MST3K, RiffTrax, and Beyond: Cinema Playground Journal 2025: Week 48 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

Eternity

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre: Comedy, Fantasy

Director: David Freyne

Starring: Elizabeth Olsen, Miles Teller, Callum Turner, John Early, Olga Merediz, Da'Vine Joy Randolph

Congratulations! You're dead! Now you have to make the all important decision of what the rest of eternity is going to be like for your released consciousness. Get it done in one week or you'll be dropped into eternal nothingness. Good luck! This is the situation Miles Teller finds himself in when he chokes on a pretzel and dies suddenly, jumping into an afterlife of a crowded terminal nightmare. Eventually, his wife, Elizabeth Olsen passes away and meets him there so they can plan the rest of their eternity together. However, the situation complicates itself when her first love, deceased soldier Callum Turner, reveals that he has been waiting for her at this junction between both worlds for over sixty years. Now Olsen needs to choose between the rest of eternity with the man she built a life with or the man she never had the chance to. Why she needs to choose is uncertain. There's always the possibility that they could all somehow choose the same eternity and just figure it out from there. That's the main issue with this movie, it's that it really has to contrive its idea in loops to make its conflict work. Everyone in this afterlife seems so taken aback that this situation even happened. I call bullshit on that. A widow who remarried doesn't seem like it should be that unique a circumstance. This absolutely happened before. And the premise of the afterlife is too basic and underdeveloped for it to really hit it off. The premise of this movie hinges on the idea that the afterlife is "just one thing forever" and you have to decide what it is with travel agents at a crowded airport. Are we sure this isn't just Hell? Because this sounds an awful lot like purgatory. It's a played up premise that's wants to enhance the themes of "what was" vs. "what could have been," but it can't take off because it feels strained. The movie's safe space is in performance, especially with Elizabeth Olsen, who is so into her persona of a retro housewife that you could have sworn she got trapped in WandaVision again. It's through these touching human moments that Eternity shines. It's brand of farce just never justifies itself.

The Thing with Feathers

⭐️⭐️

Genre: Drama, Horror

Director: Dylan Southern

Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, David Thewlis

If you ever wanted to see Big Bird kick the crap out of Benedict Cumberbatch, boy do I have a movie for you. Based on a short story, Cumberbatch plays a widower who is grieving the loss of his wife, who eventually finds that he has an unexpected guest living in his home, a giant crow ("He's a wisecracker!") with the voice of David Thewlis. It's a metaphor! ::hammy grin:: The crow ("That's one 'o!'") is grief and he's living with it! In all seriousness, this movie probably could have worked but its reach exceeds its grasp. It wants to be so insightful and empathetic but while it's craftsmanship shows promise, the pieces can't always be taken seriously enough. The movie's primary problem lies with how it has chosen to bring the crow ("I'm different!") character to life, which is wildly inconsistent. The character is played by a man in a suit, which I fully support, and the suit is actually quite nice. Unfortunately, it was obviously constructed to be effective in the shadows and when it needs to take a more prominent role in the story, it doesn't resonate and it becomes unintentionally hilarious. There are points in this movie where the crow ("Oh brother!") is framed beautifully for unsettling effect. They make the portions where it's not filmed effectively loom even funnier. What's worse is that the crow (If you don't get what I'm doing here, you're in the wrong place) has dialogue and the costume isn't versatile enough for that kind of puppetry. He instead talks without moving his mouth, like an old Garfield cartoon. It's a movie that's trying to be powerful that becomes hard to take seriously. But it tried, so I'll give it a pat on the head.

Wake Up Dead Man

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre: Mystery

Director: Rian Johnson

Starring: Daniel Craig, Josh O'Connor, Josh Brolin, Glenn Close, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack, Thomas Hayden Church

By spending an absurd amount of money on the sequel to the 2019 mystery movie Knives Out, Netflix's quest to prove streaming is the place for the hottest movies might have accidentally proved to me that the theatrical experience is irreplaceable. Last month, Netflix's limited theatrical engagement of Frankenstein allowed the viewer to soak in the film's luscious visuals, while my theatrical experience with both Knives Out sequels was a reminder of the thrill of audience engagement, being in a packed house full of people who are fully hooked and going on the same ride that you are. You can watch all of these movies at home, but you only get one first impression, and having that impression while doing laundry or playing on your phone isn't the same. That's probably why Netflix is content with producing as much forgettable garbage as it does, because they're perfect experiences if you're not paying attention to them. Some movies aren't meant to be tossed aside so you can ignore the next movie on the autoplay option. Every once in a while there is something special on there. Probably the best Netflix original movie is Nimona, which I lament not being able to own on blu-ray, while my 4K copy of Knives Out looks lonesome without its siblings.

Wake Up Dead Man is the third movie in this series, which sees Josh Brolin play an angry priest who has been murdered in a seemingly impossible manner. Daniel Craig's famed detective Benoit Blanc is hired to deduce the way the murder had been conducted, or was he killed by an act of God or Satan? Wake Up Dead Man is darker and more measured than the other Benoit Blanc films, to the point where it's probably the least fun to watch. But it also has the wildest and least predictable third act, which makes up a lot of ground. Previous Blanc movies tried to subvert expectations by doing an unconventional presentation of its murder mystery, with both Knives Out and Glass Onion masking what their mysteries actually were until the third act. Wake Up Dead Man is a more conventional mystery by comparison, it just stacks more mysteries on top of each other until the grand finale, where I thoroughly didn't know what the fuck was going on and was happy to hear an explanation. There is a majesty to the way Johnson unfolds his mystery films, though Wake Up Dead Man might be more cumbersome. The film has a lot of characters and it doesn't always know how to incorporate them into the story in a meaningful way, with certain actors only present to be suspects but not actually have a real role in it. Knives Out and Glass Onion were both better at character balance in this regard, but Wake Up Dead Man is certainly a worthy ride to go on for anyone who loved both of those films. With it, Benoit Blanc is establishing himself among the greats of detective fiction, up there with Holmes and Poirot. Though he still has a way to go before he reaches the hights of Shelby Woo.

Zootopia 2

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre: Comedy, Fantasy, Action

Director: Jared Bush, Byron Howard

Starring: Gennifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Ke Huy Kwan, Fortune Feimster, Andy Samberg, David Stratharn, Shakira, Idris Elba, Patrick Warburton

I should probably not get my hopes up when Disney's animation studio decides to do a sequel to one of their movies. The best one was The Rescuers Down Under and it's all been downhill from there. I remember being warm to Fantasia 2000 and Ralph Breaks the Internet was fine, I guess, but Frozen II and Moana 2 were both punches to the gut. Zootopia is one of my favorite Disney animated movies, as the studio/lifestyle brand did their own take on the buddy cop flick with their own style of anthropomorphic animal characters and made a movie that was both very funny and very heartfelt. Both Zootopia and Moana were among my favorite movies of 2016 and Disney's last two animated movies were sequels to both of these. With Moana 2 being an absolute nothing of a movie, should I have any hope for a Zootopia 2? Maybe I had a sliver of one. Moana 2 had an unfortunate production upend that resulted in the film they made, whereas Zootopia 2 was a more straightforward process, so there was a possibility of something better. Besides, the buddy cop genre is sequel saturation at its finest and doing more Zootopia actually kinda makes sense as a genre piece. If the world can have four Lethal Weapon movies, then Zootopia needs at least as many. In buddy cop movie terms, Zootopia 2 one of those sequels that retells a lot of the original's most memorable jokes, only louder, while telling an entertaining, if less dynamic-servicing, story that will please fans of the original. I guess that makes this the Rush Hour 2 of Disney movies. I was kinda hoping for the Bad Boys II of Disney movies, but I'll take it.

The movie takes place a week after the first one. Enthusiastic police bunny Judy Hopps is desperate to keep her momentum from saving the city by doing big time busts, while her sly fox partner Nick Wilde is more concerned about his own skin than actually solving crime. Their latest case leads to a timid snake who might harbor a secret to Zootopia's origins and change the town's perception of itself forever. To be honest, this is a little too lore heavy for me. Zootopia's least interesting aspect is Zootopia itself. I don't much care why animals evolved into a peaceful city. Cartoons have done "animals as stand-ins for people" since their inception and they don't suddenly need an internal logic to this. The story does provide some decent scenery change for the movie, though I'm not totally invested in where it's going, nor does it really feed into the character conflict between Judy and Nick. The duo just kind of trots around on the quest and bicker, sometimes with endearment. I do confess to be a little lost on what their relationship is supposed to be. The screenplay to this movie reads like it's fangirling over shipping Judy and Nick together, which raises a thousand questions about interspecies sexual relations and procreation that I doubt a Disney movie is equipped to answer. But Zootopia has always been an allegory for interracial relations, so I guess I shouldn't care. The final movie holds itself back on defining it as anything beyond platonic, though it always seems excited about potentially opening that door. Maybe Zootopia 3 will explore the meaning of the term "going at it like jackrabbits."

Also, Zootopia already has another evil mayor. After a week. I get that we shouldn't trust politicians but, my god, Zootopia's political system is fucked.

Anyway, I digress. Those are all the things that make Zootopia 2 a little weird, but it's actually a fun little movie. Not as good as the first, but the character dynamics are continually charming. Judy and Nick are still an excellent pairing and the movie is still very funny. Like the first, it's a buddy cop movie for kids and the tropes loan themselves well to the world the film creates. The movie also gets surprisingly dark and heavy during its third act, which is it's strongest portion. I was fully invested in how it was going to play out, even if the ride didn't compare to how charming the original was. For what it's worth, Zootopia 2 is probably the best Disney sequel since Fantasia 2000, and the best Disney animation since Encanto. It's not great, but it's a strong option for family movie night, which is exactly what it wants to be.

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

Now You See Me: Now You Don't ⭐️⭐️1/2

Nuremberg ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Predator: Badlands ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rental Family ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Running Man ⭐️⭐️1/2

Sisu: Road to Revenge ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Tron: Ares ⭐️⭐️

Wicked: For Good ⭐️⭐️1/2

New To Digital

Blue Moon ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Bugonia ⭐️⭐️⭐️