I have never liked Will Farrell movies very much, but when I saw the trailers for the film Downhill, I thought this might be an exception.  Downhill is a remake of a Swedish film called FORCE MAJEURE, which I had never seen.  Apparently, it can be found on Hulu so I may dive into the original after I finish here.  Reportedly, those who have seen both say that the original is considerably better than the remake.

Of course, without that coloring my opinion, I was torn on this film.  There were parts that I thought were decent, but there were too many pieces that did not work.

Billie (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and Pete (Will Farrell) Stanton are a married couple who have been having some marriage problems, mainly stemming from Pete’s father’s death.  So they decide to try and work on their marriage by heading on a ski trip to the Alps with their two sons.

Problem comes when, during a lunch at an outdoor restaurant, there was a controlled avalanche that sent snow roaring down the mountain toward the family. While Billie gripped her two sons, thinking that they were about to die, Pete grabbed his phone and ran away, leaving his family in the avalanche’s wake.  When the avalanche turned out to be way better than it appeared, Pete returned to his family, who now looked at him in a different light.

The remainder of the movie dealt with (kind of) the anger and resentment directed toward Pete and with Pete’s guilt and grief over the choices that he made.

As I said before, I do not like Will Farrell’s movies very much.  However, I will say that I think he did a really good job in this movie.  Farrell was considerably more restrained than he has been in a movie for quite awhile.  He showed the hidden feelings of Pete throughout the entire film, trying to find a reason to believe he had done the right thing.  Julia Louis-Dreyfus was excellent as Billie the wife who had her eyes opened to the man she had married and who had to struggle with the anguish of his decision.

However, there was not much chemistry between the two actors and I had a hard time buying that they were together.  The two kids (Ammon Jacob Ford & Julian Grey) were really underdeveloped and had little to do in the film outside of watching videos in their room.

The film makes you think it is a comedy because of the two lead actors involved, but there was little funny about this.  Apparently, the original film was a dark comedy, but to call this a dark comedy would not be apropos.

While the movie was only 86 minutes long, it felt considerably longer than that.  The film was awkward and uncomfortable, and not in the good way.  There is no real resolution of the story and many of the situations were left unsettled.  Though there were some good individual moments, the sum does not add up properly.

I am going to avoid making any puns using the title of the movie in this review.  Where as there were some positives here and there, Downhill was … well, you get the point.

2.6 stars

There was a massive controversy online over this movie last year.  The producers of the film released an image of the character design of the beloved video game character Sonic the Hedgehog and the fans of the product lost their minds on the internet.  It looked horrible and there was a backlash against it.  The producers of the film heard the audience and their outcry and decided to do something about it, redesigning the character to make it closer to the Sega video game.  It was a shocking happening from the studio to spend that extra money to make the fans happier.

Thank goodness they did it, because that character design would have dive-bombed this movie and it would not have been able to overcome.  Because of the extra loving care, what we wound up getting was a movie that was a lot of fun and an enjoyable film to watch.

Sonic the Hedgehog (voiced by Ben Schwartz) escaped his own planet to earth after being pursued for his power.  He had golden rings that allowed him to open a portal anywhere.  Sonic made a life on earth, hidden from the view of the people.  However, an accidental release of power caused a major black out, bringing the attention of the government.  The government sent part-human, part robot Dr. Ivo Robotnik (Jim Carrey) to the small town to try and find what caused the power outage.  Sonic had to take shelter with local sheriff Tom Wachowski (James Marsden). When Robotnik and his machines arrived at Tom’s front door, Sonic and Tom had to take off to find Sonic’s lost rings in San Francisco.

Jim Carrey is just having a ball as the evil villain Dr. Robotnik.  We have not see Carrey in this type of role since the 1990s and it is downright glorious.  Carrey is over-the-top in all the best ways and commands the screen as the lead villain.

The voice work of Ben Schwartz as Sonic is note perfect.  The voice fits beautifully with the new character design.  It is a good thing that the studio redesigned Sonic because the voice used by Schwartz would not have fit with the design they originally had planned.

This is probably the most charismatic and enjoyable I have ever seen James Marsden.  As Tom, Marsden was funny, charming and totally believable.  He and Sonic shared an easy chemistry which is vitally important since it was basically a buddy road movie.  I was immediately engaged with Tom and I found him extremely easy to root for during the struggles the film dropped them in.

The story was simple and predictable, but, in this case, I do not think that is a negative.  Instead of becoming too convoluted and trying to shove too much in, Sonic the Hedgehog had one basic plot and then depended on the interactions between its main characters, Sonic and Tom, as well as Dr. Robotnik.

Sure there are plot holes here and you could pick it apart if you want to, but the story is really secondary here to the interactions of the characters.

Sonic the Hedgehog is truly a film targeted for the young viewers. and, with that in mind, it succeeds tremendously.   As a family film, Sonic is a solid watch and should not cause parents to wish they had just dropped the kids off at the theater.  I would also say that if you are a fan of Sonic from the video games or animated series, this version will be to your liking.  I know there are some Easter eggs here from the series/video game that I missed, but longtime fans should find it awesome.  This includes a post credit scene involving a character that I did not know about, but others in my theater did (as I heard them speaking the character’s name in excitement).  Reminds me of the old days when Thanos appeared in the post credit scene of the first Avengers movie and not that many viewers knew who he was.

I hope this movie makes all the money this weekend and becomes a huge hit, if only for the reason of rewarding the studio for taking the time and spending the money to make the effects right.  It was important for the film to look right and they should be rewarded for that.  As a movie, it was a good time and I had a lot of fun.

3.75 stars 

I was a fan of the ABC TV show from the late ’70s & ’80s, Fantasy Island, that starred the iconic Ricardo Montalbán  and Hervé Villechaize as Mr. Roarke and Tattoo.  I enjoyed the series, watching every Saturday night and waiting for Tattoo to say, “Da plane, Da plane!”

So when I saw the trailers for Blumhouse’s new adaption of the former series, taking what was the ABC drama and giving it a horror twist, I was excited and looking forward to it.

Then I saw it.

It makes me sad.

A group of guests arrive on an airplane to Fantasy Island with the promise of having their personal fantasies fulfilled by Mr. Roarke (Michael Peña), the Island’s caretaker and host.  The fantasies would take a twist and become something more than what the guest believed.

The guests were played by Lucy Hale, Maggie Q, Ryan Hansen, Jimmy O. Yang and Austin Stowell.  These actors were fine.  Maggie Q was probably the best of the group.  However there were some major issues because none of these actors had characters that had any depth to them at all.  Because I knew so little about any of these characters, I had a difficult time connecting to them.  That was not the actors’ faults, but that does not change the fact that I did not care about any of these people.

The movie did not show us anything about these people prior to arriving on the Island so we only got to meet them as they stepped off the plane.  I know this was the way the TV show worked, but I think I needed something more for this.

Then, there were four active fantasies running at the same time, bouncing back and forth between them.  None of them were compelling enough to maintain momentum after switching so quickly between the stories.  These fantasies were too convoluted and hard to follow originally, and then they threw a needless twist in the film where the fantasies began to intertwine.  That made them even messier and nonsensical.

The way the story played out was completely ridiculous.  The “twist” here made zero sense and actually took the rest of the film and tossed out what had come before.  Motivations were juvenile and unbelievable.   It was not a good movie leading up to this decision, but it was so bad that it really damaged whatever good feeling there might have been here.

I had a hard time accepting Michael Peña as Rourke.  I think the film could have really made Rourke a great horror character here, but, for me, it just did not work.  And I think Michael Peña is awesome, but this was wrong casting for me. Then, I did not like the story arc the movie gave to Mr. Roarke.  This was a huge missed opportunity.

I think that is the main issue with this movie.  They had a real opportunity to make this film something special.  The TV show Fantasy Island as a horror movie is such a great concept, but the execution here is so totally blown that it is truly a disappointment.

Michael Rooker is in this movie.  He is totally wasted here as a character that is on the island and is meant to be mysterious, but his character is downright dumb and perfectly unimportant in the long run.  He had some amazing hair though.

Sadly, this was nowhere near what it could have been.  The stories did not mix well and the acting was unable to elevate the story.  I wish this was better.

1.6 stars