I have been looking at this on the My Stuff section on Prime for a couple of weeks. I finally decided that it was time to watch Run Sweetheart Run. I did not expect to get what I wound up getting.

According to IMDB, “Initially apprehensive when her boss (Clark Gregg) insists she meets with one of his most important clients, single mom Cherie (Ella Balinska) is relieved and excited when she meets charismatic Ethan (Pilou Asbæk). The influential businessman defies expectations and sweeps Cherie off her feet. But at the end of the night, when the two are alone together, he reveals his true, violent nature. Battered and terrified, she flees for her life, beginning a relentless game of cat-and-mouse with a bloodthirsty assailant hell-bent on her utter destruction.“

It turned out that the assailant was a supernatural force that was nearly unstoppable and I did not think the movie was going there. With the unexpected twist, the film wound up to be quite fun.

Ella Balinska, who I have not seen in very many projects, does a great job as Cherie, the woman who was being pursued by Ethan. She was easy to root for and showed how much of a kick ass she turned out to be. She is an actor that you should keep an eye on, because I think she could be a big star (she could be an exceptional Ororo).

It was fun watching the desperate struggle for survival and how creative the film was in helping keep Cherie alive despite what seemed impossible odds.

Yes, there are some fairly obvious themes of female empowerment and how they are being held down, but there is a lot of enjoyment to be had.

It was awesome to see Clark Gregg again, though he does not appear in the film that much. I miss Agent Coulson so much that I liked his short appearance here.

Run Sweetheart Run was better than I thought it would be and I am glad it finally got off my queue.

3.6 stars

Armageddon Time is a new coming-of-age story that, to be honest, was difficult to watch at times. The movie does not pull any punches and provides a lot of late 70s/early 80s drama for this family.

Written, directed and produced by James Gray, Armageddon Time included performers such as Anthony Hopkins, Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong.

Paul (Banks Repeta) was a young boy going through a difficult time. He was having issues at his school as well as troubles with his family. The only person who seemed to have a connection with Paul was his grandpa Aaron (Anthony Hopkins). When Paul befriends troublesome student Johnny (Jaylin Webb), who appeared to have past mistakes brought back and thrown in his face continually by teachers and others, the two boys began to get into even more trouble.

Paul’s family have their own expectations of him which did not seem to include Paul’s artistic skills, which he is always doing, and they look for a change to try and help Paul with his decisions.

There were several very difficult scenes in the film that included certain racial scenes, showing the privilege of Paul while displaying the perceptions of Johnny, a black boy seen as a problem. There is also a scene of discipline from Paul’s father that caused me to squirm in my seat.

The ways of this family was much more in target with the early 1980s than it is in 2022.

Banks Repeta does a great job as the lead protagonist in this film, especially in scenes opposite Academy Award winner Anthony Hopkins. You could feel every emotion from Paul and he could be easily related to in each circumstance that he found himself trapped in. The film only worked because of the strong work of the young actor.

He also has a strong connection with another young actor in Jaylin Webb. Webb brings a lot to Johnny, in a role that could have been fairly stereotypical, but turned out very much his own character. That made everything that was happening to Johnny all the more tragic.

I had issue with the teacher, Mr. Turkeltaub (Andrew Polk). This character felt very cliché in this style of movie and I was hoping for something different. Unfortunately, this is probably part of the experience James Gray faced in his own past.

This story felt very personal for Gray, as much of this could be connected to his own childhood in Queens. There were a couple of strange cameos in the film that felt out of place despite being in place for a distinct reason.

The film stretched out a bit too long, and I would have liked more within the family structure because these scenes were the most compelling of the movie, but Armageddon Time was a solid watch with some good performances that had its share of themes to share with the world.

3.6 stars

One more documentary this morning. It was a tough one.

Girl in the Picture was on Netflix and was directed by Skye Borgman. It was based on the books A Beautiful Child and Finding Sharon by author Matt Birkbeck. It tells the story of a young woman, a victim of a hit and run driver, and her harrowing life of abduction and abuse at the hands of the man she believed was her father, Franklin Delano Floyd.

This is a remarkable tale with a bunch of horrific instances. We were introduced to the young woman as Sharon Marshall, a kind, friendly teenager who was a friend to all, but who had a nightmare of a father.

Nightmare is too kind of an adjective to describe Franklin Floyd.

Floyd had multiple aliases during his life and had kidnapped Sharon’s son, Michael, after she had been killed. Though it had never been proven, it was believed that Floyd had run Sharon over with his car.

When he showed up again, Michael was not with him either.

A portrait of sexual abuse and use of Sharon to make money for sex was painted, showing was a terrible life the young girl was trapped in. Yet, everyone who talked about Sharon spoke to her kindness and how wonderful of a friend she was. This is the strength of the documentary. It did not focus on the life of the sociopathic Floyd as much as it did on the woman who survived years with him and did not allow those years to color her personality.

This doc included interviews with many of the investigators who had spent so much of their time trying to find the answers to this mystery. The doc weaved the moments together that took the story in a different path in a well constructed manner. Matt Birkbeck became one of the talking heads in the doc. When he got involved, there was another push to learn about the true identity of Sharon, who they had learned was kidnaped by Floyd and was not his actual daughter.

The documentary was engrossing as the story unfolded. You knew that there was tragedy in the tale, but, in the end, there was a hopefulness about it as a group of people came together to finally honor Sharon and to discover who she really was.

4 stars

I watched my third documentary of the day, this time on Netflix, but this was a very familiar story. Capturing the Killer Nurse is a new documentary that detailed the mass murderer Charlie Cullen, a male nurse who had killed dozens of patients at the hospitals that he had worked.

I say it was familiar because just a few weeks ago, I watched a movie on Netflix called The Good Nurse, which was the true story of Charlie Cullen, starring Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain.

This documentary started off with the voice of Charlie Cullen in recordings he made after he had been arrested. That kicked things off dramatically. There were also interviews with all of the main components involved with Cullen, including Amy Loughren, the nurse who helped the police get evidence against Cullen at great personal risk, Donna Hargreaves, another nurse who worked with Cullen, Danny Baldwin and Tim Braun, who worked the case against Cullen, and several members of the victims’ families.

The story of Charlies Cullen and the process of capturing him is compelling, no doubt. It is a story that has moments that are difficult to believe. Unfortunately, most of this documentary was extremely standard and very little stood out as a well filmed or risk taking documentary. The music in the background ranged from annoying to downright obscene (the whole ‘Sunshine of My Life’ stuff was horrific). Much of this documentary reminded me of the basic TV true crime stories you may see on Discovery or Court TV.

This basically just states the crimes in a timeline of events, not engaging with the narrative. The documentarians were fortunate that this story is as compelling as it is, because the tension was not built by anything else besides the tale.

What I would have liked was more details, more depth about the series of hospitals that allowed Cullen to work for them despite there being evidence or, at the very least, suspicion that he was involved with something shady. What some of these hospital administrators did was unbelievably wrong and simply criminal, and they shuffled this nurse off because of a bottom line. That is something I want to know more about. This doc touched on this aspect of the case, but it did not go into enough details.

Overall, this doc is a basic one that does a good job of telling the story, but does not provide any special manner of involving the audience outside of just telling the tale. It is a story that people need to know, but it is covered better in the movie The Good Nurse than it is here. I assume Netflix considered those two films as complimentary, but The Good Nurse is considerably stronger.

2.75 stars

The next documentary I wanted to watch was spectacular and told a love story that I did not know between two people and a volcano. Or more accurately, many, many volcanoes.

Fire of Love is on Disney + and tells the story of volcanologists Maurice and Katia Krafft, who spent decades exploring, studying and recording information and imagery of volcano eruptions and their effects. The narrator of the documentary drops the knowledge early in the film that the couple’s fate was on the edge of a volcano, which caught me off guard.

The Kraffts was constantly recording their work together, providing us with some of the most amazing images of eruptions and of lava flowing from these volcanoes. The pictures were absolutely stunning and could have been enough for some docs. This, however, added the story of a pair of lovers who spent their days together knee deep in ash and volcanic mud.

Maurice and Katia could be considered strange with their obsession. Maurice spoke about his desire to float in a boat down a river of lava.

What?

They showed a time when Maurice and another scientist went out at the the Ijen volcano, in the acid crater lake on a rubber raft. The doc showed us how the lake would dissolve material like nothing. It was astonishing.

There were some pacing issues with the film as it did feel as if it dragged at times. The film also some times lost focus on the connection of the Kraffts, which, when working, were some of the most compelling sections of the film.

However, the final days of their life, when they died in a pyroclastic flow on Mount Unzen, in Japan, on June 3, 1991, was amazingly heartbreaking and the video of the explosion, recorded by a journalist’s camera that was left behind was breathtaking. The film gave us the last picture taken of Maurice and Katia, together prior to the explosion.

This was an amazing documentary that, with just a few adjustments, could have been one of the best films around.

4.4 stars

I’ve had a bit of a feeling for some documentaries today, so I started off on Prime with a doc about one of my favorite Stephen King stories, It.

This was a documentary about the making of the original mini series on ABC back in the early 1980s, not the most recent pair of films from the last few years.

The doc featured interviews with most everyone from the cast, with the exception of Harry Anderson, who played the adult Richie in the two night mini series and passed away in 2018.

The highlight of any cast interview with the It cast was Tim Curry. The EYG Hall of Famer Tim Curry is always a bristly, curmudgeon who is straight forward and honest. His opinions on Twitter are never lacking and this is very much the same. He was talking about how he would scare the kid actors because he did not spend much time with them outside of filming. He told the story about how he hated the makeup and the prosthetics that went with Pennywise and how he got most of them removed because his face was expressive enough. He said, take this off and I’ll handle the scary part. Curry is a hoot.

It was also fascinating to hear from the adult versions of the child actors involved in the project. I did not know that Seth Green was a member of this cast, as the young Richie. Emily Perkins, who played the child version of Beverly, talked about how all of the other boys in the cast knew of the controversial scene from King’s novel where the boys in the Losers Club had sex with Beverly to lose their innocence. The boys apparently were all making cracks about it on set and she did not know until she finally read the book.

It was intriguing to also hear about how they brought the novel to the television screen. The process of initially starting with 8 hours and having it trimmed down to 4 and how that cost them their first director, George Romero.

There were a lot of cool stories about the mini series which became an iconic watch.

3.5 stars

Searching through Amazon Prime for something interesting to watch, I found She Will on Shudder. I have enjoyed my subscription to Shudder having found several top notch horror films to watch. Unfortunately, She Will never was able to grab my attention despite being a well shot and atmospheric film.

Directed by Charlotte Colbert, in her directorial debut, She Will was more psychological than straight horror, although the movie certainly has horror traits to it.

According to IMDB, “The film explores the story of Veronica Ghent (Alice Krige) who after a double mastectomy, goes to a healing retreat in rural Scotland with her young nurse Desi (Kota Eberhardt). She discovers that the process of such surgery opens up questions about her very existence, leading her to start to question and confront past traumas. The two develop an unlikely bond as mysterious forces give Veronica the power to enact revenge within her dreams.“

Alice Krige is sufficiently spooky as Veronica. Her performance was the part of the film that I was most intrigued by, but I just could not get into the story very much.

I am not sure what it was about She Will that failed to engage me in the story. It is a slow burn, but that is not something that bothered me in other movies of this type. The film had a definite tone that it was giving off, and it looked fine.

Perhaps it was too highbrow horror for my tastes. Maybe it is like The Witch, which was a film that everyone seemed to love, but I just could never get into it.

She Will is on Shudder if you want to give it a try.

2.4 stars

I typically don’t like doing anything Christmas related until at least after Thanksgiving, but I found this film on Netflix listed as the number one film, so I decided to give it a chance.

I should have stuck with my original plan.

Falling for Christmas starred Lindsay Lohan in one of the most cliched and predictable Christmas movie I have seen in a long time. It also professes to be a comedy, but I did not find any of the ridiculous slapstick funny. It might have been laughable, but not in the way it intended.

According to IMDB, “In the days leading up to Christmas, a young and newly engaged heiress experiences a skiing accident. After being diagnosed with amnesia, she finds herself in the care of the handsome lodge owner and his daughter.”

The aforementioned skiing accident is one of the worst sequences I have seen in a movie in a long time.

Lindsay Lohan has a natural charm, and she has to because this character is written so unlikable that she feels like a cartoon. Of course, with the amnesia angle in the story, she becomes much more likeable, unless you remember the first 20 minutes of the movie.

It was nice to see Jack Wagner, an old favorite of mine from General Hospital, who played Lohan’s character’s father in this, but it was a minor thing.

Sure there is an expectation that Christmas movies can run more on the sappy side, but that does not have to be a hard and fast rule. Falling for Christmas is so inane, and when it is not inane, it is predictable. It might be a better movie with some Christmas “cheer” (the hard stuff and a lot of it).

1.5 stars

Powerful. Emotional. Devastating. Cathartic. Beautiful.

Ryan Coogler returned to write and direct the sequel to his Oscar nominated and winning Black Panther, but everything got messed up with one tragic, unexpected moment.

T’Challa, the Black Panther, played by the awesome Chadwick Boseman passed away from colon cancer in 2020 throwing the entire production into uncertainty. The cast, crew and company were caught unaware from the loss of Chadwick and no one was quite sure what was going to happen. Marvel Studio’s head honcho Kevin Feige announced that the role of T’Challa would not be recast. It was controversial, but after seeing Wakanda Forever, you could see why they made the decision.

Wakanda Forever was a celebration of Chadwick Boseman’s life and gave the cast a chance to grieve the loss of their “King.” You could absolutely feel the presence of Chadwick throughout the film, especially in the performances of his castmates from Black Panther. More on that later.

King T’Challa passed away from an unexpected disease and the country of Wakanda is in mourning. His sister Shuri (Letitia Wright) was completely devastated from the death of T’Challa and was finding it particularly difficult to move on with her life. Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) tried to help her daughter accept the loss of her brother.

However, they ended up being confronted by the head of the undersea kingdom of Talokan, Namor (Tenoch Huerta Mejía) who was angry over an attempt from US forces on an undersea mound of vibranium. Namor said a US “scientist” was behind creating a machine capable of locating vibranium. The scientist turned out to be Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne).

I don’t want to go into any further detail about the plot because there are plenty of awesome moments that could be spoiled.

Though she was an absolute highlight, Letitia Wright’s Shuri was initially just a secondary/supporting character in Black Panther. It is very challenging for a supporting character to step up and take the lead of a movie, but Wright is totally savage and knocks it out of the park. I was not sure if she had it in her, but she was compelling as could be. You could see how the loss of Chadwick Boseman informed her performance to the point where, at times, it did not feel as if she was acting.

However, as amazing as Letitia Wright’s work was, the standout of the performances in Wakanda Forever was the spectacular Angela Bassett as Queen Ramonda. If Angela Bassett does not, at the very least, receive an Oscar nomination for this role, then there is something terribly wrong with the system. The power she displayed with every minute she was on screen was astounding. Everybody has seen the powerhouse line about her family from the trailer, but she was just as epic in the quieter moments as well. Queen Ramonda was a pillar of strength and gave us examples of why she was such a wondrous leader.

Every performer brought their A game. Tenoch Huerta debuted the classic Marvel character Namor and, while there were some changes made to the character, everything worked so well. He created an amazingly complex and deep “villain” that will have a major place in the MCU moving forward. I thought tying Namor to the culture of Central America was a stroke of genius and worked really well with the character. I know there are people out there who hate when Marvel Studios does anything different with a character, especially when they change the race/nationality of a character, but those people were never going to be happy. The character of Namor was well served by this script and any changes made did not effect who Namor was at his core.

Danai Gurira had one of the best arcs of the film as General Okoye of the Dora Milaje. This may have been the best work that I have ever seen from Gurira as the emotion of the situation was echoing in her performance. I also enjoyed the inclusion of Riri Williams, who will be starring in her own Disney + series, Ironheart, next year. She brought some much needed humor to the film. The humor was used in just the right level. This is still an MCU film and there will always be humor in these movies, but it does not overpower the scenes like it did at times during Thor: Love and Thunder.

I heard a review complaining about the lack of screen time for Winston Duke as M’Baku, but I thought he was used very well and I loved where the film left off with him. Another actor from the original film who returned to a great part, albeit somewhat smaller than the last time, was Lupita Nyong’o with Nakia.

The music was outstanding again and the CGI was great. Some of the issues with the third act of the original film was the CGI effects. I thought this film did a much better job with that and only had a few minor faults.

I have also heard some gripes about the length of the film, but I did not feel that. I thought it was paced extremely well and I did not feel the length, despite being 2 hours and 40 minutes long.

The only complaint I might be able to muster was there was a tad too much exposition when dealing with the past of Namor and a few other flashbacks, but it was such a minor issue that I almost did not mention it. I guess one could say that Namora (Mabel Cadena) and Attuma (Alex Livinalli) were really underused and did not standout among the warriors of Talokan.

I loved this movie. It was such an emotional roller coaster and it served as a wonderful tribute to Chadwick Boseman while continuing to build the world of Wakanda for the future of the MCU. The one mid credit scene (none at the end of the credits) was amazing and speaks well of the future.

For me, this is one of the best movies of the year and will challenge for the top spot next month in the Top 30 Best of 2022 list.

5 stars

Yes we have arrived in Oscar season when those movies that believe they have Academy Award chances start coming out, many of which had already debuted at film festivals around the world. One of these films that have some Oscar buzz (and well deserved too) is The Banshees of Inisherin.

According to IMDB, “Lifelong friends Pádraic (Colin Farrell) and Colm (Brendan Gleeson), who find themselves at an impasse when Colm unexpectedly puts an end to their friendship. A stunned Pádraic, aided by his sister Siobhan (Kerry Condon) and troubled young islander Dominic (Barry Keoghan), endeavours to repair the relationship, refusing to take no for an answer. But Pádraic’s repeated efforts only strengthen his former friend’s resolve and when Colm delivers a desperate ultimatum, events swiftly escalate, with shocking consequences.”

The basic story is how one day, from out of nowhere, Colm, played by Brendan Gleeson, decided that he did not want to be friends with his longtime friend, Pádraic, any more. That was truly a strange plot point, and things truly do get out of control soon after that.

While Brendan Gleeson was excellent here, if Colin Farrell does not receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, something is truly wrong with the entire process. Farrell was unbelievable in this role of a blindsided man who just could not understand why his friend decided to cast him aside for, what seemed to be, no reason.

Farrell had every emotion imaginable, from confusion to anger to hurt, and you could see how the events of the situation took pieces of his heart away. He ended up doing things that the Pádraic at the beginning of the film would never have done, all in the grief over the loss of this friendship.

Colm was clearly unbalanced too as he does some things that I, of course, will not spoil, but were shocking to say the least.

There were a couple of real standouts in the cast despite the two main actors. Kerry Condon played Pádraic’s sister Siobhán with a ton of passion and Eternals’ star Barry Keoghan played the local island dimwit, Dominic.

The shots of this fictional Irish island Inisherin were gorgeous and brought some special imagery to add to the drama of what was going down. The Irish landscapes were brilliantly used by cinematographer Ben Davis.

However, this was not just a dramatic story. In was actually quite funny with these oddball characters reacting to the insanity with lines and decisions that were both right in character but also hilarious.

Of course, there were some Irish brogues going on that, at times, made the dialogue difficult to understand. It was as if we needed to translate what they were saying to each other, but we did not get it. Sometimes the Irish dialogue really popped and you could see where it was intended to go.

The story was set in 1923 and had the Irish Civil War as a backdrop, which probably is meant to echo the splitting apart of the friendship of Pádraic and Colm.

The dark comedic film was directed by Martin McDonagh, who reteamed Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell from In Bruges. You can tell why this is an important fact considering how excellent this pairing worked. The Banshees of Inisherin was funny, shocking and dark. At first, the film seemed to be very small and unassuming, but the stakes for the characters rose rapidly as the film continued.

The Banshees of Inisherin should most definitely receive its share of Oscar nominations.

4.3 stars

William Shakespeare wrote several classic plays, but few are more well-known than Romeo & Juliet. The tragic results of the love between the warring families, the Montagues and the Capulets, are considered one of the great love stories of all time. There was a movie that debuted last month on Hulu that took the Romeo & Juliet story and turned it on its head. By telling the story through the POV of Rosaline, Romeo’s jilted ex-love and Juliet’s cousin.

Rosaline (Kaitlyn Dever) was in love with Romeo (Kyle Allen), but the fates were against them. When Rosaline stood Romeo up at a masquerade ball because she was on a father-organized date with Dario (Sean Teale), he was crushed. However, he then met the fair Juliet (Isabela Merced) and fell in love with her.

Rosaline was angry and jealous over the betrayal and she wanted Romeo back so she planned to break apart the young lovers.

This was a funny film. I really enjoyed Rosaline. Kaitlyn Dever did a great job as the leading protagonist walking her way through the famous story of Romeo & Juliet. She and Sean Teale had some great chemistry with each other and you could tell immediately where this was heading. This was a good example of how predictability is not always a bad thing.

The writing of Rosaline was very clever as it weaved the new narrative with Rosaline into the existing story by Shakespeare seamlessly. They blended together beautifully and led to a third act that was very funny and well constructed.

Of course, Rosaline had more present day ideas and beliefs than you would expect someone to have in the days of Shakespeare. She was outspoken and unwilling to go along with the day’s expectations. It reminded me of Catharine Called Birdy, a film I saw a few weeks ago, as Rosaline was sabotaging the men her father (Bradley Whitford) was trying to set her up with as a husband to be.

One of the funniest things was one of the drawbacks many people have to Shakespeare. Romeo showed up to Rosaline speaking in the well-known vernacular of a Shakespeare play and Rosaline immediately asked him why he was speaking like that. The rest of the film the characters spoke in normal language, removing that obstacle for many viewers.

Kaitlyn Dever showed her skills in this picture and she carried much of the film on her shoulders. I had a lot of fun watching this movie on Hulu. You do not have to be a Shakespeare aficionado to enjoy this.

4 stars

I went to Apple TV + this morning to see if there were any movies on that streamer that I needed to watch. Apple TV + does not seem to promote their films as well as some of the other streaming services, or, at least, I don’t come there as much as I do the others and I just miss some films. I found one this morning that, apparently, debuted on Apple TV + this past Friday starring Jennifer Lawrence and Brian Tyree Henry called Causeway.

I did not know anything about Causeway, so I was intrigued. I do not have a problem with JLaw, but she does not automatically mean her film is a must see either. I do like Brian Tyree Henry though and it was an A24 film, which is usually a positive sign.

Causeway featured the two main characters played by Lawrence and Henry at the center of a slow, psychological drama that dealt with trauma and the results of it. Both Lawrence and Henry had to face their own personal trauma and were suffering the after-effects of it.

Lynsey (Jennifer Lawrence)was a soldier who returned from Afghanistan with a brain injury after being involved in an explosion. Her recovery was slow, but steady and she wanted to return for redeployment. She met James (Brian Tyree Henry) when her truck began smoking and she took it to James’s repair shop. She realized soon after that James had an artificial leg since his own had been amputated after a car wreck.

Of course, both incidents of trauma had much more involved than just the moment and their relationship grew while they tried to overcome the PTSD they faced.

I thought Jennifer Lawrence was solid in this role, but I definitely thought that Brian Tyree Henry was exceptional. He stood out from the film with enough realness that while he was on screen, the film really worked.

The performances carried this movie because it was slow and, at times, the story dragged. Both Lawrence and Henry’s performances were subtle and understated and fit amazingly with the tone of the movie. However, at times the film felt withdrawn from the audience.

There have been plenty of films over the years where the performances elevated the script and I think this is another example of that. Lawrence and Henry are the reasons to see this movie, but the deliberate pacing could lose some. Causeway does a strong job at looking at the results of trauma and how it can affect people. It feels like a shot of a normal life of a couple of damaged people, and that can be enough.

3.5 stars

I was on Peacock and I saw a giant picture of John Cena. I did not know what it was, so I investigated a bit. It was the link for a movie called The Independent, which, as I said, I had no idea about. I like John Cena and the film is listed as a thriller, which intrigued me. I placed it on my list and I was able to watch it this morning.

The Independent is a political thriller focused around the upcoming presidential election that involved the incumbent Democrat president (Victor Slezak), a Republican senator (Ann O’Dowd) and Independent candidate Nate Sterling (John Cena). Meanwhile, journalist Eli James (Jodie Turner-Smith) was teaming up with legendary Journalist Nick Booker (Brian Cox) to look into a major story involving the candidates and corruption.

This film has an excellent cast. Jodie Turner-Smith is fabulous and has been on the way up. John Cena is cast extremely well in this character. Ann O’Dowd is great. Brian Cox is always solid. There is also Stephen Lang, Luke Kirby, Margaret Odette, Timothy Busfield, Michael Gandolfini, Kecia Lewis, Zane Pais, Andrew Richardson, Julianne Arrieta, and George Aloi.

However, the rest of the film was average to below average. The story was fine, but the dialogue was weak. The direction was unremarkable. There were no shots or moments that made this stand out. It looked boring and simply felt like a normal TV movie.

The film is not offensively bad, but it is just nothing that will be remembered in the long term. The film is a fine time waster, trying to be relevant in the world of politics today, but it does not take any real steps to make this more than just another movie.

2.5 stars

Millie Bobby Brown is a star!

We knew that she was a special performer in her time as Eleven on Stranger Things, but her second time playing the role of Sherlock Holmes’s little sister has shown that Millie Bobby Brown is fully capable of leading a franchise and that the best days are still ahead of her.

In Enola Holmes 2, we return to London to see where the first film left off. Enola was struggling with her new detective agency because of her client’s expectations and her brother Sherlock’s (Henry Cavill) immense shadow. However, a little girl hired Enola to find her missing sister, Sarah Chapman (Hannah Dodd) and the situation gets out of hand quickly, engulfing Enola in a murder case that runs smack into Sherlock’s latest case.

As I mentioned, Millie Bobby Brown is all over this sequel and she works so well. She is charming and engaging. When Enola breaks the fourth wall, she makes the audience feel as if they are a part of the story. Brown worked very well with her on-screen brother Henry Cavill, who makes a really great, if not unconventional, Sherlock Holmes, as well as the returning love interest, Tewkesbury (Louis Partridge).

Then we have one of the film’s antagonists, Grail (David Thewlis), who is exceptional. David Thewlis has been an awesome force in such shows as the TV series Fargo, Wonder Woman, the Harry Potter franchise, and Netflix’s Sandman. Thewlis is such an easy adversary that the audience could root against. It was a great performance from a great actor.

The story had a lot of twists and turns, but I did not have issues following it. Many movies with a storyline like this would be convoluted and difficult to understand, but this worked well too. It was really mapped out beautifully and combined with the different sections perfectly.

There are a couple of things that the Internet trolls will probably hate, but, without spoiling any of it, I found all of it epic.

Helena Bonham Carter is back again and the sections with her are so much fun. She and Brown work brilliantly together and I totally believed their mother/daughter dynamic. Carter is just one more member of an exceptional cast that brings the goods in this franchise.

Enola Holmes 2 is a ton of fun and entertaining as can be.

4.6 stars