The Watchers (2024)

If my father was a famous movie director, I don’t know that I would direct a movie that is supposed to be in the same general genre as his movies under my own name. Especially if I didn’t have a ton of directorial work already under my belt. Preferably work that isn’t like…my sister’s music videos or episodes of my dad’s television show. But I’m not a Shyamalan. What do I know…

Mina (Dakota Fanning) works in a pet shop in Ireland. On the 15th anniversary of her mother’s death, Mina’s boss asks her to deliver a rare bird to a zoo near Belfast. As she drives across the country, both her cell phone and her car break down in a dense forest. Mina begins walking through the forest to find help but she finds Madeline (Olwen Fouéré) instead. Madeline takes Mina to a building with a large mirrored window, where she is introduced to the other people living in “The Coop” - Ciara (Georgina Campbell) and Daniel (Oliver Finnegan). Together, they explain that there are “Watchers” outside that hide in burrows during the day and watch the humans at night. They must never go outside at night or the Watchers will kill them.

Normally, I would explain much more of the plot. I’m not going to do that here. To be honest, this short paragraph is way more interesting than the movie itself. I was 20 minutes in when I paused it to tell my husband what I thought the twist was. And I was right. Well, partially right. There were like two more unnecessary twists. Most of this movie was unnecessary.

I’m going to try to do this without spoilers but it might be difficult. Here is a list of things that the movie thought was super important but wasn’t:

• Mina’s mother’s death - this was supposed to be why Mina was so sad and anti-social but it happened FIFTEEN YEARS ago. She should have just gone to therapy. The whole movie could have happened without this event ever occurring.

• Daniel’s change of behavior - from what I hear, this happened very differently in the book. Yes, this movie is based on a book.

• The mythology behind the Watchers - the movie didn’t make this very interesting. I find the actual Irish mythology so intriguing but the movie did nothing with it.

While I never read the original book, there were so many things in the movie that could have been tweaked a bit more to actually make it spooky and exciting. Instead, we are given bland characters that we have no reason to care about, Watchers that are revealed too early then given lame reasons to be an antagonists, predictable twists that were just boring, and a script with the worst dialog. I appreciate that Ishana Night Shyamalan wants to be a writer/director like her father. But she really should have done more work - whether it was behind the scenes on other movies or taking more classes - before releasing a full-length movie of her own. The Watchers wasn’t worth our time or the $30million budget.

Rating: D-

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

My family is a big fan of the Ghostbusters franchise. So of course we went to see Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. The plot description for this would get super long if I tried to described the whole thing so I’m going to leave out A LOT.

The Spenglers - Callie (Carrie Coon), Trevor (Finn Wolfhard), and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) - have moved to New York City with Carrie’s boyfriend, Greg Grooberson (Paul Rudd), to be Ghostbusters. After a particularly bad bust, Callie suspends Phoebe from the team until she turns 18. Upset about the decision, Phoebe goes to the park where she meets Melody (Emily Alyn Lind), the ghost of a 16-year old girl who died in a fire. Meanwhile, there is a lot of rumbling in the ghost world as Garraka, an ancient god with ice powers, tries to come back to the mortal world. With help from the original Ghostbusters - Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson), Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), and Janine Melnitz (Annie Potts) - the new Ghostbusters try to save the world again.

I went to the movie with my husband and my daughter. All three of us really enjoyed the movie. There were a lot of references to the original Ghostbusters movies but not so many that it made the new movie cheesy. It didn’t feel like these were just fanservice moments added to appease the older crowd. Instead, they felt like a natural progression of the franchise.

As for the story, like I said, there is a lot going on. But that isn’t a bad thing. The movie clocks in at just under 2 hours and there wasn’t a single second where I thought the movie was dragging or something should have been cut. Every moment had a reason and was enjoyable to watch. I honestly hope they can continue the series with the same love for the franchise that these obviously have.

Rating: A

Damsel (2024)

There are so many movies that I mean to watch when they come out then I completely forget about them. Netflix’s Damsel is one of those.

Elodie (Millie Bobby Brown) is the eldest daughter to a lord. In order to save her village from starvation, her father (Ray Winstone) marries her off to Prince Henry (Nick Robinson). Little did he know that Henry’s family has an ancient ritual where they sacrifice young women with royal blood to a dragon. Can Elodie escape the dragon or will she be killed like so many before her?

I fully admit that I enjoy dragons. Somehow, this movie managed to make a dragon boring. Where they could have had some epic fights with the dragon, most of the movie is spent with Elodie hiding and running away. We’re supposed to think that Elodie is a complete badass, despite the fact that she has zero training and hasn’t consumed anything (including water) for a long time. It was, honestly, more confusing than entertaining.

Another annoying thing is that they introduce these glowworms that have healing properties. But at no point to they explain how they heal…they just do. This could have been a great time to introduce some magic into the world or even some alchemy. Nah. All that plot point is good for is light and healing.

Sadly, even though I was looking forward to watching this, it wasn’t worth my time. The best part of the movie is the last maybe fifteen minutes. The rest of the movie should have been left on the cutting room floor.

Rating: D

Irish Wish (2024)

Does Netflix know it’s 2024? That it’s OK to have women that don’t think terribly of themselves? I guess not. Let’s talk about the new Lindsay Lohan movie, Irish Wish.

Maddie (Lohan) is a book editor who dreams of writing her own book. The most recent book she edited was written by Paul Kennedy (Alexander Vlahos), who she is absolutely in love with. However, Paul is about to marry one of Maddie’s best friends, Emma (Elizabeth Tan). As the group, along with other best friend Heather (Ayesha Curry), travel to Ireland for the wedding, everything starts going wrong for Maddie. The airport loses her luggage and it takes so much time to fill out the paperwork that she has to take the bus to Paul’s house. It’s on the bus that she meets nature photographer James Thomas (Ed Speleers). The next day, while the soon-to-be-wed couple go out rowing, Maddie accidentally makes a wish to Saint Brigid (Dawn Bradfield) that she would be the one marrying Paul, not Emma. Once the wish comes true, Maddie finds out that she didn’t really want what she thought she did.

The Maddie character really annoyed me. She was quite incapable of doing anything, except for writing obviously. The whole opening of the movie is Maddie making googly eyes at Paul but being too scared to tell him that she likes him. She’s apparently so scared of her feelings that she doesn’t even tell her two best friends. Not in the bar, not in the car home, not at any point during Emma and Paul’s 7-month relationship. Oh wait, she does tell her mother played by Jane Seymour. I have no idea why she is even in the movie. She doesn’t do anything.

Then, when Maddie’s wish comes true, she does nothing to stand up for herself. At the last minute, Paul’s mother wants her to ditch the wedding dress that she picked out (with her mother…off-screen, of course) in order to wear the family wedding dress. I think Heather said something like “But what about your wedding dress?” and Maddie just kinda shrugged it off. There’s another scene where Paul asks her to go bicycle riding. Maddie doesn’t want to do it but she lets Paul bully her into it.

From what I can tell, Maddie had a crush on Paul because he is cute. He’s a terrible person and I’m not sure why she didn’t see that when she worked with him. While I’m not going to spoil his biggest flaw, yes, she absolutely should have known he was awful and she probably should have outright hated him instead of loving him.

Is there a good part to this movie? James was probably the only redeemable character in the whole thing. He was better to Maddie but I’m not sure he is enough to actually save the entire movie. Instead, I think I’m going to chalk this up to another terrible romcom and put it out of my mind. There have to be better romcoms out there to watch.

Rating: D

Imaginary (2024)

My husband is a big fan of horror movies. I don’t hate them, for the most part, but they are not my favorite. Over the weekend, we stopped by the movie theater to see Imaginary. Weirdly, this isn’t the first movie that will be released this year about imaginary friends…

Jessica (DeWanda Wise) is a children’s book author and artist. After her father, Ben (Samuel Salary) is moved into an elderly care facility, she moves into her childhood home with her husband, Max (Tom Payne), and stepdaughters, Taylor (Taegen Burns) and Alice (Pyper Braun). Shortly after moving in, Alice begins playing with a new imaginary friend, Chauncey, in the form of a stuffed bear. When Max goes on tour with his band, leaving Jessica and the girls home alone, Chauncey starts asking Alice to do violent and painful things. Gloria (Betty Buckley), a neighbor and Jessica’s old babysitter, tells the story of Jessica’s old imaginary friend, Chauncey Bear. Can Jessica protect her family from the entity that has entered their new family?

To be honest, I’m not really sure why this movie is being marketed as a horror movie. There wasn’t anything particularly scary about it. I covered my eyes for one scene but, according to my husband, the event occurred off-screen so I didn’t need to cover my eyes. At best, this movie is a thriller. And that is being very generous. After the movie, I did say it seemed a little like a live-action Coraline but Coraline was way better.

Since this isn’t a horror movie and it’s not a thriller…it definitely isn’t a family film…I’m not sure who this movie is for. I don’t think I would say it’s a bad movie. It is a directionless movie though. If it wanted to be horror or thriller, it really needed to commit to those genres. Instead, we get a PG-13 sleeper.

Rating: C+

Leave The World Behind (2023)

I’ve been meaning to watch Netflix’s Leave The World Behind for awhile but, to be honest, the 2 1/2 hour runtime kept putting me off. I am very tired of these really long movies. But I finally did it. I finally sat down and watched it.

Tired of work and life in general, Amanda Sandford (Julia Roberts) decides to take her family on an impromptu weekend vacation. So she packs up husband Clay (Ethan Hawke) and children Archie (Charlie Evans) and Rose (Farrah Mackenzie) and heads to out of New York City. Strange things start to happen after an oil tanker runs aground while they visited the beach. That night, the owner of the AirBNB, George (Mahershala Ali), and his daughter, Ruth (Myha’la), show up wanting to stay at the house with the Sandford family. Amanda, who doesn’t like people very much, is weirded out but Clay agrees they can stay. Soon after, all of their cell phones stop working, along with the television and the internet. The two families try their best to stay calm and figure out exactly what is happening.

Did I mention this movie is long? It is so long. And for a lot of it, nothing really happens. It’s a lot of things not working the way they are supposed to, then Amanda gets suspicious of everyone, then Clay tries to talk her out of insanity, and the kids just exist. Yes, it is just as tedious as it sounds. We sometimes get little hints about what is going on but if you aren’t paying super close attention to details, it is easy to miss. Especially when we’re talking about a 2 1/2 hour movie with very little happening on-screen. I’m glad I finally crossed this movie off my list of things to watch. But that doesn’t mean I’m glad I watched it.

Rating: D+

Spaceman (2024)

In late February 2024, Netflix released Spaceman. A sci-fi drama starring Adam Sandler as a Czech astronaut. I don’t know about this one….

Jakub Procházka(Sandler) is on a solo space mission to investigate a mysterious cloud near Jupiter. Just before reaching his destination, he finds a spider-like alien aboard his ship. The creature, speaking to Jakub telepathically, wants to know more about humans. And Jakub, suffering from loneliness and depression, befriends the spider, naming him Hanuš (Paul Dano). Hanuš learns about Jakub’s life and how he hasn’t been the best of husbands to his wife, Lenka (Carey Mulligan). Can Hanuš help Jakub become a better man?

Sadly, I kept expecting more from this movie. First, it’s very difficult to accept that Adam Sandler is supposed to be Czech. His accent comes and goes, seemingly dependent on whether or not he remembers he’s supposed to have one. Second, nothing really happens. Since Jakub is in space and Lenka is on Earth, everything we see between the two of them are just Jakub’s memories as seen by Hanuš. (Yes, the spider can also read minds.) Communication has been cut off between Jakub and Lenka because of their failing relationship. So I kept waiting for some big twist - the spider isn’t real and Jakub is hallucinating on the ship, Jakub isn’t really on the ship at all, the spider is just pretending to be a cool guy so he can eat Jakub. But no, nothing happens. This movie is literally Jakub going to couples therapy without his wife and a spider is his therapist.

I’m saying skip this one. I know Sandler has done dramatic roles before and I was really hoping that this would be a really good dramatic role for him. But this was the wrong role for him with a bad plot. I really do wish it was better.

Rating: D

Dune: Part Two (2024)

I am not a huge fan of the Dune franchise. My husband, however, is. So that means we sat in the movie theater for over three hours (including the time for commercials and trailers before the movie itself) to see Dune: Part Two. Was it worth it?

Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and his mother, Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), have been living with the Fremen after the massacre of their entire House. Half of the Fremen are suspicious of the pair while the other half believes Paul is a prophesied savior. As Paul works on becoming a Freman, earning the love of Chani (Zendaya) in the process, Jessica is forced the drink the Water of Life to become the new Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother for the tribe. Unknown to everyone except Jessica and Paul, she is pregnant, resulting in the premature awakening of her unborn daughter’s mind, giving Jessica the ability to converse with her. As the Reverend Mother, Jessica begins convincing the unfaithful portion of the Fremen that Paul is, indeed, fulfilling the prophesy, eventually travelling south to expand her reach. Shortly thereafter, House Harkonnen attacks the Fremen cave system, forcing the rest of the Fremen to also head south. Paul is unwilling due to having visions of a holy war if he did. He eventually gives in and travels south with the rest of the Fremen. Will this cause the death of millions as he foresaw?

Yes, this is a very long movie. No, it does not finish the story…there will be at least one more part coming. However, I will say that the movie didn’t feel like it was almost three hours long. There weren’t any parts that I felt dragged, though there were some parts that felt like they did some sort of time skip or that I missed something. Now, I never read any of the Dune books. So I’m not sure if this is something that happens in the book or if this was a creative decision. Thankfully, it didn’t seem to effect the actual storyline very much. It only made me feel a little disjointed a few times.

Is this worth watching? Meh. If you like the Dune franchise. This didn’t feel like a “must watch” movie. You will be perfectly fine if you skip it. Or maybe wait until all of the parts are released and watch it at home. I don’t think you will lose anything and you will have the luxury of a pause button.

Rating: B+

Beautiful Wedding (2024)

At the beginning of the month, I watched last year’s Beautiful Disaster. Of course I had to watch the sequel, Beautiful Wedding. Let’s see if this one holds up.

Immediately after the end of Beautiful Disaster, Abby (Virginia Gardner), Travis (Dylan Sprouse), Mer (Libe Barer), and Shepley (Austin North) party in Las Vegas. When the group wakes up, they find cash strewn all over the room and a video showing Abby and Travis getting married. After finding the legal marriage license, the group takes a trip to Mexico for the honeymoon. However, during the trip Abby and Travis realize that maybe they shouldn’t stay married after all.

Much like the first movie, this one is also all over the place. We’ve almost completely abandoned the back story of Abby playing poker. It comes up in the beginning when they find all the cash and it’s referenced one other time as a throwaway line. Beyond that, Wedding focuses entirely on Travis being super jealous of every guy Abby speaks to and Abby running away every time Travis makes a mistake or a woman hits on him. There are so many instances where they could have just talked to each other but they don’t. I think we’re supposed to believe their volatile because they’re 19. However, neither of them seem to really learn from their mistakes.

With that said, this is a sort of fun movie in the “everyone is a terrible person and none of them should be around other people” type of way. There are two women that spend every moment they are on screen literally throwing themselves at Travis, even after he says no multiple times. I hate them. Mer and Shepley get into a huge fight that probably could have been just a simple discussion. (They did a similar thing in the first movie so maybe this is their thing.) And Abby and Travis do everything but talk to each other. Is this a movie I would watch again? No. Do I regret watching it? Also no. I do hope that there isn’t a third movie coming though. I don’t think I want to watch these people any more.

Rating: B-

Love Virtually (2023)

I watched Love Virtually last week with the full intention of reviewing it. However, it is such a terrible movie that I didn’t want to talk about it. But it is my sworn duty to warn you of crap like this so you don’t have to watch it. Warning: This may be more of a rant than a review.

In a world where people commonly use Metaverse virtual reality, a group of people try to navigate both their real life and virtual life relationships.

Ugh, this movie is so bad. There are so many characters that the script doesn’t actually take any time to develop any of them. We have professional gamer Roddy (Peter Gilroy) who messed up his relationship with his girlfriend Kimberly (Paige Mobley). He’s trying to save it but she blocked him and she’s now being romantically pursued by another professional gamer, Kalvin (L.E. Staiman). Next is the married couple Barry (Ryan O’Flanagan) and Angela (Ksenia Valenti). Barry spends so much time working that he doesn’t pay attention to Angela so Angela has sought comfort in the…arms…of the virtual reality shopping helper, Chatbot (Paul F. Thompkins). They are attending online couples therapy but their therapist, Dr. Divine (Stephen Tobolowsky), is more interested in sexting with his virtual reality sidepiece, Dr. Evelyn (Cheri Oteri)….who ends up being his real life wife even though neither of them realize it. Finally, there’s influencer Clarissa (Nikki Howard) and basketball athlete La Monte (Vincent Washington). They both had big public relations issues and now they are trying to save their reputations by pretending to be “regular” people. They meet on a dating app, only they have trouble actually getting together to meet. But when they do and they realize who each other is? It’s a doozy.

So, yeah…we have storylines for nine people and a Chatbot. This movie isn’t even a full hour and a half long. It would have been better if we cut down the number of people involved. Make it about the triangle between Robby, Kimberly, and Kalvin with the b-plot of Clarissa and La Monte trying to save their reputations. Also make it funny. This is supposed to be a comedy but there wasn’t anything funny happening. Oh, and make the animation pretty. I get that it’s supposed to look like the Metaverse, which doesn’t have great animation, but this is a movie version of it. Stuff is supposed to look better in the movies.

This really may have been the worst movie I have ever seen. And I have seen some really bad movies. Stay away at all cost.

Rating: Can we go lower than F?