Unfrosted (2024) Film Review

In 1963, Kellogg’s and Post, sworn cereal rivals, race to create a pastry that will change the face of breakfast forever.

Unfrosted is directed by Jerry Seinfeld which is his directorial debut.

Films about brands have become sort of a trend over the last year or so. Last year alone we got Air, Tetris, BlackBerry, The Beanie Bubble and Flamin’ Hot. Of the bunch BlackBerry, Air and Tetris were quite excellent, they told the stories of these brands or products while also focused on being genuinely great films. Flamin’ Hot and The Beanie Bubble fell into the dull category the two weren’t anything atrocious but they were quite forgettable movies that get completely overshadowed when it comes to this conversation.

Unfrosted somehow ends up being worse than Flamin’ Hot and The Beanie Bubble, look I get what Jerry Seinfeld was trying to go for here (at least during the first half of the movie) he wanted to make some sort of parody about products of the 1960s and used Poptarts as the device to try and execute it. While that’s great and all there’s a ton of problems with this movie that it never recovers from.

First and foremost the performances are atrocious, Jerry Seinfeld is about what you expect his performance is the least of this movie’s worries. Amy Schumer gives an atrocious and unfunny performance that really comes off as try hard, Melissa McCarthy is sadly not much better who is stuck with some of the worst written lines in movie so far this year. There is absolutely no chemistry between Seinfeld, McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan or anyone else in the movie. It really just seems like they randomly selected some actors to put in certain scenes and didn’t bother to figure out chemistry, dialogue or interest.

Honestly the best of the cast has to be Bill Burr as JFK (I’m not joking) and Hugh Grant who plays Tony The Tiger (again I’m not joking), minor spoilers ahead but there’s one scene in this movie that I truly hate myself for laughing at. I say this because it’s incredibly dumb and practically comes right out of nowhere (sure there’s some development but nowhere near enough to say that the movie was building up to it) the scene in question is a January 6th 2021 parody of Kelloggs characters such as Snap, Crackle, Pop, the Cornflakes bird, Tucan Sam and a few others who are led by Tony The Tiger to raid Kelloggs due to being afraid of being replaced by Pop-Tarts. The scene is a recreation of January 6th from the person who fell to the horned hat costume it’s all there and it’s truly baffling to watch. Also fun fact this is the first movie to show a satire of January 6th not that it matters just worth pointing out.

The rest of the movie is a complete and total mess of unfunny jokes, piss poor comedic timing and is pretty much like an unfunny SNL skit. As I briefly said earlier while I could understand what Seinfeld was going for during the first bit of the movie, it quickly becomes a gigantic random humor fest of ideas that are just scattered around. It’s at the point of “what the hell is going on here? What am I watching?” territory and not the good kind…think of Movie 43 (2013) that’s how nonsensical it gets and it stays that way for the rest of the movie.

I’m not entirely sure what the viewer was supposed to take away from this movie, it certainly wasn’t the history of Pop-Tarts because even that is told incredibly poorly, the attempt of trying to tell it in a absurdist way is fine enough but the movie forgets to be funny, clever or at least make some sense.

Overall Unfrosted is an endurance test of some of the worst acting, unfunny gags and terrible writing from a movie so far this year. I would only recommend this movie if you truly want to see how idiotic and horrible this movie really gets.

Unfrosted is available on Netflix.

Disgrace To Cinema F

Mother Of The Bride (2024) Film Review

Stunned by her daughter’s bombshell wedding announcement, Lana soon faces another shock: the groom’s father is the man who broke her heart years ago.

Mother Of The Bride is directed by Mark Waters the director of Mean Girls (2004), Freaky Friday (2003), The Spiderwick Chronicles (2007), Mr. Popper’s Penguins (2011), Vampire Academy (2014), Bad Santa 2 (2016), Magic Camp (2020), He’s All That (2021) and a few others.

Well here we go again for the fiftieth time so far this year…another horrendous Netflix original that doesn’t even try. Think of the most cliched romantic comedy movie you can and now add a huge lack of charm, humor, interest and fun. You get Mother Of The Bride a complete and total mess of a movie that I’m not even quite sure if the movie itself knows what it’s trying to do.

The only kind of decent part here is seeing Miranda Cosgrove in another role, it’s too bad she’s stuck with such a terrible script that does very little for the viewer to actually care about the characters or the story being told here. The script attempts to try and bring in this examination on social media culture, which might have worked if this was any other movie. There’s also a few characters here who are nothing more but to serve as narrative devices mainly Scott (played by Wilson Cruz) and Clay (played by Michael McDonald) a gay couple. Almost every single line that comes from the two is exposition, it starts to become slightly comical at one point (not in a good way).

Acting wise the performances are fine enough, but there’s nothing here that really grabs you at all. Which again is due to the script and how much load of bunk there is in it. None of the characters are given any meaningful arcs or interesting personalities, the story itself is about as predictable as a lot of these other Netflix romantic comedies and the direction from Waters much like his last several movies lack so much passion that he once had.

Mother Of The Bride is available on Netflix.

1/10 F

Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver (2024) Film Review

A colony on the edge of the galaxy fights for survival against a tyrannical ruling force, relying on the efforts of a small group of rebels.

Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver is directed by Zack Snyder who has directed by Rebel Moon (2023), Army Of The Dead (2021), Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice (2016), Dawn Of The Dead (2004), Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021), 300 (2007) and many others.

Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver is only a slight improvement over the first movie, in fact a majority of my criticisms and positives I had with part one can be applied with this one. It’s honestly not that much different outside of largely taking place on a farm which does hurt the scale of the movie quite a lot.

Anthony Hopkins at least is given more to do this time around and he remains as one of the positives of the movie. The same can be said with Sofia Boutella who really tries her very best with the script she’s given, unfortunately it’s not enough to get the viewer into the movie despite once again giving a decently fun performance. One improvement this movie does have over it’s predecessor is Ed Skrein is a bit better here, we are definitely given a lot more about him as a villain and he honestly does a better job this time around even if there are some incredibly lacking areas.

The movie itself is once again beautiful to look at, even though we are restricted to the farm for a majority of the movie. There are still a lot of really solid shots that are undeniably beautiful, finally there’s the action scenes which are pretty neat. They aren’t anything completely mind blowing but are absolutely one of the movie’s best parts.

Unfortunately that’s where this movie ends for me, a major issue I had with part one is it completely failed to make the viewer care about the characters and did not give them any meaningful character development. That applies with part two, sure we are given crumbs but not anything the viewer can really work with, it doesn’t help that the writing is once again very sloppy and remains completely hollow character wise. There’s nothing here that makes the viewer want to invest in these characters at all, it’s all very mindless and goes on for way too long until it decides to end.

It’s a shame really because I want to like these movies, I want to be invested in the movie’s world and it’s characters but unfortunately the movie gives very little reason for the viewer to really care at all. Perhaps Zack Snyder’s cut of this movie and part one (hasn’t been released at the time this was written) will expand on these characters and the world but for now this is a complete mess.

Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver is available on Netflix.

4/10 D+

Woody Woodpecker Goes To Camp (2024) Film Review

After getting kicked out of the forest, Woody thinks he’s found a forever home at Camp Woo Hoo, until an inspector threatens to shut down the camp.

Woody Woodpecker Goes To Camp is directed by Jonathan A. Rosenbaum who has directed a bunch of TV series and TV movies and Benchwarmers 2: Breaking Balls (2019).

Hey do you remember that 2017 Woody Woodpecker movie? You know the one that went straight to VOD, people were kind of baffled how bad it was for about a day and then quickly forgot about it? Well for some reason it got a sequel and it’s not much better.

The one thing Woody Woodpecker Goes To Camp has over its predecessor is that it uses some other Woody Woodpecker characters in this Who Framed Roger Rabbit style. The characters being Buzz Buzzard who’s voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson and Wally Walrus who’s voiced by Tom Kenny (yes you read that right). Granted they aren’t good performances as there is only so much you can do with one of the most unfunny scripts imaginable, but at the very least there’s a bit more Woody Woodpecker elements something that was very noticeably absent in the last movie.

With that being said this is a complete and total disaster and a huge endurance test to get through, I get Woody Woodpecker is supposed to be annoying. It’s part of his character, but there’s only so much a person can handle. Between constantly trying to break the fourth wall, name dropping Minecraft out of complete nowhere (as well as using it as a verb). The acting doesn’t help either, everyone set sounds bored out of their minds while delivering their lines, Mary-Louise Parker is for some reason in this movie and gives a bad performance, the child actor performances are the very definition of flat and the characters are walking cliches.

The plot goes exactly how you think it’s going to go, the messaging in the movie is very on the nose and doesn’t even attempt to try and be somewhat interesting. By the end of the movie it really makes you question what was the point in all of this?

Woody Woodpecker Goes To Camp is available on Netflix.

1/10 F

Scoop (2024) Film Review

An insider account of how the women of “Newsnight” secured Prince Andrew’s infamous 2019 interview about his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Scoop is directed by Philip Martin a director who’s done a lot of made for TV movies and TV work such as Mo (2010), Bloodlines (2005), Hawking (2004) and a few others.

Scoop is a dramatic retelling of how the BBC was able to get a TV interview with Prince Andrew in 2019 which focused on discussing his relationship with Jeffery Epstein. As well as the allegations of Andrew’s sexual assault of a minor (which in early 2022 was settled out of court for a 12 million settlement). The interview instantly went huge online and 5 years later is still talked about.

Scoop is one of those movies where it’s hard to comment on, not because the movie is anything crazy or you have no idea what’s going on. But because this is a very basic rundown of how the BBC got the interview just with actors, a script and more dramatized. It’s basically “journalists doing their job” the movie which while it’s nice to see some insight into the journalism aspect something we don’t often see in many films. The movie itself is a huge slog to get through granted Billie Piper as Sam McAlister is quite great and Gillian Anderson as Emily Maitlis is especially great during the interview which is the film’s final moments.

The interview itself is quite great, it’s easily the best part of Scoop and is more than likely the reason why someone would watch this movie. But unfortunately by that point Scoop is practically over and what came before the interview is incredibly lacking. The movie being incredibly surface level doesn’t do it any favors either, it’s the equivalent of someone doing one hour of research (I’m being very generous with an hour) and then not wanting to go further on a project.

To be fair the movie itself is actually an adaption of a 2022 book called Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews which was written by former Newsnight editor Sam McAlister. I have not read the book, but I’m sure the book goes into far more depth than the movie does.

Overall if you really want to see the Prince Andrew interview just watch the actual interview, it’s far more interesting and informative than anything Scoop has to offer. Outside of some decent performances and a strong enough portrayal of the interview, this one is entirely forgettable and will leave the mind as soon as it’s over.

Scoop is available on Netflix.

3/10 D-

The Beautiful Game (2024) Film Review

Mal is the manager of England’s homeless football team, taking his players to Rome with the hope of being crowned champions of the Homeless World Cup. He brings with them a talented striker, Vinny, who could give them a real chance at winning.

The Beautiful Game is directed by Thea Sharrock who directed Me Before You (2016), The One and Only Ivan (2020) and Wicked Little Letters (2023).

Not a whole lot going on here, it’s a very typical underdog sports movie. The movie itself is fiction but it is about the real Homeless World Cup Tournament which is a bit interesting. When you read about the Homeless World Cup it’s honestly very touching, it brings people together to celebrate a sport and advocates for the end of homelessness through the sport of football (or soccer for Americans).

It’s unfortunate that The Beautiful Game goes for a cliched underdog type of direction rather than a more authentic one. The movie is well intentioned and there are some great moments particularly Bill Nighty who gives a very solid performance, while his character Mal isn’t exactly a very investing character (Mal’s backstory is incredibly basic) the performance is enough to make him one of the movie’s best parts.

The biggest problem here as I hinted at before is how it’s written, rather than really explaining what the Homeless World Cup is or talking about different parts of it. The viewer is stuck with a very typical underdog narrative which lead into a bucket full of sports drama cliches, it essentially trades in what could have been authenticity for a much safer and convenient path for the movie to go on.

The movie means well and has a nice message, but that kind of defeats the purpose when you really don’t explore the topic of your movie all that well.

The Beautiful Game is available on Netflix.

4/10 D+

Shirley (2024) Film Review

In 1972, the first-ever Black congresswoman, Shirley Chisholm, launched a trailblazing campaign to become the president of the United States.

Shirley is directed by John Ridley who has directed Cold Around the Heart (1997), Jimi: All Is by My Side (2013) and Needle in a Timestack (2021).

Shirley tells the story of Shirley Chisholm an American politician who became the first Black woman to be elected into the United States Congress in 1968. She also became the first Black candidate for a major party nomination for President of the United States. The film documents the 1972 presidential run of Shirley Chisholm.

There is absolutely no denying what Shirley Chisholm did broke many barriers and was truly inspiring, a lot of that is felt throughout the film, sadly however the movie does have a flaws that hold it back. The main one being this is yet another incredibly safe biopic that goes about as deep as a Wikipedia page, this is sadly a common trend among a lot of biopics and Shirley is no different.

Having that said there are positives which mostly comes from the performances. Regina King plays Shirley Chisholm and as usual knocks it out of the park, even with a lacking script Regina King is able to really turn a lot of the movie around and make certain scenes genuinely powerful. She nails down the accent, actions and mannerisms of Shirley Chisholm which truly is fascinating. Her commanding the screen at any moment she’s given is truly powerful and once again fascinating to watch.

Lucas Hedges returns (his last film performance was in 2020) he plays Robert Gottlieb which while he doesn’t have a whole lot of screentime, Regina King and Lucas Hedges work incredibly well together and actually deliver some charming moments. Hedges also really nails down his portrayal of Gottlieb quite well. The late Lance Reddick plays Wesley McDonald Holder (one of his last performances, there’s still three more film performances after this) does an excellent job and again shows how incredible he was as an actor. He works incredibly well with the rest of the cast and much like Regina King, he’s able to take a lacking script and turn into something really fascinating.

As I said before unfortunately Shirley is a very by the numbers biopic, the directing style is played very safe and falls in line with a lot of other biopics. Which is a shame because Shirley Chisholm’s story is very fascinating and deserves to be told with so much more power.

Shirley is available on Netflix.

5/10 C

Irish Wish (2024) Film Review

When the love of her life gets engaged to her friend, Maddie puts her feelings aside to be a bridesmaid at their wedding in Ireland. Days before the wedding, Maddie makes a spontaneous wish for true love, only to wake up as the bride-to-be.

Irish Wish is directed by Janeen Damian who previously directed Falling For Christmas (2022).

While I was watching Irish Wish I kept thinking to myself “was I too soft on Falling For Christmas?” The real Lindsay Lohan comeback movie (not Among The Shadows) but then when the credits rolled….I realized I wasn’t soft Irish Wish is just somehow worse.

At the very least Falling For Christmas was a very cheesy Christmas movie that you can put on during the holidays and have a decent time with it. Irish Wish is if you took every single romantic comedy element, blended it into one movie and somehow made each one more forgettable than the last. It’s the equivalent of a Hallmark movie that has nothing new to say or add to the romantic comedy genre.

Lindsay Lohan turns in a fine enough performance as does everyone else, but there’s nothing about their characters that invests the viewer at all. I’m not expecting deep and rich character development from a Netflix romantic comedy, but at the very least make your characters more than walking talking cliches because that’s all they really are here.

Despite my issues I will say you could do a lot worse than Irish Wish, there are some cute moments and the movie itself isn’t necessarily horrendous it’s just very predictable and cliched. The exact same thing I’ve said about other Netflix romantic comedies in the past can be applied here with Irish Wish.

Irish Wish is available on Netflix.

4/10 D+

Spaceman (2024) Film Review

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!

Spaceman is available on Netflix.

8/10 B+

Damsel (2024) Film Review

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.

Damsel is available on Netflix.

4/10 D+