I have continued to be behind in my movie reviews, so when I spotted the animated DC League of Super-Pets appear on Vudu, I was ready to rent it and finally see the film starring Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart, voicing pets of the DC heroes.

Krypto (Dwayne Johnson) had been the best friend of Superman (John Krasinski) since he was a baby on Krypton. Now, Krypto had a new rival for Superman’s attention, Lois Lane (Olivia Wilde), whom Superman wanted to marry. Krypto found himself feeling jealous of the attention Superman was giving Lois and was feeling that he was on his way out.

When the villainous Lex Luthor (Marc Maron) was trying to pull a meteorite of orange Kryptonite to earth, Superman and Krypto prevented him. A few pieces of the orange Kryptonite found its way to a local pet show where the evil guinea pig Lulu (Kate McKinnon) was waiting. The orange Kryptonite gave her super powers, but also gave powers to the other animals in the shop, hound Ace (Kevin Hart), turtle Merton (Natasha Lyonne), squirrel Chip (Diego Luna),and potbellied pig PB (Vanessa Bayer) were exposed too.

Lulu’s power was greater than imagined and she kidnapped Superman and secretly fed Krypto some green Kryptonite, which took away his powers. Can even the arrival of the Justice League help this situation?

This was a fun film. While there were a few moments that were eye-rollingly off, most of the bits worked. A lot of that is because of the chemistry between Johnson and Hart. They bring the voice acting here and it was very funny and entertaining.

Another voice that did a fantastic job was Kate McKinnon as Lulu. She brought the evil to the role and you believed everything that she said. She was just a guinea pig, yet there was a menace about her.

The Batman (Keanu Reeves) was a real hoot too. He had some of the best lines of the film.

I’m not sure how much I cared about the secondary characters after Ace. They all had roles to play in the movie, but I was not that interested in their story.

The film looked great, with the animation standing out. There were some solid character designs as well.

The story was pretty typical and predictable. You have seen most of this before.

This movie was better than it had a right to be, but I would not consider this in the upper echelon of animated films from 2022. It was decent.

3.5 stars

The other day I was watching Matt Knost’s YouTube show Settle the Score. This week’s episode featured Ethan Erwin, whom I had learned about from the Schmoedown, and, at the end of the show, he mentioned that he was producing a new movie coming out the day after the show would air. It was called Orphan: First Kill. I wanted to watch to support Ethan.

Turned out that Orphan: First Kill is a prequel of a 2008 horror film Orphan. Amazingly, the main protagonist Esther was played in both the original and the new prequel by the same person, Isabelle Fuhrman. I had never seen Orphan, so I was interested to see if I would be able to follow the story of the prequel without having seen the first film. That was not a problem.

This film showed us where the mysterious Esther (not her real name) came from. She was originally at the Saarne Institute in Estonia and her real name was Leena. She was considered to be the most dangerous patient they had. Though Leena appeared to be a young child, she was, in truth, a 31-year old woman. Leena pulled off a bloody escape from the institute, leaving a trail of bodies in her wake. Learning that there was a girl in America named Esther Albright who was missing and whom she had a resemblance of, Leena decided to pretend to be the missing girl as a way to escape.

Our new Esther was “reunited” with her supposed parents, wealthy artist Allen Albright (Rossif Sutherland) and his wife Tricia (Julia Stiles) as well as her pretentious brother Gunnar (Matthew Finlan).

Despite the early joy from Esther’s return, it was not too soon when things started to go wrong.

This started off reminding me of a documentary from a few years ago called The Imposter, which told the story of a con man who stepped into a role of a missing child. Then, Orphan: First Kill went completely bonkers and the whole tone and idea of the film changed. It is a creative move and rolled the dice on the film.

Orphan: First Kill is not a film that you should sit down and pick through because there are a ton of details that could spoil the fun. If you are too picky on specific details, this film will not hold up. However, the movie is a fun and bizarre trip and, if you let yourself get swept up in the fantasy of the situation, you could enjoy the movie.

Isabelle Fuhrman was very creepy and presented a definitely sinister aura. She was the standout part of the film. Julia Stiles played opposite Fuhrman well and she took that character in so many unexpectedly different ways.

It was not much of a horror film, leaning more on the thriller aspect.

Orphan: First Kill was a preposterous movie with multiple crazy twists and plot devices. Yet, it brought an air of campy fun that raised the movie above what was in the script. Fuhrman and Stiles are wonderfully unhinged in their performances and they embrace the switch in the film with a robust insanity.

3.2 stars

Vengeance is the brainchild of B.J. Novak (from The Office). This was Novak’s first directorial film while he also wrote and starred. Produced by Blumhouse, Vengeance definitely had that independent film feel to it.

Ben Manalowitz (B.J. Novak) was a journalist and podcaster who had spent much of his recent time meeting and hooking up with several women, looking for nothing serious, nothing life altering. When he received a mysterious phone call in the middle of the night telling him that his “girlfriend,” Abby (Lio Tipton), had died, Ben was confused. He did not remember the woman, but the tearful story from her brother Ty Shaw (Boyd Holbrook) compelled him to go to her funeral in Texas.

After the surreal experience at the funeral, Ty told Ben that he wanted his help. Ty did not believe that his sister had overdosed, as the reports of her death indicated, and that he believed someone had killed her. He begged Ben to stay and help him gain vengeance for Abby. Sensing an opportunity, Ben decided to tell the story of Abby on a podcast and he would investigate the death and try and find out the truth.

Abby’s eccentric family took Ben in and tried to walk him through the culture of Texas, something that he had a difficult time adjusting to. The family included Abby’s mother Sharon (J. Smith-Cameron), her sisters Kansas City (Dove Cameron) and Paris (Isabella Amara), her brother Mason (Elli Abrams Bickel) and blunt grandmother Granny (Louanne Stephens).

The mystery of what happened to Abby deepened as the film progressed, all to the thrill of Ben’s podcast producer Eloise (Issa Rae).

I was looking through the Vudu new releases for something to watch today when I came across this movie. It sounded interesting and so I rented it. I am very glad I did. I loved this movie. I was completely engaged from the moment that the phone call from Ty woke Ben up in the middle of the night with an odd message. The mystery has several great twists and kept me guessing about what had happened to Abby. The script of the film was wonderfully written and took the story of the film in a direction to try and look at the problems of a divided America.

B.J. Novak does a excellent job carrying the narrative, but the eccentric characters from this small little Texas town really brought this to life. Like Twin Peaks, the surrounding characters helped make the tale special. Ashton Kutcher and John Mayer had roles in the film as well.

I loved the resolution as well. No spoilers obviously, but it was an extremely satisfying end to the movie.

Vengeance is one of those films that most people will miss, but it is well worth your time to watch for it when it comes available to see.

4.3 stars

Owen Wilson joined the super hero community as The Guard, the world’s protector and hero, who after discovering a UFO crashed in the woods had the existing alien technology present him with a vision.

Unfortunately, the demands of the super hero life led to a split between Jack (Owen Wilson) and his wife Lily (Jesse Mueller) and Jack spent less and less time with his son Charlie (Walker Scobell).

Trying to make up for lost time, Jack had Charlie over for a weekend at his home, but his duties as The Guard pulled him away again. Charlie tricked his dad and stayed at the house, calling his friend Berger (Keith L. Williams) to come over. He brought with him Lizzie (Abby James Witherspoon) and Maya (Momona Tamada) for a rave.

The four kids stumble across a mysterious elevator which took them down into an underground cavern where they found all kinds of amazing gadgets and power sources.

I liked Walker Scobell quite a bit. He clearly built upon his work earlier this years in The Adam Project with Ryan Reynolds to pick up this role. He is a charming young man and is one of the strongest parts of the film. Owen Wilson is always great no matter what role he is given and he has some wonderful scenes with Scobell that help to define both characters.

Secret Headquarters (which is a terrible title for this) has that Spy Kids/Shark Boy vibe to it. It is designed for family fun and a very light hearted kids adventure. While this is not a great movie by any stretch, it had some moments that I thought were solid and there were bits that were well done. I expected this to be worse than I found it to be.

Of course, Secret Headquarters goes over the top and is filled with too much senseless materials. It feels about 15-20 minutes too long. This movie should have been a tight 90 minutes top, and you can feel the excess in the run time.

Michael Peña played the main villain, Ansel Argon, who was desperately trying to find the power source of the Guard. This character was too inconsistent, trying to be sinister, but having too many examples of his silliness. All of the villains here were one note.

Secret Headquarters can be a fun time for families, but it goes no further than that.

2.75 stars

Ok, that was something.

What exactly, I am not sure.

Resurrection is a psychological horror/thriller film starring Rebecca Hall and Tim Roth. Rebecca Hall played Margaret, a reasonably successful woman who had a happy relationship with her daughter Abbie (Grace Kaufman), who was preparing to head off to college soon.

Things took a turn for the dark as Margaret spots David (Tim Roth), an abusive and controlling boyfriend from her past that brought back the terrible memories of the end of that relationship.

I can’t go into any more of the story or plot without massive spoilers. I’m not sure how I feel about the story that is told. It feels as if Margaret is just losing her mind, trying to deal with the trauma from her past, but it takes a real swerve here out of the world of reality.

The performance of Rebecca Hall is completely amazing. She is the reason to watch this movie. Her decent into her breakdown is heart-breaking as the relationship between mother and daughter is strained. Hall has delivered several powerful performances in her career, but this psychological story allows her to take her work to a new level. About halfway through the movie, Rebecca Hall delivers a monologue telling her story with David that is chilling to the core.

One of the truths of Resurrection is that, as an audience member, there are plenty of time that you are not quite sure what was happening. There is a disbelief that anything we are seeing happening is actually happening and that it is nothing more than a delusion from the rapidly descending psyche of Margaret.

Tim Roth gives us a great performance opposite of Hall as well. He is totally creepy and someone who feels every bit as cruel and abusive as this character shows. His manipulations and power over Margaret made me yell out a couple of times or her to just tell this guy off. Roth made himself totally unlikable immediately and, when you discover the past between them, makes you hate him even more.

The ending is going to cause plenty of dissent. It is so out there that I can see how it will color audience’s perspective of everything else that came before it. It is weird.

The ending made me uncertain as well. I would say, overall, that I would recommend this, in particular for the work of Rebecca Hall and Tim Roth, but brace yourself.

3.75

Vampires. Every so often the blood sucking undead show their sometimes ugly faces to the world and we get a new vampire flick. Netflix has provided the newest addition to the genre this weekend with a film starring Jamie Foxx, Dave Franco and Snoop Dogg called Day Shift.

Down on his luck pool cleaner, Bud Jablonski (Jamie Foxx), has a secret life. He hunts vampires. Unfortunately, his second life has caused a rift between him and his ex-wife Jocelyn (Meagan Good) and his daughter Paige (Zion Broadnax). Jocelyn told Bud that she planned on moving then back to Florida. Bud begged her to wait until Monday so he could make the extra money that they needed.

This meant that Bud had to try to get back into the Union that he had been kicked out of awhile ago so he could make the money quickly. Union head Ralph Seeger (Eric Lange) allowed him to come back, despite his better judgement thanks to a recommendation from ultra cool vampire hunter Big John (Snoop Dogg), but Seeger assigned Seth (Dave Franco), a union rep, to follow Bud along, looking for violations so he could kick him out once more for good.

Day Shift had a lot of fun to it. Jamie Foxx was a perfect lead bad ass in the film, being given the most development of any of the characters. He was willing to do whatever he could to not lose his family. Snoop Dogg brought a lot to his limited screen time, ratcheting up his cool factor. I’m not sure how much I enjoyed the Dave Franco character.

The film does a pretty solid job of building the world around these characters. Set in the San Fernando Valley, there is a ton of information provided about the different vampiric types living in the area and the background of the Union.

There is not much to the story outside of the action beats. There are plenty of fun and graphic vampire kills as Bud’s trying to raise money. The ending battles may have gone on a bit long, but they are fairly well planned out.

In the end, the film rests on the charisma of its lead star and Jamie Foxx gives a solid performance to carry the story. If you are a fan of Jamie Foxx , this should be right up your alley. If you are a fan of vampire films, this one does a decent job, though there are a couple things that happen that made me question the rules of the world.

Overall, it is fun and a harmless viewing experience on Netflix.

3.4 stars

Apple TV + had a new animated movie on its service called Luck from Skydance Animation. Directed by Peggy Holmes, Luck has some flavor of Pixar to it, but there are some clunky aspects to an overall sweet tale.

Sam (Eva Noblezada) is one of the unluckiest people in the world and, after years in an orphanage, she was never able to find her “forever family.” She bonded with Hazel, another younger girl in the orphanage who is hoping to be adopted.

Sam, who found a lucky penny after feeding a black cat named Bob (Simon Pegg), accidentally flushed the penny down the toilet. This was when she found out that Bob could talk and was from a magical land called Luck. Hoping to find another magical penny to give luck to Hazel, Sam and Bob returned to Luck to save Hazel’s forever family.

The film is sweet and the characters are decent. Bob is a great animal friend character and there is a ton of imagination in the movie. The animation is top notch and the colors are wonderful. There is a lot to like here.

However, the story is very complicated. The whole workings of Luck require a lot of exposition along the way and some of the things do not work as well together as others.

The voice cast is strong. Eva Noblezada and Simon Pegg are our main two leads while there is also Whoopi Goldberg, Jane Fonda, Flula Borg, Colin O’Donoghue, Lil Rel Howery, and John Ratzenberger.

Luck may be a little long, but it is a good film to show the youngsters as it has a great message and they will love seeing the fun and interesting characters.

Luck is on Apple TV +

3.2 stars

One of the most dramatic true stories of recent memory turned into the focus on Ron Howard’s latest film as Thirteen Lives, a film based on the group of footballer kids who would up trapped in a cave for 18 days as the water rose around them, found its release on Prime Video the past Friday.

The daring underwater cave diving rescue is compelling as can be and it is filmed expertly so. The rescue of the 12 children and their coach in 2018 from Thailand’s Tham Luang Nang Non made international headlines in 2018.

Ron Howard organized a great cast featuring Colin Farrell, Viggo Mortensen, Joel Edgerton, Paul Gleeson, and Tom Bateman who played the experienced cave divers who came to help with the rescue and eventually became a vital cog in an insane plan.

There were a lot of scenes that helped develop the story that were strong and powerful, but there was not a ton of depth given to characterization. The story was strong enough to carry the film through.

I thought this was a great movie, but, to be honest, I was not sure the purpose of making a big screen film version of the tale considering there is a documentary on Disney + called The Rescue that does the same job as this film, including dramatic real life videos and clips showing the rescue. Though I thought that Thirteen Lives was really great and an excellently created, I personally preferred the doc, which had me glued to every real image.

Still, Thirteen Lives is excellent, features a heart-warming true story, and has a top cast giving their best performances in a ton of water. I thought Colin Farrell was the standout as he beautifully portrayed the uncertainty of the situation on his face.

Thirteen Lives is on Prime Video

4 stars

I have been out of commission for almost two weeks and I have found myself behind on several of the movie and television projects that are coming out in early August. Now that I am back, I decided to start off with one of my most anticipated films of the summer. I was always a big fan of Predator, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and, my personal favorite, “Mr. I ain’t got time to bleed” Jesse Ventura, and so when I heard about a prequel to the film set 300 years ago, my curiosity was piqued.

To be fair, I am not sure that I would define the film as a prequel. It is set prior to the events of the original film but, with the exception of the Predator itself, there is little connective tissue. I would say that it was more like a film set in the same world/universe.

Young lady Naru (Amber Midthunder) wanted to be more than what she was expected to be. She wanted to be a hunter like her brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers) and she was anxious to be able to prove herself. Naru was extremely intelligent and thought her way through each situation though most of the others in the Comanche tribe was unimpressed.

On the hunt for a killer lion, Naru realized that there was something else in the wilderness of the Northern Great Plains, something bigger, something unknown. She began tracking the new hunter and discovered some horrifying things along the way.

Amber Midthunder was an absolute rock star in this movie. She is a star in the making. You could put her on a list already of some of the best female action heroes of all-time and not be exaggerating. She was electrifying as Naru in just about every aspect of the film. She was great.

The story was simple. Hunter vs. hunter. The Predator kills things and Naru tries to survive. There were certainly underscoring of the themes including those of never giving up, don’t let others prevent you from accomplishing your dreams and intelligence can overcome strength.

I was glued to the film for the entire run time. It was well put together and beautifully shot, building some great tension and nervousness over the characters and their eventual fate.

Some of the special effects were definitely lacking at times. There were some sequences where the bear, or the fighting Predator look too video gamey, which was clearly an effect of the budget. However, it never became too distracting and there were several outstanding moments of action as well.

This was a serious movie. It did not have the over-the-top type characters of the original, which lent a fun aspect to that film, but it would not in in place here. As of right now, probably because of Jesse Ventura, I may place the original Predator at the top of the list, but this film is right on its heels and might supplant it eventually.

4.75 stars

Anthony and Joe Russo brought us their next non-MCU film, back to the world of Netflix (though it has been available at the theaters across the nation for the last week). The Gray Man is an action thriller film with shenanigans involving the CIA and their off-the-books assassin in their Sierra program.

We see a distinctly de-aged Billy Bob Thornton recruiting Ryan Gosling from out of prison and into the Sierra program, to become a ghost, a killer that the CIA could point to what they want to happen and the killer would take care of the job. Facing the choice between this and prison, Gosling became known as Sierra Six.

When Six was sent after a former Sierra agent, Four, to assassinate, he realized that the CIA was not out for the best intentions. Six stopped the assassination when a young child got in the way despite the CIA handlers insisting that the kid was just acceptable collateral damage. Though Six still carried out the assassination, it was a considerably messier attempt. Before he died, Four gave Six an encrypted drive detailing the corruption at the CIA.

With Six going rogue, the CIA approached Lloyd Hanson (Chris Evans) to retrieve the drive and to kill Six. Hanson was a former CIA agent who had been kicked out of the agency because of sociopathic tendencies. Lloyd was going to do whatever it took to accomplish his mission.

The Gray Man was a mixed bag. The acting was pretty good for what was here. In particular, Chris Evans was absolutely fabulous. He was chewing every scene he was in, emoting out from behind that amazing mustache. Chris Evans had personality to spare and carried the enjoyment of the movie, despite the fact that he is playing a horrible person. Ryan Gosling was basically playing the same character that he typically would play, though he did it fine. He was very stoic in many ways as he played this assassin. They gave Billy Bob Thornton’s character a niece to put in jeopardy, played by Julia Butters. Ana de Armas played another CIA agent who wound up helping Six. She was fine, but her character was quite lacking. She was just a face that showed up to shoot guns.

The action was good, but there was a lot of it. There may be too many gun fights without quite enough other versions of the fight sequences. The hand-to-hand fights were always more interesting than just the guns being shot.

The final battle between Six and Lloyd was a letdown though, which I will not go into to avoid spoilers.

The Gray Man is better than many of the Netflix original films, but not by much. It is a film that could be an entertaining watch if you have nothing to do some afternoon. I would not have been happy to watch this at a theater, but at home on Netflix, there could be worst films.

2.9 stars