Category Archives: 2024 Movie Reviews

Orion and the Dark

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A new animated movie from Dreamworks dropped on Netflix this weekend that had been around for awhile. It arrived after a tough schedule last year and just appeared. It featured Jacob Trembley as the main character, Orion.

Orion is afraid of just about everything, but nothing more than the dark. When Orion was carrying on about his fear, the personification of the Dark (Paul Walter Hauser) showed up in Orion’s room and took him on his job through the night, introducing him to the other beings responsible for the night.

The voice cast is strong. Besides Jacob Trembley and Paul Walter Hauser, the cast included Colin Hanks, Angela Bassett, Ike Barinholtz, Nat Faxon, Carla Gugino, Matt Dellapina, Mia Akemi Brown, Natasia Demetriou, Aparna Nancherla, Sky Alexis, and Werner Herzog (yes, Werner Herzog).

As the film was going, the scene shifted to Orion with his daughter in the future, and he was telling her the story of this night. I actually think this dropped at the very beginning, but my Netflix copy skipped it because it felt very out of place where this was dropped.

The story was sweet and had a good message. It was a quick watch and had some clever ideas. It felt like Inside Out but with the night. 

3.7 stars

Argylle

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Here is the first real disappointing film of 2024. 

I have been looking forward to this movie since I first saw the trailer in 2023. It sounded great and the cast was outstanding. I avoided online reviews as much as I could, but I knew they were trending negative. Still, I hoped that the film would be one of those that may be in the middle with critics, but that would be still be entertaining.

Sadly, will Argylle was not terrible, it was not good either. Meh is a very good way to describe this film, the newest from director Matthew Vaughn.

According to IMDB, “Elly Conway, an introverted spy novelist who seldom leaves her home, is drawn into the real world of espionage when the plots of her books get a little too close to the activities of a sinister underground syndicate. When Aiden, a spy, shows up to save her (he says) from being kidnapped or killed (or both), Elly and her beloved cat Alfie are plunged into a covert world where nothing, and no one, is what it seems.”

The definite standout of the film was the performances of its two main protagonists, Bryce Dallas Howard and Sam Rockwell. Don’t be fooled into thinking that Henry Cavill, who is featured heavily in the marketing, is a main character because he is not. He does not appear in much of the movie, mainly in the opening scene which was used quite a bit in the trailers. 

In fact, I hated the way Cavill was used after that opening scene. He was basically a figment of Bryce Dallas Howard’s imagination moving on and would show up to give her a pep talk.

Bryan Cranston is the main antagonist of the film and he is a basic villain without much development for his character. He was always just kind of menacing and that was about it. Catherine O’Hara played Elly’s mom and she had a minimal amount of screen time. She was more used than John Cena and Ariana DeBose, though, who were basically cameo rolls. Samuel L. Jackson was limited to watching a Lakers game for much of his time in the movie.

The movie was too convoluted with its plot and it tried to fool the audience several times that just served to confuse many and mess up the story. When it was just Howard and Rockwell on screen, the film was considerably better.

It was also way too long at almost 2 and a half hours. This needed to be trimmed considerably so it was between 1:45-2:00 hours at most. You could feel the length of the film.

The CGI was not good either. There were times when the cat, named Alfie in the film, was just ridiculous looking. There were plenty of moments too that you could see the green screen.

The film had a major reliance on exposition too, as there was a major info dump in the middle of the film when the twist arrived. The film had to explain things to us way too much and it slowed it down even more.

I was very disappointed with Argylle as I was hopeful that this could be a really fun spy adventure. Sadly, though there were some things positive to it, it is not a film that I would want to see again.

2.6 stars

The Beekeeper

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In 2023, Jason Statham starred in two of the top three worst movies on my Worst Movie list. He is starting off 2024 better than that.

Adam Clay (Jason Statham) is a beekeeper who has rented some space from Eloise Parker (Phylicia Rashad) for his hives. When Eloise gets scammed out of all her money, including 2 million dollars from a charity that she ran, she kills herself. This set off Clay, who turned out to be a retired member of a special governmental group called the Beekeepers, and he went on a killing spree of everyone involved in the scam.

This was absolutely a poor-man’s John Wick. There is even the scene where the cocky young guy is told by a father-figure that he has messed up and is going to be killed and that there is nothing they can do about it. This felt right out of John Wick’s first film. 

The cocky young guy behind the scam scheme is Josh Hutcherson and he does a decent job of being slimy as could be. The ‘father-figure’ was a former CIA director played by Jeremy Irons. Both of these two did a great job as their characters, even if there is not much to them. This is a good example of good actors elevating parts that might not be very deep.

However, Hutcherson’s character’s eventual identity is very cringeworthy and is a big part of the finale of this movie that was so out there that it brought the film down.

The first part of the film was actually pretty decent and had a lot of fun, cheesy action with Jason Statham just killing fools. The film does go over the edge several times in the third act, stretching credibility to a thin. thin string.

There are two FBI agents that the film follows for some reason. Emma Raver-Lampman played Agent Veronica Parker, the daughter of Phylicia Rashad’s character but you could hardly guess that considering how detached she was most of the film. That plot point should have been eliminated or expanded upon instead of what was done. 

And as I have hinted at, the finale is just so improbably that, even in this type of a film, it makes you roll your eyes. This was very much like those crazy action movies of the 1990s. If that is what you are looking for, The Beekeeper is enough fun to get by, even if there are better movies that feature revenge killing. There were some decent kills in the first part of the film that were satisfying. There was one that was shown in the trailer that I wish would have been kept for the film because it would have been epic if I did not know it was coming.

Some of the dialogue of this movie was silly, with so many bee-puns that you just have to shake your head. 

The Beekeeper is dumb fun and a Jason Statham fan would enjoy this a lot. The dumb stuff never threatened to overwhelm the film and there was enough fun parts to make this watchable.

3.1 stars

I.S.S.

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I.S.S. stands for the International Space Station, and this is a science fiction movie set aboard the Space Station. It was a cooperative venture between the United States and Russia. 

Everything seemed to be going well until something happened on the earth. They could see the explosions from the space station. Then the Americans received a message from earth to take control of the I.S.S. using whatever means necessary.

I found most of the first hour fairly dull. I did not think most of these characters were developed and I did not have any connection to any of these people.

Ariana DeBose, Chris Messina, John Gallagher Jr, Maria Mashkova, Costa Ronin and Pilou Asbæk are the actors in the film and they are all fine, though not great in any stretch of imagination.

The effects of the film were pretty decent. The scenes of the explosions on earth were the coolest part. The use of the floating/lack of gravity was a cool effect too.

Other than that, I did not like much about this film.

2.5 stars

Mean Girls (2024)

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I had not watched the original version of this film until a few years ago. I did enjoy that film quite a bit when I finally did watch it during the original DailyView. However, this version of Mean Girls is actually adapting the stage play that came after the movie. And, oh by the way, it is a musical, something that the promo material for this movie skipped over.

I do like musicals, and this works very nicely as a musical for this month’s Genre-ary. Unfortunately, I did not find this anywhere near as good as the original.

The story is very much similar. According to IMDB, ” New student Cady Heron (Angourie Rice) is welcomed into the top of the social food chain by the elite group of popular girls called “The Plastics,” ruled by the conniving queen bee Regina George (Reneé Rapp) and her minions Gretchen (Bebe Wood) and Karen (Avantika). However, when Cady makes the major misstep of falling for Regina’s ex-boyfriend Aaron Samuels (Christopher Briney), she finds herself prey in Regina’s crosshairs. As Cady sets to take down the group’s apex predator with the help of her outcast friends Janis (Auli’i Cravalho) and Damian (Jaquel Spivey), she must learn how to stay true to herself while navigating the most cutthroat jungle of all: high school.“

Oh, and you still need to watch out for those buses.

The problem is that I did not like any of these characters. I found them all to be just horribly rotten people who I did not want to spend time with. In the original film, I never felt that way and I could see the positives from all of them. Cady, Janis and Damian were meant to be the heroes of the film, I think, but they were every bit as horrible as the Plastics. Regina George was portrayed as the Devil so much that, though those scenes were fun to watch, made her into someone that you could not feel for. I just felt so much more negative toward all of these characters this time through that I felt no desire to root for them, which was not something I felt in the original.

The music was fun, for the most part. Perhaps nothing remarkably memorable, but catchy.

I had a problem with this movie, especially with the characters. It was nowhere close to the original. 

2.7 stars

American Fiction (2023)

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This film is one I have been looking forward to since the last few months of 2023. American Fiction turned out to be every bit as good as advertised.

Author Thelonious Ellison (Jeffrey Wright), nicknamed Monk, was becoming frustrated with the public at large. His intelligently written books were not being bought, while he saw books that he considered empty and stereotypical thriving in the market.

As a joke, Monk wrote a book embracing every one of the stereotypes and all the heartless prose he was complaining about: a “Black” book. To his shock and dismay, this book was bought by a publishing company and he had to pretend to be a escape black convict to secure the deal. While this was going on, he was having plenty of problems with his family while in Boston.

This was just tremendous. It was cleverly written, extremely funny, taking every racial stereotype and just ripping them through the wringer. The ridiculousness of the plot felt real and true.

Jeffrey Wright was outstanding as the constantly gruff and angry author and the rest of the cast was great too. Sterling K. Brown was a standout as Monk’s gay brother Cliff and there were some poignant moments with Monk and Cliff’s mother Agnes (Leslie Uggams) and their longtime housekeeper Lorraine (Myra Lucretia Taylor). Lorraine may have been my favorite character of the film, bringing some real kindness and heart to the constant bitterness and fighting.

Erika Alexander was excellent as well as Coraline, the neighbor and love interest for Monk. 

Without spoiling anything, I loved the ending of this movie, as it wrapped up in a way that I did not expect and that I found extremely creative and original. 

This marked the film debut for director Cord Jefferson and he did a fantastic job on American Fiction. The story is told beautifully and these characters are all developed wonderfully well. I really enjoyed this film and I can see why it has received a lot of Oscar buzz.

4.8 stars

Society of the Snow

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Since we am preparing for a big snowstorm in the early part of the week, I thought that it would be a good night to watch the new international film, Society of the Snow. I certainly do hope we do not have to deal with any of the struggles portrayed in this film.

According to IMDB, “In 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which had been chartered to fly a rugby team to Chile, crashed in the heart of the Andes. Only 29 of its 45 passengers survived the accident. Trapped in one of the most hostile and inaccessible environments on the planet, they have to resort to extreme measures to stay alive.“

Director J.A. Bayona brought a visceral film that showed the determination of human nature and what people will do in order to survive. Some of the things that are shown here are difficult to view, but understandable in the situation.

The plane crash was sensationally shot. It was intense from the first shudder of the plane to the plane coming to an end in the middle of the Andes Mountains. 

As the victims began increasing, the struggles did not stop. I literally gasped at the avalanche that buried the crew. It was like… what else can these people face? 

The film does an admirable job of showing the psychological horrors that these people suffered during their time stranded in the Andes. The large cast was all given moments to shine and to show who their characters were and what made them distinct individuals. 

Society of the Snow is currently streaming on Netflix.

4.5 stars

Night Swim

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Well, it is January. That usually means that we are up for some terrible movies that the studios want to dump. Those January horror movies are typically some of the worst of the year. However, last year, January brought us some actually really great movies including M3GAN, Plane and Missing. Perhaps the month will be turning over a new leaf.

Nice thought, but nope, not with this movie.

Night Swim is a bad horror movie that had too many laughs, unintentional of course, and suffered from some of the worst writing that you’ll see.

A family moves into a new house. Ray Waller (Wyatt Russell) was a baseball player who was diagnosed with MS so he and his wife Eve (Kerry Condon) and their two kids Izzy (Amélie Hoeferle) and Elliot (Gavin Warren) look to start over. One of the house’s biggest selling points was the swimming pool. Unfortunately, they did not know the tragedies surrounding the pool and the fact that it was haunted.

Yes, the pool was haunted. We don’t really know why or how. It was just there. And the actors had to do so many stupid things to keep the drama going. I don’t know how many times I just said, “Get out of the pool” during the film. It would have been over.

I will give credit to the four main actors. I think they did the best they could with this stinker. Wyatt Russell and Kerry Condon are both talented actors, and both kids were good. Amélie Hoeferle especially had a quality about her. It was just that the script was so dumb it did not give these actors much chance to make the material better.

The problem is that this movie was based on a live short from 2014 and it did not seem as if there was enough of a concept here to stretch it out to a 90-minute movie. 

Sadly, 2024 does not start off with a splash. More of a drip.

1.3 stars