to the suspect’s connections or just flat out didn’t want to investigate, it’s a documentary that will absolutely raise your blood level. Especially since the women were all proven to be telling the truth, the evidence was there the police just could not care less at all.

As far as filmmaking goes the documentary does suffer a bit from being way too overproduced, a documentary like this doesn’t need to be huge in scale. Some of the best documentaries are often very simple nothing flashy or anything along those lines needed at all.

Then there’s the large focus on the journalism rather than the victims of police corruption, while Rachel De Leo’s reporting is undeniably really great and she should be given her flowers. Focusing on the journalism and true crime rather than letting the victims tell more of their story really does not make too much sense when your documentary is called Victim/Suspect.

I still however do recommend giving Victim/Suspect a look, it might not be as powerful as it could have been. But I still think it’s an very important viewing.

Victim/Suspect is available on Netflix.

6/10 C+

Moving On shows more fantastic Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin chemistry.

Two estranged women reunite to seek revenge against the husband of their recently deceased best friend. Along the way, they learn to make peace with the past and each other.

Moving On is the second movie of 2023 (first being 80 For Brady) to have Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin as the leads and I’m honestly not complaining at all. While I do think 80 For Brady is the superior movie there’s still quite a lot to like about Moving On.

First off the acting is overall pretty great, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin are quite great and work together incredibly well. You can absolutely feel the natural connection the two have and really believe the two are lifelong friends, Malcolm McDowell actually gives one of his better performances here (seriously look at his IMDb page) this is the first time in awhile where he is actually given something to work with and does it quite well.

Tonally the movie can be a bit all over the place there’s definitely moments that could have made for some interesting character moments but then some comedy is thrown in the middle of it, which admittedly the comedy isn’t actually that bad. There’s definitely some jokes that are genuinely funny it just holds the movie back a bit.

The movie is on the short side with the runtime being 85 minutes long, which does take a bit away from the third act but also means it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome. Which I guess is good in this case because I definitely do think had this movie ran for a bit longer would have made this a chore to sit through, instead of being a quick and easy watch.

Moving On is a decent little movie that might not break any new ground but if you want more Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin having great chemistry then check this one out.

Moving On is available on all VOD platforms.

6/10 C+

Death’s Roulette is a bad Saw clone

Seven strangers wake up in a mansion and are subjected to a macabre game: they will choose one to die, otherwise they will all be killed. In 60 minutes, they will discover the dark past that binds them.

Death’s Roulette I hadn’t even heard of until I randomly looked at the “List of Paramount+ Original Movies” Wikipedia page, I read the plot and it sounded a bit interesting so I gave it a go….and well that’s definitely what I sort of expected.

I will say that the music is surprisingly really great here, the use of “Siboney” by Connie Francis is actually kind of atmospheric and is by far the best scene in the movie, where the characters really start to let the situation sink in on how terrifying the situation really is. The acting is overall decent, nobody really does a terrible job but at the same time nobody gives a performance to write home about.

Honestly the main problem here is how cliched and predictable the movie really is, when you really get down to it Death’s Roulette is a Saw clone and not a very good one either. It’s nowhere near as campy or as fun as the Saw movies are, the movie is about as predictable as you would expect. If you have seen at least one of these types of movies before you have seen this one, it’s honestly nothing different.

Finally there’s the characters which the movie attempts to give some sort of backstory to, but like the rest of the movie it’s just not interesting enough to really hold the viewer’s attention.

Death’s Roulette is available on Paramount+

3/10 D-