Netflix has had a great 2020 for original films.

This has been a narrative I have been stating over the last few weeks as I not only see the films from Netflix that are being released now, but also catch up on some of the true winners that I may have missed along the way. The entertainment from Netflix during this pandemic has been remarkable valuable.

His House is a film that came out at the end of October that I had not seen. This would have made an excellent Halloween watch, but pre-Thanksgiving turned out good too.

Two refugees from war torn Sudan escape the country and find their way into the United Kingdom, seeking asylum. However, after being placed in a broken down home during their probationary period, darkness from their past lives and their harrowing journey to escape Sudan returned to provide a frightening challenge.

His House is the feature film debut for writer/director Remi Weekes. Weekes brings a air of terrifying ambiance and creates an unsettling mood for the viewers. He provided a exceptional horror film that is deeper than the typical surface level horror film.

The film deals not only with the horrors found in the genre of haunted house films, but it dives deeper into an examination of the lives and the experiences faced by refugees. There is also a depth of grief and guilt being processed by our two main characters.

Speaking of the two main characters, Sope Dirisu, who played Bol Majur, and Wunmi Mosaku, who played his wife Rial Majur, are fantastic. Their pain and loss weighing against the hope of finding a new beginning in a new land. Former Dr. Who star Matt Smith appears as well as the pair’s case worker.

The film delivers some very creepy moments and genuine scary images. It is shot beautifully and Remi Weekes deserves credit for bringing such a momentous film for his first time out. His House is one more winner from Netflix this year.

4.5 stars

Charles Dickens was one of the great writers in British literature writing such classics as A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist, and A Tale of Two Cities. Many of his works have been adapted into movies and shows. The novel David Copperfield has been no exception. The latest version of the adaptation is a full movie is called The Personal History of David Copperfield.

The film follows the life of David Copperfield (Dev Patel) from his birth to the success of his writing focusing on a group of eccentric characters he met along the way.

I found this movie to be remarkably entertaining, funnier than I expected it to be, and filled with tremendous performances. The characters are a hoot and everything blended together seamlessly.

The cast is stellar. Dev Patel makes a wonderful titular character and he plays off the weirdness of the others around him perfectly. Tilda Swinton is masterful as his Aunt Betsey from the first moment she was on screen at his birth. Swinton is utterly hilarious throughout, from the desire for David to have been born a boy to the obsession with donkeys. Swinton gave one of the best supporting performances of the year so far.

Hugh Laurie and Peter Capaldi were fantastic as well in two similar, yet distinct characters. The whole kite bit in the story with Laurie was beautifully written and acted. Ben Whishaw as the little creep Uriah Heep provided a necessary foil for the entourage. The alcohol-obsessed Mr. Wickfield (Benedict Wong) was comedic gold. Rosalind Eleazar is one of the more interesting appearing stars of the film and had some great chemistry with Patel and Wong. Aneurin Barnard’s Steerforth was a major piece to the film, including one of the more emotional moments, but I did find this character somewhat inconsistent.

There were some moments that I was confused because of the sheer number of characters involved in David Copperfield’s life. There were a few that did not stand out as much as the ones that I have already mentioned and only served as a distraction.

The film looked marvelous and it was truly funny and filled with wit. I had not expected to enjoy this as much as I did, but it was a enjoyable ride all through.

4.1 stars

Typically, I do not like starting with anything Christmas until after the Thanksgiving holiday. People just keep making the Christmas holiday celebration earlier and earlier.

That includes the movie community as well, as Netflix dropped this musical, Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey a few weeks ago. I ignored it for a while, but I saw a very high Rotten Tomatoes score for it, which I had not expected. I know Netflix has been having some great movies this year, so I decided that it would be a good addition to my queue.

Brilliant young girl Journey (Madalen Mills) arrived at her eccentric grandfather’s business with a hope. Her grandfather was Jeronicus Jingle (Forest Whitaker), one of the great inventors of all-time, but an inventor who had lost his way after an old apprentice Gustafson (Keegan-Michael Key) had betrayed him years before, stealing his book of inventions.

Due to the betrayal, Jeronicus had lost the the magic and he had succumb to depression. The special ability that led him to becoming the greatest toymaker in the world deserted him.

Jingle Jangle was a bit of a mixed bag for me. The message of the movie was strong and I liked most of the performances from the actors. The music was good too. I was very much reminded of The Greatest Showman with the music and the choreography of the film, and while I did not like The Greatest Showman overall as a movie, I did think the music was extraordinary.

However, the film did feel too long and it seemed to take forever to get into the heart of the story. I felt as if the film was losing me early and I could see someone claiming that the movie was dull, especially the first half.

To be fair, the second half of the movie picked up the pace considerably and there was a pretty cool scene with Journey and her grandfather’s current apprentice Edison (Kieron L. Dyer) escaping from Gustafson’s factory. There was some early thought while watching this movie that I would fall into the minority of critics who did not like the movie, but the second half of the film did grab my attention considerably more than the first half.

I do believe that this movie would have benefitted from dropping some of the scenes in the film, but Forest Whitaker was wonderful, Keegan-Michael Key makes a solid villain and the young lead Madalen Mills is charming and powerful in her role. No doubt the performances and the music carry this film along.

3.3 stars

At one point, I had considered heading to the theater to see this film. It seemed intriguing and I like a good little horror film. Key word in that phrase though was good, and Come Play does not reach that level of quality.

Oliver (Azhy Robertson) was a little boy with Autism who had been having plenty of troubles at school. Non-verbal, Oliver required the use of a phone to help him communicate. Oliver’s parents, Sarah (Gillian Jacobs) and Marty (John Gallagher Jr.), were having issues in their relationship and battled over the amount of time each other spent with Oliver.

The problems facing Oliver allowed the young boy to be a target of a monster from a nearby dimension that is unable to interact with this world, except through the screens of phones, iPads and TV screens, using the electricity to jump around- being used as doors.

The monster’s name is Larry.

No… really.

And poor Larry was lonely. He just wanted a friend.

Honestly, while there were some parts of the premise of Come Play were decent and had potential to be more, it fails in the execution. There are really dumb things that happen.

Azhy Robertson does a decent job as the main kid, but I did not buy his as Autistic. It felt like the film was using Autism as a way to have the kid isolated. It seemed as if Oliver was only sort of Autistic, kind of a film version of the disorder. He was a likable actor though.

This film also has a strange connection to Spongebob Squarepants. The cartoon seemed to be the one thing that could calm Oliver and the theme of the show was a major piece of the story. Not sure if the producers of the movie had some kind of connection to Spongebob, but it was a weird piece of the movie.

In the end, Come Play had some effective jump scares and a somewhat scary looking monster…Larry, that is… (Larry made me think of Flukeman from X-Files days) but any positives the film may have had were spoiled with the way the plot developed and the choices of the characters. Not even Spongebob could save this movie.

2.4 stars

I was discussing some films with one of my 7th grade literacy students and he brought up The Outpost, from Netflix. It was a film that I had never heard of before and so I thought I would look into it.

He had told me it was a war film that took place in Afghanistan. While I have never been a huge fan of war films, my student raved about the film. Typically, 7th graders’ film opinions do not match up with my own, but the info I found on The Outpost looked intriguing so I decided to place it on my queue.

Tonight, I found the time to watch the film, and he was right. It was a really tense and anxiety-filled film based on a true series of events that show just how devastating and horrific war can be.

The Outpost did not have a distinguished throughline of a narrative for the movie outside of the life in an outpost named Camp Keating, a camp situated in a valley, surrounded by mountains. The Taliban was all around them and made a regular occurrence of shooting at them. The Americans attempted to keep a peace by negotiating (and paying off) local village elders, but the trust between them was sketchy at best.

As we see a continual parade of new leaders at the camp, everyone was on edge. Eventually, the Taliban launched an attack on the camp and the soldiers desperately tried to survive.

While there was a strong cast, the characterization of the men involved was not the main focus of the film. Outside of the powerful performance of Caleb Landry Jones as SPC Ty Carter, many of the soldiers were surface level. The characters were not the main thrust of the film. It is to show the horrors of war and the danger that these men faced every day.

The film does just enough development to make these men relatable and keeps the audience rooting for them.

The action scenes in The Outpost was brutal and realistic. The fear and struggles of the soldiers was patently apparent as they were desperate to keep alive so they could return to their loved ones. While the film did not glorify the gore, it did not hide from it either. The brutality was essential to the story that was being told and each moment of violence had purpose.

Netflix has been having a solid year, which is great considering how down the national theaters have been because of the virus. Netflix has given us two of my top films of the year, Da 5 Bloods and The Trial of the Chicago 7, as well as excellent films as The Old Guard, the animated Over the Moon, Enola Holmes, Extraction, I’m Thinking of Ending Things and the horrifying documentary The Social Dilemma. While this could be considered a tough watch, The Outpost should be added to this successful list of films showing how the streaming service has taken the step to becoming a major player in movies.

4 stars

I have not been to a theater for several months. I decided to go out today to see the new Kevin Costner/Diane Lane movie, Let Him Go. So I put on my best mask and headed to Cinemark.

The movie was good. I would not call it great, but it was worth the watch.

After losing their son in a horse riding accident, George (Kevin Costner) and Margaret (Diane Lane) Blackledge discovered that their daughter-in-law Lorna (Kayli Carter), who was now remarried, took their grandson and disappeared with her new husband Donnie (Will Brittain).

Worse yet, it was just after Margaret had witnessed Donnie striking both Lorna and the little boy.

The grandparents went after them, with the idea of bringing their grandson back with them.

The film does a solid job of ratcheting up the intensity of the moments. The film starts slowly, but it builds very efficiently toward the third act, which created a seriously tense situation. The pacing was well done and the initial slow build helped the feel of the seriousness of the situation.

Kevin Costner was good, but we have seen him play this kind of part many other times. However, Diane Lane was the standout of the movie. She brought a power to her performance and was easily the strongest part of the film.

Yet, there was a lack of character development among all the characters, even Costner and Lane, that kept me from completely investing in the emotional stakes that they were facing. I never felt as if I understood the characters well enough to know why they were doing something or how they may react. That led me to question a lot of the motives on display in the film.

Worst of all, the characters in the family known as the Weboy family, which included formerly Oscar nominated Lesley Manville and Jeffrey Donovan, were so one-note that they came off cartoonish much of the time and that was disappointing because I think it could have turned around these character with just a little bit of development. They are definitely menacing and anxiety-creating, but the film could have been so much more compelling with a more developed crew. The acting was certainly there.

We get almost nothing between Lorna and Donnie so we have no understanding for her plight. We can imagine what was there, but the film rarely gives us more than a surface level reason.

Because of that, the strong third act felt as if it was missing something. I was connected because I like Kevin Costner or Diane Lane instead of caring about their characters.

As I said, the third act was very tense and was filled with violence. I believe that this could have been so much more rewarding than it was. Still, there are really good performances for what we had and the third act is definitely anxiety-filled. While I wanted more, Let Him Go was a decent time.

3 stars

I am not sure if The Craft: Legacy was a sequel or a reboot or a remake. I’m not sure if the people at Blumhouse know either. It sure feels kind of like a mixture of all three.

I just watched for the first time the original “The Craft” last night as the final film in the 2020 October EYG Halloween Horror Bingefest. I thought it was good, not great. The best part of the film was the four lead characters. That was not as much the case with The Craft: Legacy.

I don’t mean to say that the four ladies leading this movie were bad. Far from it. They just did not stand out. And none of the characters had much of a personality or character development. They were unremarkable.

Lily (Cailee Spaeny) and her mother Helen(Michelle Monaghan) were starting over as Helen was moving them in with her new boyfriend Adam (David Duchovny) and his sons (no Brady Bunch references here). Once there, Lily meets three girls at school, Lourdes (Zoey Luna), Frankie (Gideon Adlon) and Tabby (Lovie Simone). These three girls were in a coven and were hoping to find a fourth. Fate stepped in.

The girls bonded and discovered their power was working well, as they put a spell on high school douchebag Timmy (Nicholas Galitzine) to make him “woke.”

However, problems begin to surface and new father figure Adam started looking like he was not the Mike Brady that he, at first, appeared.

There were some storyline beats in the first half of the movie that could have been developed into something more than time fillers, but that feels like that is all they were. There were some hints about the youngest of Adam’s sons, and there were several 21st century high school drama topics tossed in, but none of them were developed past surface level.

The story the film chose to follow mostly was truly one of the weakest of the bunch and lead to a disappointing and sudden third act that did not feel like it fit with what much of the early part of the movie was setting up.

I will admit that I will always have issues with seeing David Duchovny as anyone other than Agent Fox Mulder. That is my own issue and not the fault of the film. However, it did take me out of what they were trying to do with that character.

Then, the film’s twist at the end came out of nowhere and only seemed to appear in the third act. That is never a good way to drop a major storyline twist. You should always be able to go back on a rewatch and see where the hints for the twist were and how it made other things make sense. This one felt like a simple throwback and had very little weight.

Quite a step down from The Craft, The Craft: Legacy feels like a Disney Channel movie with about that level of depth.

2.35 stars