It has been literal decades since the release of Beetlejuice and this weekend we finally arrive with a sequel to the 1988 comedy. Michael Keaton, Catherine O’Hara and Winona Ryder resume their roles from the first film in this sequel, also directed by Tim Burton.

I will be honest. When I first saw the trailer for this sequel, I was not very excited. It looked like this movie was going to just revisit the same bits as the 1988 film did and I saw no reason to get excited for this. I do like Michael Keaton though and I had some hope.

After seeing the sequel, I found it to be a fun film that is definitely worth a viewing, even if it is far from perfect.

According to IMDB, “After an unexpected family tragedy, three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River. Still haunted by Beetlejuice, Lydia’s (Winona Ryder) life is turned upside down when her rebellious teenage daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega), discovers the mysterious model of the town in the attic and the portal to the Afterlife is accidentally opened. With trouble brewing in both realms, it’s only a matter of time until someone says Beetlejuice’s (Michael Keaton) name three times and the mischievous demon returns to unleash his very own brand of mayhem.”

The cast of this film is sensational. Michael Keaton pulls of Betelgeuse with the deft touch of a master, losing not one step from the first film. Jenna Ortega is a wonderful addition to the cast, making a perfect daughter for Winona Ryder’s Lydia. Catherine O’Hara is over the top as Delia Deetz, who was recently widowed. The cast was excellent and pulled off the comedy with an ease.

I do have to say that I thought the storylines going on in the movie were very messy and chaotic. Some of them felt as if they were there just to fill time. The individual plot points did not form together into a tight and cohesive story. Instead it was much more of a disjointed tale. Some of them worked well, especially in this type of a movie, but the overall story was not what this movie will be remembered for. Some of the storylines in this movie could have easily been removed from the movie and there would be little to no change in what happened.

The world of the dead is totally fascinating and fun to watch as the film treks though it. The special effects were great most of the time and the extended use of practical effects made the dead world feel like it was in the same world as the original. For most of the time, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice looked great.

There is a fantastic scene involving “MacArthur’s Park” near the end. I loved that. Michael Keaton may be the best lip syncher in movies.

I had fun watching this sequel. It is far from a great movie and the story is completely messy. I think you could easily take Willem Dafoe and Monica Bellucci out of the film without missing a beat and you would never miss them. Still, the drawbacks of the film did not detract from my enjoyment of the film. It was worth my time and I would recommend it, especially for those who were fans of the 1988 Beetlejuice.

3.6 stars

So I had not intended on seeing this today. I had my tickets to The Crow and Blink Twice and I went to Cinemark to go to a 10 o’clock IMAX showing of the Crow. However, when I go there, I realized that my ticket was for 10 PM. I was there about 9:45 AM so I had messed this up. I looked at The Crow schedule and could not find one that would work for Blink Twice, and I had to readjust everything. Strange Darling, which had interested me, but did not fit with the original schedule was showing at 10 AM and that meant I had to substitute The Crow later for Blink Twice (though I may have chosen poorly after seeing The Crow). With my new ticket, I went to Strange Darling and I was so pleased that all this mess happened, because I loved this movie.

It is difficult to give a synopsis for this film. I’ll say this… there is a serial killer out there and a woman from a one night stand was being chased.

I can’t go into anything more without spoiling the movie and this was very original and well done.

The film was split into a six chapter format, but the story was told jumping around the chapters (I think it started in chapter four). This allowed the story to unfold in a most intriguing manner, keeping everyone on their toes for what was actually going on and pays off in a big way. The film is able to play with expectation and perspective amazingly well.

It was extremely violent and bloody, but none of it felt gratuitous. Inf act, I would go as far as to say that the violence worked so well that it created an artistic flare of gore.

Willa Fitzgerald starred as “The Lady” with Kyle Gallner, who was listed as “The Demon” and both of them give remarkable performances and carry most of the movie on their shoulders.

I was engaged with this story from the opening scene and it never faltered with every surprise and scene switch. The script is tight and effective. The direction, from director (and writer) JT Mollner, is excellent. Top line performances fill the moments. I had no idea what was coming next and I found myself completely thrilled. One of my favorite thriller/horror movies of the yea.

4.6 stars

My expectations were very low for this remake of the 1994 cult classic film The Crow. I was not sure why they remade the film and it did not look like it had a purpose to exist. However, I was hoping to be wrong about my low expectations.

Unfortunately, the film did not reach my low expectations.

According to IMDB, “Soulmates Eric (Skarsgård) and Shelly (FKA twigs) are brutally murdered when the demons of Shelly’s dark past catch up with them. Given the chance to save his true love by sacrificing himself, Eric sets out to seek merciless revenge on their killers, traversing the worlds of the living and the dead to put the wrong things right.“

There are a ton of problems with this movie. I did like Bill Skarsgård in the role of Eric (even though the short hair/mullet felt wrong). He certainly brought his abs to the screen. He was fine with what he was given so I would not say that Skarsgård was one of the problems.

The first hour of the movie was slow and kind of boring. They spend time introducing the characters, which normally I like, but this just did not seem to work. The writing on these characters was just weak and I was not invested at all.

This is also a major problem because I just did not get into the pairing of Eric and Shelly. They did not feel like soulmates to me and that truly hurts the story since the power of love is meant to be the key to Eric’s resurrection.

There is plenty of violence, especially in the third act. However there was a scene in that third act that took place at an opera house that just did not make much sense (because of the noise of the gunfire) and it was taking me out of the story.

Speaking of the story, it felt very much of a slog throughout the film and needlessly messy with the rules of what was going on.

There is not a way to do a review of a remake of The crow without comparing it to the original movie. It may not be fair, but it is unavoidable. This film is just so much worse than that film from 1994, there really was no reason to do a remake. There was nothing new or exciting added to the 2024 film to justify the remake or to have it stand on its own. I can’t imagine why, if given a choice, anyone would decide to watch the new film over the Brandon Lee film.

I do not think that this film will break into the group of movies competing for the worst movie of the year (I think it is up to 6 now), but it is not too far off from it. The Crow was unnecessary and more boring than it should have been.

1.4 stars

The Purge meets Running Man, but as a comedy. This is how I would describe the new film which debuted on Amazon Prime this weekend, Jackpot, starring Awkwafina and John Cena.

The film is set in the near future where California had passed a law saying that their lottery jackpot winners could be hunted and killed within a day and whoever killed them would receive the jackpot instead. This is a bizarre premise, but it certainly speaks to the selfishness and greed of the human race.

Struggling actor Katie Kim (Awkwafina) accidentally wound up in the lotto drawing and won the largest jackpot in the state’s history, 3.6 billion dollars. She did not even realize that she had won and she was unaware of the strange rules associated with the win. So when people started trying to kill her, Katie was shaken.

That is when Noel (John Cena) arrived and offered his help, for 10% of the winnings, to keep her alive until the bell rang, signaling that the chance to kill her and collect the winnings had passed.

This was really stupid. The premise is slightly interesting and yet this felt way too easy for everyone to be involved. Some of the dialogue was atrocious and they were forcing humor into the film at times.

And yet, I did not hate this movie. I do not know why, but I found myself reasonably entertained by this mess.

I think the biggest part that I liked was the presence of Awkwafina and John Cena. They were really funny and had great timing, taking the admittedly weak writing and making it considerably better. Their interactions were great and I was willing to put up with what the movie had going on because I enjoyed their comradery.

I also enjoyed the appearance of Simu Liu, who appeared as a rival Lottery Protector of Noel, just at an apparently larger level. It was a Shang Chi reunion with Simu Liu and Awkwafina.

I am not saying that this is a great movie. It clearly is not. I am saying that I had fun watching it and that it will probably fall into my guilty pleasure category. As for the rating, I am not recommending it to anyone, but if you are a John Cena fan, there is a lot that you will find to enjoy.

2.8 stars

Based on a true story, My Penguin Friend is a sweet tale of a penguin that befriends a man who had save him after being covered with oil.

The penguin, nicknamed Dindim by another character in the movie, has bridged the gap between humans and penguins, spending part of the time with the penguins and then a chunk of the time miles away with Joao (Jean Reno).

The film started out with a tragedy from the past for Joao and his wife Maria (Adriana Barraza). The tragedy darkened the lives of the couple for years before the little penguin showed up to give them purpose once again.

I have to say that a couple of the kids in this movie are just charming as could be. In particular, Juan José Garnica, who played Miguel, was remarkably bright and had a smile worth a million dollars. He shone through the early scenes of the film.

Yes, some of this film was cheesy and silly, but what did you expect with a protagonist that was a penguin? The really silly parts did not detract from the film for me and helped build that relationship between Dindim and Joao, inspired from the tragedy of his past.

The film looked great and many of the scenes of the penguins felt real. I am not sure if this was CGI or if they had shots of real penguins, but the fact that I was not sure tells you how effective the effects were.

The story was also surprisingly emotional at times, as I found myself nearly tearing up during a few moments.

While the film is not overly deep or complex, there are some solid themes in it about friendship and loss that make this more than just a funny animal story. This was a decent film that, at just over 90 minutes, does not overstay its welcome.

3.5 stars

One of last week’s big hit film made my schedule this week with the Blake Lively film, It Ends With Us.

According to IMDB, “IT ENDS WITH US, the first Colleen Hoover novel adapted for the big screen, tells the compelling story of Lily Bloom (Blake Lively), a woman who overcomes a traumatic childhood to embark on a new life in Boston and chase a lifelong dream of opening her own business. A chance meeting with charming neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid (Justin Baldoni) sparks an intense connection, but as the two fall deeply in love, Lily begins to see sides of Ryle that remind her of her parents’ relationship. When Lily’s first love, Atlas Corrigan (Brandon Sklenar), suddenly reenters her life, her relationship with Ryle is upended, and Lily realizes she must learn to rely on her own strength to make an impossible choice for her future“

I am very much on the fence about this movie. I am not sure how I felt about it. I found this to be a tough watch, making me feel uncomfortable and sordid. The whole fact about domestic abuse is a challenging subject to weave into the storyline, but this film does a decent job with it. The abuse is shown to be done by real people, not just one-dimensional villains. It is by real people who have problems in their lives. It is even true that when the abuser swears that they will never do it again, they mean it. They are just unable to keep the promise because their own issues overwhelm themselves.

Blake Lively does a good job as the lead protagonist. You can see the relationship between her and Ryle and there are some of the understanding why abused women try to make it work.

Jenny Slate, who played Lily’s best friend Allysa, stole every scene she was in. I thought she was the best part of the film.

There was a long time that they spent on a flashback that we did not know why or how it played into the story. It did come back eventually, but it was quite a while before we understood why these flashbacks were relevant to the current story.

I feel that this movie needed some rework, adjusting the story and making it tighter. The flashbacks were plenty, but it took too long to show us the reason for their inclusion. Good performances are here and it had its moments. I am still unsure how I feel fully, but I think I lean toward positive.

3 stars

It has been awhile since a film from the Alien franchise has really hit. Alien: Romulus, directed by Fete Alvarez, is the film that has broken that streak.

The best Alien film since the original two films with Sigourney Weaver, Alien and Aliens, Alien: Romulus is tense, frightening, full of action and amazing to look at.

Planning to escape their nowhere jobs, a group try and convince Rain (Cailee Spaeny) to come with them to salvage cryogenic pods from a derelict space station floating above the planet’s surface. With these pods installed in their own ship, they could afford to take the nine-year journey to find a new life.

Rain has a “brother” named Andy (David Jonsson) who was actually an android and the group needs him to override security aboard the space station.

Of course, they find more aboard the space station than they expected and it leads to some awesome action sequences, some of the most creative of the franchise. And it has a surprise connection to the past that is a wonderful bit.

I was unfamiliar with the entire cast of Alien: Romulus, however, I found they all did a really great job. A couple of the characters did not have much depth to them, but it did seem as if the film did its best with the time it had to give each character a hook in which the audience could relate to them.

The film does start a little slowly, but it picks up the pace extremely well and the third act is just completely thrilling and unbelievable. The third act is bonkers and filled with amazing scary imagery and situations.

The special effects are fantastic and the alien creatures look beautifully horrifying.

When this was first announced, I was not sure this was a film I needed. It felt like this franchise has runs its course. Then, a master filmmaker like Fete Alvarez gets his hands on the franchise and breathes life into it, bringing it back to the forefront of monster movies.

I will admit that some of the trailers may have given away too much. If you can avoid those before going in, the experience may be a richer one. Either way, this is a great film.

4.8 stars

One of the big winners from the festival circuit continued its gradual release with the coming-of-age film Didi.

According to IMDB, “In 2008, during the last month of summer before high school begins, an impressionable 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy learns what his family can’t teach him: how to skate, how to flirt, and how to love your mom.“

Much like many independent films, Didi focuses on character development and not necessarily plot. It works very well with this film as we meet Chris (Izaac Wang), a thirteen-year old boy who is struggling through the world of teenagers, preparing to go to high school.

Chris, nicknamed Wang-Wang, lives with his mom (Joan Chen), grandma (Zhang Li Hua), and sister (Shirley Chen), dealing with issues with each of them. He is goin through the awkwardness of a crush and trying to be cool.

Much like many of the kids this age, Chris is not that likable, but you can see the heart of gold beneath his jerk persona.

The film is funny, touching, relatable in every way, and honest beyond reproach. Izaac Wang does a solid job and his grandma, Zhang Li Hua steals every scene she is in. Didi can be brutal to its characters with moments of heartbreaking angst. Dialogue is true to the source and early days of social media plays a role in the life of Chris.

4.5 stars

Violence. Gore. All on a train.

Man, this one was brutal.

I have been waiting to watch this Indian Hindi-language movie for awhile now. It has been on Vudu for several weeks, but the timing just did not line up well. I am very pleased that I was able to get this one in the schedule because “Kill” truly was an experience.

According to Rotten Tomatoes, “When army commando Amrit (Lakshya) finds out his true love Tulika (Tanya Maniktala) is engaged against her will, he boards a New Delhi-bound train in a daring quest to derail the arranged marriage. But when a gang of knife-wielding thieves led by the ruthless Fani (Raghav Juyal) begin to terrorize innocent passengers on his train, Amrit takes them on himself in a death-defying kill-spree to save those around him — turning what should have been a typical commute into an adrenaline-fueled thrill ride.“

What a thrill ride of a film. Take John Wick (without guns) and toss in some The Raid Redemption action and set the whole thing aboard a claustrophobic train and you have got Kill. A film where the title does not pop up on screen until the forty-five minute mark.

Lakshya as our lead commando is just awesome and they make him relatable as well. He goes through the proverbial wringer during this knock-down battle with knives and hammers and anything else that could be construed as a weapon. The switch in Amrit was cold, changing from the heroic type to a cold-blooded monster that had even the villains sobbing in grief and anguish.

The fights on this train are amazing. They are brilliantly laid out and they are perfectly shot. You believe in each of the moments and every minute of these fights are earned among the characters.

Once the beginning exposition is through, the action is non-stop until the very end. It is truly one of the most violent action films I have seen in quite a while.

Kill has some surprising moments of emotion among the brutality and it helps to make the film more relatable and understandable than it should be. It is a real bloodbath and thrilling film.

4.3 stars

We have yet another contender for worst movie of 2024.

I have had five other films that I would consider for the top spot of the worst film list and I am not sure yet which movie will gain that lofty position. You can add a sixth to the mix.

And this one had two Oscar winning actors on it too.

Borderlands, based on the popular video game, may have set the video game movie subgenre back years as the last several projects based on video games had been well received. Borderlands put that streak to an end.

According to IMDB, “Lilith (Cate Blanchett), an infamous bounty hunter with a mysterious past, reluctantly returns to her home, Pandora, the most chaotic planet in the galaxy. Her mission is to find the missing daughter of Atlas (Edagr Ramírez), the universe’s most powerful S.O.B. Lilith forms an unexpected alliance with a ragtag team of misfits – Roland (Kevin Hart), a seasoned mercenary on a mission; Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), a feral preteen demolitionist; Krieg (Florian Munteanu), Tina’s musclebound protector; Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), the oddball scientist who’s seen it all; and Claptrap (Jack Black), a wiseass robot. Together, these unlikely heroes must battle an alien species and dangerous bandits to uncover one of Pandora’s most explosive secrets. The fate of the universe could be in their hands – but they’ll be fighting for something more: each other.“

The first thought I had when it started was how cheap it looked. It felt like a really low-budget film, something that might appear as a short on YouTube. The CGI at the end made Blanchett look really like a video game, and not in a good way.

The dialogue was horrendous. You could almost hear Blanchett gritting her teeth as she said some of the words. Okay, maybe that was just me.

The characters were silly and barely two dimensional. None of their stories were interesting and they were only relatable because they were famous actors in these roles. Kevin Hart was more laid back than he usually is in a film like this though. Ariana Greenblatt was an attractive young woman, but her character was inconsistent and shaky.

The robot Claptrap needed to shut up. He was not funny. He was obnoxious and not even the great voice over skill of Jack Black, who has done a ton of voice over work from Po to Bowser, could save this character.

I think I giggled twice (it may have been more of a guffaw) and the story just did not do justice to this amazing cast of actors.

I found little interesting in here, outside of just constantly thinking to myself that I was watching Cate Blanchett in this movie.

1.1 stars

It is M. Night Shyamalan’s latest movie. Some of his movies have been epically great. Some of them have been horrendous. You are never sure what you are going to get.

His new film has its moments, but felt as if it collapsed the longer it went and seemed to never end. Actually, it felt like it was ready to end several times.

A fire fighter named Cooper (Josh Hartnett) was attending a concert from the hot singer Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan) with his teenage daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue), who was a huge Lady Raven fan. While at the concert, Cooper sees what seemed to be an excessive police presence. He discovered that the entire concert was a trap for a serial killer named The Butcher, who FBI agents had decided that their tip that the Butcher was attending this concert was good intel.

It turned out that Cooper, the good father and friendly man, was, in actuality, the Butcher and he spent the next part of the film trying to find a way out of the trap.

The first hour of the movie was actually not too bad. I did like the premise of the film and I liked how we were seeing this from the POV of Cooper. He was the main protagonist and the film seemed to want the audience to cheer for him to get away from the FBI despite the fact that he was a vicious serial killer.

I could not tell whether this was a good performance from Hartnett or if it were terrible. There were moments that it felt like Hartnett was absolutely delivering horrendous dialogue, but I think that maybe he was doing this to show that this guy struggled with feelings and that he was more of a sociopath. I am choosing to believe that these were acting choices by Hartnett as a way to show more about this character.

However, the dialogue was not very good. It felt like a typical Shyamalan film where the dialogue sounds as if it is not spoken by real people.

Lady Raven was shown performing multiple songs during this concert, and we get nearly the entire songs. It turned out that Lady Raven was M. Night’s daughter Saleka, who wrote, recorded and performed these songs on her own. It felt like a good chunk of this movie was M. Night trying to help out his daughter’s music career. I thought she was fine, and her acting, when she became a more integral figure in the plot, was, at best, okay.

A major problem with the film is that some of the things that happen are so improbable and implausible that it was hard to accept. And it only got worse as the film continued. The second half of the movie saw things happen that you really had to stretch credibility to believe.

Again, avoiding spoilers, I absolutely hated the events at the very end of the movie. Without going into anything specifics, people just do not act this way and the choices that were made are just ridiculous.

Trap was too long and it dragged on. It should have been 15-20 minutes shorter. Josh Hartnett was strong and, if he did make those specific choices during the first part of the film, then his performance certainly kept this messy film afloat. I thought this premise had some promise but it was mostly unfulfilled.

2.3 stars

This movie is based on a children’s book by Crockett Johnson from 1955. I had not heard of this book before, though the person who can draw things into existence is not a concept that I had not seen before.

This version starred Zachary Levi as Harold, who lived in a world of fiction, with his friends Moose (Lil Rey Howery) and Porcupine (Tanya Reynolds). A narrator (Alfred Molina) told the story of Harold and his adventures with the magic crayon.

Then, one day, the narrator no longer spoke and Harold and his friends did not know what to do. So Harold decided to use the crayon to go to the “real world” and find the “old man” once and for all. Moose and porcupine decide to follow him.

Of course, once they are there, there is the obligatory fish-out-of-water story for the characters, though it seemed as if sometimes they understood the world’s items or culture when needed.

Zachary Levi played Harold in much the same way he played Shazam, with a childlike wonder, only with the volume turned way up. At first, he seemed charming, but it did wear thin after a while.

The first part of this film was fun and did have some cute moments. I found my attention wavering as the film went on. It was just an hour and a half length of the film, but it did feel longer than that. There were plenty of things that happened that were pretty difficult to accept. I do not just mean the magical crayon thing, but some of the other things that happened.

Without giving any spoilers, I really disliked the finale of the movie as it seemed to take the story and amped it up in a manner in which the film was not taking it. The action battle at the end just did not feel as if it fit in this movie.

Still, there were some sweet moments and I liked the pairing of Zachary Levi and the little kid who played Mel, named Benjamin Bottani. Again, I think this is more of a little kid movie than for me, and in that manner, it works.

2.8 stars