Multiplex Madness
Boy Kills World
⭐️⭐️1/2
Genre: Action, Comedy, Science Fiction
Director: Moritz Mohr
Starring: Bill Skarsgård, H. Jon Benjamin, Jessica Rothe, Michelle Dockery, Famke Janssen, Sharlto Copley, Brett Gelman, Isaiah Moustafa, Andrew Koji, Quinn Copeland
Boy Kills World is an absurdist dystopian fantasy parody that sees Bill Skarsgård spending his life training to become the ultimate warrior to take down the fascist dictator that murdered his family. If that doesn't sound very funny, that's because it's all in the attitude. See, Skarsgård plays his character as a deaf mute, so the movie chooses to express his thoughts via a voice over from H. Jon Benjamin doing the Archer/Bob's Burgers voice that he does, which is a spectacularly silly disconnect that highlights all the hyperactive violence that he gets into. The tone feels like John Wick meets Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, with fight choreography stylized after Jet Li, all custom-made for those intertwined within video game and comic book culture. I'd be very surprised if the movie doesn't wind up being a cult classic, even if it is more about its vibe than its story. I don't think the movie entirely comes together at a screenplay level, but as an experience that just rushes you and sprays you with blood, it's a movie that relishes it's own excess and gives the audience what it wants.
Challengers
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: Drama, Romance, Sports
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Starring: Zendaya, Josh O'Connor, Mike Faist
Two former tennis partners find themselves squaring off in a match years later, as the film flashes back through their tumultuous history, stemming from a steaming love triangle with rising tennis star Zendaya. It's like For Love of the Game, but with lots of ass. If one wants steamy sexual tension with sexy stars, it's certainly a movie to put on your list. The grim truth of this movie, as the characters aren't strong, but the craft gives them a dynamic that invests the viewer more than they should be. It's just a very unappealing group of people to follow, and if you're going to make your leads this unlikable, one should be prepared to counteract it with a degree of charisma or charicterization. Challengers doesn't really do that, wanting to get by on style and sex appeal. It's rather amazing that it pulls it off. It's made with spice and zest, trying to dress up a mundane story, doing so with daring cinematography, stinging musical cues, and wardrobe choices that ensure its cast catches the eye, especially Zendaya. It takes talent to take a screenplay this uninteresting and turn it into something visceral.
Unsung Hero
⭐️1/2
Genre: Drama, Faith
Director: Richard Ramsey, Joel Smallbone
Starring: Joel Smallbone, Daisy Betts, Kirrilee Berger, Jonathan Jackson, Candace Cameron Bure, Lucas Black
In what seems to be a love letter to his parents, sister, and family, Joel Smallbone created a film dramatizing their move from Australia to Tennessee in 1991, hoping to break into the music biz. It chronicles the hardships and hurdles his father faced trying to keep their family afloat, and how it eventually lead to his sister taking a record deal under the Christian Rock stage name of Rebecca St. James. It's a sweet gesture, though the film itself is a clumsy, monotonous chore. The messages of perseverance and sharing a burden instead of shouldering it is admirable, but it doesn't plot it out with any sense of progression. It's just hardship, setback, and more hardship pummeling these characters until happy ending, likely an allegory for maintaining faith through adversity. That's fine. It's not interesting, but it's fine. In addition to his behind-the-scenes duties, Joel Smallbone also takes on the role of his father, David. While it's clear he has a degree of hero-worship for him, he is unable to play the role as anybody but someone who is just bitter at his circumstances. Smallbone spends the movie with a deadeye stare paired with a pained grimace on his face, while Daisy Betts, who plays his wife, counteracts it with her own deadeye stare paired with a phoney, perky smile. Just three notches under Pearl's meme-worthy, deadeye smile. If I'm reading the subtext of the performances correctly, they're all THIS CLOSE to a killing spree.
The drama is stunted, thinking if they mask it with the thick stench of shmaltz, nobody will notice. The one good thing I can say about this movie is that it has production values, and unlike a lot of faith movies that wind up in front of me, it actually looks like a professionally made movie. That might not amount to much, but it's a small blessing. None of this probably matters, because it was made for an audience that has already decided that it loves it.
We Grown Now
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: Drama
Director: Minhal Baig
Starring: Blake Cameron James, Gian Knight Ramirez, S. Epatha Merkerson, Lil Rel Howery, Jurnee Smollett
Indie coming-of-age drama sees a pair of Black living life in the Cabrini-Green housing of 1992 Chicago. The film is its own little rollercoaster of life, as we follow these boys in little moments of finding joy during hardship, often followed by them returning to reality in a heavy way. It's a strongly presented depiction of a clinging on to a child's fantastical and optimistic worldview that finds its color drained when it switches to a more adult focus. I think the film can be on-the-nose at times, going out of its way to say what should be subtext out loud in certain moments, but the drama works, and the performers are uniformly excellent. It's not as powerful as it could be, but it's an endearing tale of being a kid in an environment that suppresses it.
Civil War ⭐️⭐️1/2
Dune: Part Two ⭐⭐1/2
The First Omen ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire ⭐️⭐️1/2
Kung Fu Panda 4 ⭐⭐1/2
The Long Game ⭐️⭐️1/2
Monkey Man ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
The Mummy ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Sasquatch Sunset ⭐️⭐️
New To Digital
Arthur the King ⭐️⭐️
Love Lies Bleeding ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Monkey Man ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
New To Physical
The Beekeeper ⭐️⭐️1/2
Coming Soon!
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