I really am more of a cat person.

I do love Harrison Ford, and he is great in this movie.  Unfortunately, I had checked out way before Ford ever showed up in this adaptation of the classic Jack London novel.

The Call of the Wild is the story of a dog named Buck who gets abducted from his domestic bliss and winds up in the Yukon as a sled dog under the control of a variety of masters.

I was out of this movie immediately because of the fact that Buck (and all of the other dogs as well) were CGI in this movie and it was CGI that was simply not very well done.  Buck felt more like a cartoon character you might see in a Scooby Doo movie than a real dog involved in an iconic story.  I just could not get past the manner in which Buck was portrayed in this movie and, despite the fact that I enjoyed the Harrison Ford component of the story and that the look of the scenery was lovely, this animated dog just was so poorly done I could not forgive it.

Sure, the film is heart-warming and a pretty solid film for the family.  If you can get past the way that Buck looks and the fact that the dog is more human than many of the other characters in the film, then you probably will love this movie.

However, I could not get past it.  Besides Buck, there was a villain involved here named Hal (which I had no idea and had to look up on IMDb to get his character name).  Hal (Dan Stevens) is the total mustache-twirling villain with zero motivation outside of “gold” and… “evil.”  Hal has to be an early year leading candidate for Worst Villain.

There needed to be considerably more Harrison Ford here than what we got.  He does not come into serious use until late in the movie.  The first forty-five minutes to an hour had only a few slight uses of Ford.  His character had an interesting background and a real reason to be the way he was, and I could have used more of that.

Yes, I know that the movie was following Jack London’s book more and there is a chunk of time spent with Buck as a sled dog with French mail delivery man Perrault (Omar Sy), but I needed more of Ford and there was no reason they could not have set this up as two characters who were destined to meet and then we spend time with both.

Dog lovers may love this movie.  I found the CGI terribly distracting and unnecessary.  There were some laugh out loud moments of unintentional comedy that distracted from the deadly serious survival tale of the original novel.  The film could be worse, but it could also be much better too.

2.5 stars 

2020 horror movies have been pretty terrible so far and this sequel that feels as if it were completely unnecessary, is no exception.

Brahms” The Boy II came out this weekend and it takes its place among the bad horror movies of 2020.

In a sequel to the 2016 film The Boy, Brahms: The Boy II actually takes the premise from the previous movie and totally changes it up.  It is one of the stranger facts involving this movie, which makes little sense.  Honestly, The Boy was okay, but I do not remember much about it outside of the fact that it starred The Walking Dead’s Lauren Cohan.

There was no Lauren Cohan to be found here though, replaced as lead by Katie Holmes.  She played Liza, who, along with her son Jude (Christopher Covery), were the victims of a random home invasion that really messed them up, mentally.  In an attempt for a fresh start, they, along with Liza’s husband and Jude’s father Sean (Owain Yeoman), moved to the country and wound up in the guest house of the Heelshire Estate from the original movie.

Soon after arriving, Jude finds the doll Brahms buried in the woods by the house and the doll begins to communicate with the kid, controlling him and leading to some terrible events to happen.  Liza, still dealing with her own PTSD from the home invasion incident, is extremely uneasy with the doll, going as far as to wonder if the doll is alive.  However Jude, who has been mute since the attack, has begun talking to the doll and she was so happy with this occurrence that some of the other behavior is ignored.

Soon, Liza can no longer ignore the behavior as bad things keep happening and everything points to Jude, or Brahms, being the culprit.

This is a terrible movie.

Yes, the acting is poor.  Katie Holmes is adequate, but she does so many stupid things and makes so many bed choices that you just cannot take her seriously as a mother.  There is a scene where she finds Jude’s notepad that contained sketches of a dead dog, of Jude standing over his parents’ dead bodies with a shotgun among others.  When she got caught looking at these drawing by Jude, she puts them down and kind of slinks away as if she was ashamed of looking.  It is not until later that she mentioned the drawings to Sean (which have been conveniently removed).   Why would a mother do that?  Wasn’t this a HUGE red light flashing in your face that your son is having some issues?  I don’t care at that point that I have invaded my son’s privacy.  That ship has sailed already.  I would be taking that kid immediately to get help and confronting him about the art.  That stupidity completely took me out of this movie.

Not that I was in the movie that much anyway.

Then there was a strange twist (if you want to call it that) in the third act that came out of nowhere and completely flipped everything that we had seen up until that point onto its head, and not in a good way.  The third act of this movie was totally ridiculous and filled with stupendously poor choices.

Even worse, the film is relentlessly dull.  So little happens that even the jump scares were not that effective.  Unless, of course, you are in a group of middle school kids, who happened to be in my theater and seemed to be scared by every inane thing that appeared unexpectedly (to them) on the screen.

There is a version of this movie (I believe) that makes this film more interesting.  Maybe if they were actually looking at PTSD or mental illness in some kind of actual way, using this creepy doll as a figure that is being imagined by either Liza or Jude and how they are manifesting that illness in physical ways.  But that is not here.  Brahms is a supernatural creature and totally ignores the original film, The boy, in the process.

Horror movies have really been skidding along in 2020 so far.  Here’s to hoping that the genre improves as the year progresses.

1.4 stars 

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 

Disney + has a brand new original movie on its streaming service that celebrates the bond between a boy and his polar bear.

Based on the best-selling book by Stephan Pastis, Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made is a sweet, funny family movie that is well worth the time.

Timmy Failure (Winslow Fegley) is a 5th grader who has to face the problems of any fifth grader…specifically trying to keep his detective agency afloat by taking cases, dealing with the Russians and handling his 1200 pound partner, Total, who happens to be a polar bear.

Timmy’s mother Patty (Ophelia Lovibond) is supportive of her son even when he is in trouble at school from the curmudgeony teacher Mr. Crocus (Wallace Shawn) or when he is knee deep in chaos from his investigations of his cases.

Timmy finds a confidant in school counselor Mr. Jenkins (Craig Robinson) and has to deal with classmates Molly Moskins (Chloe Coleman), Rollo Tookus (Kei) and Corrina Corrina  (Ai-Chan Carrier).

Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were made is a film that is the definition of an unreliable narrator as the film is narrated by Timmy and he sees things in a different light.  In fact, most of what Timmy relays to the audience is fabrication and imagination.  We, as the audience, can see what is really going on as Timmy tells us what he is thinking, Russian plots and fears over moving to Middle School.

I was surprised how imaginative this movie was and how much I enjoyed it.  It was funny, and I actually laughed out loud several times.  The writing was cute and the performances were all well done.  I love Wallace Shawn, of course the classic Vizzini from the Prince Bride, and he is a perfect foil for the miniature detective.

Winslow Fegley does a really good job as the titular character, bringing a distinct deadpan performance that fit perfectly in with the character.  When he was asked to do more than that, he rose to the occasion.

Of course, there is not much weight to the film, but it is not the type of film that needs weight.  And truthfully, there are some interesting ideas found in the film that you see in the background.

This film could not be a greater departure from director Tom McCarthy.  Imagine being able to put on a resume that you are the director of Spotlight and Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made.  Yet his style mixes very well with the zany weirdness on display in this film and inside Timmy’s fanciful imagination.

This is a movie that should be entertaining for the whole family and shows how far imagination and creativity can take you.  The deeper messages of fear of change and being abandoned are there too if you choose to look.  Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made does have a few mistakes, but they are overshadowed by the positive message and the engaging characters.

3.8 stars 

The movie with the longest title of the year so far, Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn, has arrived starring Margot Robbie once again as the DC villain/anti-hero, Harley Quinn.

Robbie appeared as Harley originally in the Suicide Squad a few years ago and is easily the standout of a movie that was nearly universally maligned.  The question was whether Robbie could bring the magic to Harley Quinn once again and would the movie be better?

The answer to both ends of that question is yes.

I enjoyed Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn very much, and, once again, Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn is easily the standout of the film.  This time, however, there is more to enjoy and there is nothing as egregious as the Enchantress.

In this movie, Harley Quinn has broken up with her puddin’, the Joker, and she is not handling it well.  When the news gets out, the benefits of being the main squeeze of the Joker, such as a general protection it buys you, was gone and Harley was finding out that there were several people with grievances with her.

One of the people out to get Harley was one of the crimelords in Gotham named Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor) aka Black Mask.  Sionis was also attempting to acquire a special diamond, but, unfortunately for him, it was stolen by pickpocket extraordinaire and young girl Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco).   This sent Harley, as well as all of the mercenaries of Gotham, after the girl.

One of my concerns about Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn from the trailers was the secondary characters.  The trailers made the supporting cast seem fairly unimportant, if not, lackluster.  And truthfully, there was some of that, but I felt that Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn did an admirable job with the characters.  Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) was actually very well developed and the Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) was reasonably developed, although underused.  I would have liked more from the character of Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez).

But the film is not really a Birds of Prey film, it was a Harley Quinn film, and Harley Quinn gets the bulk of the screen time.  This is the correct decision because Harley is thoroughly entertaining and wonderfully played by Margot Robbie.

The film did have a bit of an issue with Roman Sionis though.  This is not an issue with Ewan McGregor, who was great in his comedic-crazed manner.  However, the character of Roman Sionis was fairly underdeveloped.  He was a crazy villain who did things just because.  He was one-note and truly did not have motivation deeper than his own wants.  McGregor was great in the role, but his shtick did wear on a bit.  He was such a horrible person that you could not stand the guy at all.

The action was very well done.  Harley Quinn was fantastic and funny with every scene she was in.  I do have one nitpick though.  There were a couple of times when it was pretty clear that, during the fights, you could see Margot Robbie’s stunt man, who looked like he was considerably burlier than Robbie.  It happened a couple of times and was momentarily distracting.  Yes, it is not that important, but I did notice it.

Still, the star is Margot Robbie who is perfectly cast as the psychotic Harley Quinn.  We can relate to Harley despite the terrible things that she has done or is doing because Robbie infuses the character of Harley with such humanity and empathy that you can’t help but root for her.  Yes she is clearly a criminal and a murderer, but she is a beloved figure.

Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn is certainly violent and earns the R rating it is given.  Though the violence never really goes too far, this is not a children’s movie which may hurt the box office for it.

DC has been very solid recently with their films.  Although it was better than some of their previous movies, I did not love Aquaman, but Shazam was great and Joker is Oscar nominated.  Toss in Wonder Woman and you have a pretty effective series of stand alone films which are much better than when they were trying to force everything into a Marvel-like shared universe.  This is the path they should continue on because they are having much more success.  Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn may have some story issues and the lay out of the film may be a bit clunky at times, the film is enjoyable and fun to watch.  It is colorful, filled with awesome action and some genuinely engaging characters, especially Harley Quinn herself.

4.25 stars 

I knew very little to almost nothing about this movie when I went in to see it.  I knew that it starred Blake Lively and that was about it.

Blake Lively played Stephanie Patrick, a woman whose family was killed in a plane crash, which sent her spiraling into her own downward path.  At the low point, she is approached by a reporter who has information showing that the plane crash was actually an act of terrorism.  Stephanie set out on a path of revenge and winds up enlisting former MI6 agent B (Jude Law) to train her.

It is a ridiculous plot.  I never accepted the character of Stephanie Patrick as someone who was trained into being a competent assassin.  When we are introduced to her, she is working as a prostitute and seemed completely checked out.  Somehow, she is able to pull herself out of this life and into one of an international assassin after a few montages that were meant to illustrate several months.

Since I could not really accept the main character’s arc, the rest of the movie did not have much of a chance.  It did not help that the story then became convoluted and messy, with major coincidences and plot contrivances.

Sterling K. Brown arrived as well as a CIA operative that makes a connection with Stephanie, but his character is as simple as you could guess.  Very little is expounded about any of the other characters besides Stephanie, and to be honest, she is anything but deep.  In fact, at one point in the movie, B tells her that she is a cliche, and he was 100% right.

The action was not great either.  I heard some people saying it was well done, but I found it to be nothing more than shaky cam to hide what we were seeing.  There was one scene of a fight between Stephanie and B that seemed to be filmed as one-shot, but that fight lacked any consequences or stakes to be great and was missing any really cool parts to make it stand out.

Blake Lively did a nice job as the character, but there was just nothing there and the script was such a mess that I could not care one iota about Stephanie.  Any little bit of connection I felt for her was because of Lively.

There was a movie here that could have been more than the standard revenge plot. The film even touches on it when one of the hits go awry and leads to innocent people being killed.  However, that plot point is dealt with immediately, never to see the screen again.

This was lacking in many ways and signals the end of January movies (yay!).  Hopefully, things pick up as we move into February.

2 stars

The new film based on the Grimm’s fairy tale, Hansel & Gretel, from director Osgood Perkins is called Gretel & Hansel which is a very dark version of the child’s tale.

The film is more about the character of Gretel (Sophia Lillis) than it is about Hansel (Sammy Leakey).  They are still brother and sister, Gretel older, and they still found the witch (Alice Krige) in the woods.  Then Gretel is truly the main character and becomes kind of the apprentice of the witch.

And that is about all there is in the plot.

The film looked fine.  In fact there were actually some really great visuals.  The cinematography and the visual images are above average and definitely the strongest aspect of the film.

Unfortunately, the film was boring and there was very little with the characters.

I really disliked most of the film.  The performances were decent.  Sophia Lillis was solid with what was given for her to do.  The music was good too.

None of the good pieces worked together though.  I disliked it so much. I do not really have much more to say about it.

1.5 stars