After an unexpected reunion with his long-lost father, a scruffy street cat, Garfield is forced to leave his perfectly pampered life in order to take part in a high-stakes heist. And an incredible outdoor adventure begins!
The Garfield Movie is directed by Mark Dindal director of Cat’s Don’t Dance (1997), The Emperor’s New Grove (2000) and Chicken Little (2005).
The Garfield Movie is not as bad as expected as there are some pretty solid moments, the problem is most of the movie just really loses what made Garfield so lovable in the first place.
The first 10 minutes are the movie’s best moments, we get a quick backstory that’s decently emotional. There’s some genuinely touching moments between the dialogue and the short but sweet interaction that John and Garfield have that grow into what we know today. After that is when the movie falls off a cliff and honestly doesn’t really feel like a Garfield movie. It would be hard to make a 101 minute movie of Garfield just lazily lying in bed all day, but turning this into a very typical heist mission with training montages, a cliched betrayal and dull dialogue is not an effective approach to Garfield.
Having that said the movie does have it’s positives, the voice cast is honestly not too bad here although Nicholas Hoult as John was very surprising and I’m still not sure if I was surprised in a good or bad way. Samuel L. Jackson was fine enough here and Chris Pratt gives a very middle of the road performance. It’s definitely not as bad as I was expecting, but it’s not exactly something I would great either. The best compliment I can say is that it gets the job done.
As for everything else this quite honestly just feels like a heist movie with Garfield slapped on to it, it’s a very odd approach like I said before and I’m not sure what exactly why they went with this decision. At times there’s a few funny gags but a lot of the time it’s very forgettable.
Overall The Garfield Movie just sort of exists, it’s ultimately a very harmless movie for kids but for everyone else it’s quite forgettable.
The Garfield Movie is available on all VOD platforms.
After a failed comeback album, a rock star retreats to a cliffside home on Cyprus, only to find his new life complicated by visitors, and an old flame.
Find Me Falling is directed by Stelana Kris director of Committed (2014).
I’ll give Find Me Falling this at least it’s not as bad as expected. As far as Netflix romantic comedies go at least this one is trying to say something given that the subject matter is suicide. The movie might not really say anything all that well but at the very least it’s there.
Outside of that there’s a lot of typical romantic comedy cliches, the characters are fine enough but don’t get enough development to really make them investing. Harry Connick Jr. gives a decent performance and there’s no denying that the filming combined with the location is where the movie shines the most. There’s some genuinely beautiful shots in this movie that I was absolutely not expecting, it’s definitely one of the better looking Netflix original movies.
With that being said the script is completely flat and shows glimpses of what could have been a decent movie but doesn’t turn those glimpses into something that ends up mattering.
Really don’t have much else to say here, this is basically Netflix romantic comedy of the week. Where you watch it and then forget it after a few days, not as bad as some of the others but that doesn’t mean all that much.
Three stories revolve around a man who tries to take control of his own life, a policeman whose wife seems like a different person, and a woman who searches for someone with a special ability.
Kinds Of Kindness is directed by Yorgos Lanthimos director of Dogtooth (2009), Alps (2011), The Lobster (2015), The Killing Of a Sacred Deer (2017), The Favourite (2018), Poor Things (2023) and a few others!
Less than a year after Poor Things and we already have another Lanthimos film (okay to be fair by the time Poor Things came out Kinds Of Kindness was pretty much done). While Poor Things is arguably Lanthimos’s most accessible film for casual audiences, Kinds Of Kindness is classic Lanthimos weirdness along with being somewhat disturbing (at least atmospherically but we will get to that). It’s very much a film that not everyone is going to love and when you watch all three stories in this film it’s very easy to see why.
I think the way I’m going to structure this review is talk a little about each story and then give my final thoughts, there might be some overlap such as the atmosphere being similar in certain stories but I’ll discuss those when they pop up.
The Death Of R.M.F.
Is our first segment and I do think it’s the best one, mostly due to the absurdity of it all and the performances. Willem Dafoe gives his best performance of the three segments, he’s creepy, intimidating and very much fits the atmosphere that Lanthimos is going for with this film. Jesse Plemons also does a fantastic job here, there’s some actually darkly funny scenes between him and Willem Dafoe here that actually gave me a few laughs. That’s actually something worth pointing out, the film is quite humorous in a dark way, there’s plenty of moments of these sprinkled through each of the stories which gives them a lot of personality.
As for what exactly happens in this first segment is truly bizarre and is pretty suspenseful, it gets the viewer automatically sucked in as the mystery of it all unfolds, on the surface it may seem like a story of control where Raymond (played by Willem Dafoe) controls every part of Robert’s (played by Jesse Plemons) life. But as the film starts to establish its own world which really feels reminiscent of a Twilight Zone episode you start to get the disturbing feel of it all. Overall excellent start to the film and a perfect way to establish the feel of the film.
R.M.F. Is Flying
Our second segment ranks as my least favorite of the three but that’s only because of how excellent I found each segment, this segment being ranked last does not mean it’s bad (far from it). Of the standout performances in this segment I have to give it to Emma Stone who gives an intimidating performance that really builds up to an explosive disturbing ride of a performance during the segment’s final moments. Jesse Plemons again gives a strong performance here, his chemistry with Emma Stone is what makes the segment work incredibly. Their characters have completely different personalities which leads to tons of comedic moments. Finally there’s Mamoudou Athie who really does not get to do all that much during the other segments, so it’s nice to see him do something here and he does a pretty good job with what he’s given.
The story being told here is once again very interesting, it relies on the viewer to really piece together what is exactly going on here. What exactly is going on with Liz (played by Emma Stone) and why all of this is happening. Which leads to the quite explosive final moments of the segment that is quite disturbing and is very classic Lanthimos, especially with the performances.
I did not mention this earlier since it wasn’t as noticeable but the performances in all of the segments really do feel very play like, like your watching a very important Broadway show and I mean that in the best way possible. It’s something Lanthimos has always done in some of his films an example I always go back to is Killing Of A Sacred Deer (2017) a film that I found to be one of the best of the 2010s. It’s like Lanthimos is taking the concept of stage plays and putting a disturbing twist on them and it works incredibly well here. This segment really uses the theme incredibly well, while the first segment went for a much more natural tone mixed with the traditional Lanthimos style, this segment definitely goes for the bizarrely dark stage play feel that works so well.
Once again another incredible segment that compliments the first segment incredibly well which leads us to our final segment!
R.M.F. Eats a Sandwitch
Our third and final segment ends the film on an incredibly high note, to summarize this segment in a few words it’s Lanthimos doing what he does best. Make an incredibly bizarre scenario and keep adding on to it, it’s so out there that I truly love it. The standout performances this time around are Emma Stone who definitely gives the most comedic performance of the film, every moment of her on screen here is bizarre. You never know what exactly she’s going to do and that’s part of what makes her performance so excellent. Jesse Plemons is also pretty great here, he’s more of a sidekick for Emma Stone’s character but I actually do enjoy a lot of the scenes he’s in. Margaret Qualley who actually plays two characters this time is quite excellent, Hunter Schafer although given a single scene is great and sets the tone of the rest of the segment quite well.
As far as tones or themes go this one is very much going for the bizarre feel, the feeling of not knowing what to expect at the slightest. Which is yet another feel that Lanthimos loves to use in his work and much like in the other cases it works well here. The bizarre story of trying to find a woman to reanimate the dead is truly interesting already but Lanthimos makes it all the more intriguing by adding his style to the mix, the whole cult element of it all also adds to the segment’s bizarre world.
Overall Kinds Of Kindness is yet another incredible film from Lanthimos, it’s most definitely not going to be for everyone but if your a fan of is work I do recommend giving this a go. Definitely one of my favorite films so far this year!
Professional killer Gary Johnson breaks protocol to help a desperate woman trying to flee an abusive husband and finds himself falling for her.
Hit Man is directed by Richard Linklater director of Dazed and Confused (1993), The “Before Trilogy (Sunrise, Sunset and Midnight), Boyhood (2014), Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood (2022) and many other films.
As of right now Hit Man is by far the best Netflix “original” film of 2024 and it’s not even really close. I use original loosely since this film was more so bought by Netflix. But that’s beside the point, what we have here is the very definition of an incredibly fun comedy that I really wish I got to experience with a crowd (especially from seeing the reactions of it on Twitter).
For starters believe it or not the film is actually based on a true story (well loosely some sections of the film are entirely made up), about a college professor who worked for the Houston police in the late 1980s and 1990s as a fake hitman. The true story is decently interesting but I would argue the film itself is definitely a much more interesting way of telling it.
The cast is quite great, Glen Powell is incredibly charismatic here and delivers such a fun and charming performance that will win the viewer over at any point during the film, his outrageous mannerisms combined with the film’s fun and snappy nature also really helps as well. Although the film can feel a bit dragged out at certain points there’s this electrifying energy that makes the film’s 115 minute runtime go by incredibly quickly.
Similarly Adria Arjona is quite excellent here and has great chemistry with Glen Powell, together the two have plenty of scenes where they can bounce off of each other really well. Whether it be from comedic moments that are genuinely funny, to some of the more dramatic ones that actually have a decent amount of character work to them.
The writing I really have to say might be one of my favorite parts about the film, it’s very sincere and there isn’t anything flashy going on here. Despite the film being quite bizarre towards the end there’s this sense of wanting to keep this story as grounded as it possibly can and Richard Linklater and Glen Powell (the screenplay is by them) accomplish this quite well.
Overall Hit Man is a film that has a little bit for everyone, it has comedy, it has some action and it has some romance. It all blends together to create an interesting genre blending film that I do recommend giving a look.
Stand-up comedian Sam struggles with PTSD, and considers joining the search for a missing teenage girl she used to nanny.
I Used To Be Funny is directed by Ally Pankiw which is her directorial debut.
If there’s one film so far this year that I really wish had more attention it would be I Used To Be Funny a film where on the surface it does look like it would be your usual indie film that combines drama and comedy together. But when you actually sit down and watch it…the film’s drama is far more heavier than you would have thought.
Rachel Sennott once again knocks it out of the park, this film only shows that she has even more range as an actress which always make her more exciting to see when she’s on screen in a film. This is such an effective performance here especially when combined with the film’s theme about PTSD, Rachel Sennott plays a comedian named Sam Cowell who is struggling with depression and has PTSD after a young girl named Brooke (played by Olga Pesta) who she used to be a nanny for goes missing.
As a character Sam is so beautifully written and really captures the struggles of depression and PTSD, she constantly blames herself for Brooke’s disappearance and her breaking down is all the more gut punching and at times sort of hard to watch in a impactful way. She quits her career as a comedian which is something depression can really make you do, push the things you really enjoy doing most. It’s such a grounded and respectful portrayal of depression that I can’t help but respect this film. As I said earlier Rachel Sennott’s performance only adds to this, she gives such a powerful performance that really shows she is one of the most exciting actresses working today.
The film is told through switching back in forth from the present where Sam Cowell is facing the aftermath of Brooke going missing and the past where we learn how Sam’s relationship with Brook and her family deteriorates. A lot of films tend to struggle when it comes to switching to two different periods in time, but here it’s done quite well and you can quite easily follow along. It’s a beautifully put together story that really brings in many emotions into the mix, there’s some comedic moments in the middle but you can tell Sam is even struggling then.
Overall I Used To Be Funny is a fantastic film that brings light to very heavy subject matter, the film does it in a way that’s respectful and very honest. If you haven’t seen this one yet I highly recommend checking this one out.
I Used To Be Funny is available on all VOD platforms.
After leaving the business one year earlier, battle-scarred stuntman Colt Seavers springs back into action when the star of a big studio movie suddenly disappears. As the mystery surrounding the missing actor deepens, Colt soon finds himself ensnared in a sinister plot that pushes him to the edge of a fall more dangerous than any stunt.
The Fall Guy is directed by David Leitch director of Atomic Blonde (2017), Deadpool 2 (2018), Hobbs & Shaw (2019) and Bullet Train (2022). The Fall Guy is loosely based on the 1980s TV series of the same name.
The Fall Guy is definitely one of the bigger surprises of the year so far, that’s mostly due to the trailer being incredibly underwhelming and Leitch’s last movie Bullet Train being a huge disappointment. The Fall Guy definitely has its flaws but I think a lot of what the movie is going for works pretty well.
The performances are a lot of fun, Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt and Aaron Taylor-Johnson in particular. All give pretty charming and exciting performances that do lead to the movie being a pretty solid crowd pleaser, the characters are also quite entertaining especially when the film explores stuntmen and how pretty incredible they really are in film. Gosling really does a fantastic job in particular here and completely captures the actions and heart of a stuntman quite well.
Although the humor is on the weak side outside of a few chuckles, there’s this sense of a certain level of charm that works. David Leitch’s humor is often a very hit or miss with me but it for the most part works here, why that’s the case I’m not exactly sure maybe it’s due to the subject matter, the joy of seeing a bunch of characters create a film and celebrating stuntmen or Ryan Gosling’s charm whether the case may be it works well enough to leave you with a smile.
There’s a few stunts here that are quite incredible as well, I would even go as far as to say they are probably some of the best in any of David Leitch’s films. Mainly due to just how grand they are and the context of which they are used, a film about celebrating stuntmen and shows the passion of these stunts, how hard they are to execute and much more.
I don’t think The Fall Guy is one of the best films of the year, but it is a surprisingly fun one that I’m glad I watched. I can easily this film gathering a dedicated fanbase in the next couple years which is always a great thing.
Los Angeles pool cleaner Darren Barrenman is approached by a femme fatale to help uncover corruption in a shady business deal.
Poolman is directed by Chris Pine which is his directorial debut.
I heard about Poolman from the many walkouts and terrible reviews that came from the Toronto Film Festival in 2023. I was very interested to see just how bad this could really be and well…it sure is bad that’s for sure. Maybe not as horrendous as expected but still quite baffling.
I actually found the supporting cast to be decently fun, Danny DeVito, John Ortiz and Annette Benning are pretty entertaining in their own ways, plus I do think the movie’s bizarre atmosphere that for the most part often misses actually works well for their characters. There’s a few line deliveries from the three that are genuinely pretty funny and did get some laughs from me.
Outside of that however Poolman is a very baffling mess, it’s clear Chris Pine wanted to make this some sort of Chinatown (1974) and The Big Lebowski (1998) style noir comedy which sounds like an idea that could be fun. However the main issue here is that it’s quite dull, the movie very early on is very hard to follow on what exactly is going on and definitely not in away that makes the viewer want to explore the movie. The humor outside of a few moments is just not funny at all, a lot of the jokes are very overwritten or are just cobbled together and have very little build up.
Chris Pine clearly does have love for the noir genre as there are several references to it throughout the movie, but references really don’t cut it when your movie is very poorly written and your viewer has long checked out by the time the movie is over. Chris Pine’s performance is very unremarkable, there has definitely been far worse, but what a way to make the viewer instantly not care what is going on from the start.
Overall Poolman is a mess, while it’s not as bad as expected. That really isn’t saying all that much, this might be a “so bad it’s hilarious” type of movie for some but definitely not for me.
Pregnant from a one-night-stand, Eden leans on her best friend and mother of two, Dawn, to guide her through gestation and beyond.
Babes is directed by Pamela Adlon which is her directorial debut.
Look I’m most definitely not the target audience of this film, but even if you aren’t I still think there is so much to like about this one.
For starters I do love Ilana Glazer and Michelle Buteau, the performances the two give are truly exciting and actually quite raw. Especially the two’s friendship in the film. You really do buy their friendship throughout the film especially from their characters Eden (played by Ilana Glazer) and Dawn (played by Michelle Buteau), they bounce off of each other incredibly well and really do come off like best friends.
The humor while not every single joke lands is decently funny, there’s this whole inside joke type of feel which I do think captures the spirit of what this film is going for. The whole best friend type of feel that you can make so many different type of jokes, that included plenty of raunchy jokes which will be a hit or miss depending on who the viewer is.
The film absolutely does have that Bridesmaids (2011) feel as well, but at the very least the film only borrows from Bridesmaids and puts it’s own twist on it. The only major flaws here are the movie running for a bit too long and it does sort of start to become a bit repetitive towards the end which in turn doesn’t really allow the film to stick a great landing.
Having that said I enjoyed Babes for what it was, it’s decently fun with a charming friendship that does leave the viewer satisfied.
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and a group of military officials hatch a daring plan to neutralize Hitler’s fleet of German U-boats during World War II. Made up of a motley crew of rogues and mavericks, the top-secret combat unit uses unconventional techniques to battle the Nazis and change the course of the war.
The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare is directed by Guy Richie who previously directed The Gentlemen (2019), Aladdin (2019), The Covenant (2023), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) and a few others.
The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare sure is Guy Richie movie, this time around Guy Richie attempts to go for an Inglorious Bastards (2009) type of style which I will admit makes for a decently fun movie. In a lot of ways someone can easily see this as diet Inglorious Bastards and you would be absolutely correct, the movie does have a lot of what made Inglorious Bastards so great such as the action. But doesn’t quite pull the same punch.
The performances are pretty decent all around Henry Cavill, Alan Ritchson, Alex Pettyfer, Eiza González, heck even Hero Fiennes Tiffin manages to pull a solid performance. Nobody here gives a bad performance they do what they’re supposed to and it gets the job done well enough to keep the viewer engaged with what’s going on screen. What is great is that the cast does seem like they are having a blast on screen, which is always extra nice to see!
I definitely think the movie goes on for a bit too long being just 2 hours long and you can really feel that with the pacing during the first act of the movie. Which is painfully slow at times, but the movie does pick up the pace as it goes on. Plus the action scenes really do help the pacing in the long run, they have this special flare to them that makes them energetic which in turn gives it a bit of a way to standout.
Honestly the best way to describe this movie is it’s one of those first person shooter games that has shoot a ton of bad guys and that’s really about it, it is not trying to be anything more than that or say anything impactful it’s just there to be fun. Sometimes that’s just what you need and The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare does that incredibly well. It’s not one of my favorite movies by Guy Richie but it’s still quite a fun one and I appreciate him going for a different action style.
The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare is available on all VOD platforms.
Rex, a Florida party girl, turns out to be the only hope for the NASA space program after a fluke puts her in training with other candidates who may have better resumés, but don’t have her smarts, heart, and moxie.
Space Cadet is directed by Liz W. Garcia who previously directed The Lifeguard (2013) and One Precent More Humid (2017).
Every now and then during the year you get those handful of movies that come out and are universally mocked online or in general such as Madame Web, Unfrosted, Nightswim or Atlas. Well Space Cadet is one of those movies and it’s not hard to see why.
For starters this entire movie really seems like it was originally supposed to be a Disney Channel original movie but somehow adults got casted instead of kids and Amazon decided to release it. Second this movie is a Legally Blonde (2001) wannabe it tries to capture what made the movie so likable but fails miserably. It’s as if you took out all the personality, likability or fun that Legally Blonde (2001) had and you get this movie.
The performances are not good here including Emma Roberts which is just another addition to her long line of terrible performances from the last several years. The movie doesn’t even bother to tell an interesting story as you can already guess what happens within the first 10 minutes, the movie tries to have emotional depth towards the end with Rex’s deceased mother but completely forgets to make the viewer actually care about Rex (played by Emma Roberts). She’s about as interesting as a terrible Disney channel movie main character and often times really feels like she was supposed to be one when you look at the writing.
There’s maybe one or two enjoyable moments in this movie them being Emma Roberts wrestling an Alligator and making a girl fall off a treadmill by singing Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen. Is that exactly funny? Not really, is it far more entertaining than anything else in this disaster? Absolutely which is probably the reason why it gave me a laugh, which kind of shows the exact problem with this movie. It has to rely completely random events to get some semblance of a good moment.
I really got nothing else to say here, Space Cadet is exactly what you think it’s going to be. A movie that uses the whole “follow your dreams” type of plot but doesn’t do anything meaningful or interesting with it. You are better off watching a bad Disney Channel movie.
Jerome Reviews... 