Thanks to Evil Does Not Exist expanding out to my area, for the first time since the week of March 18th I have 4 movies talk about this week. Two of the were awful. Which ones are they? On to the reviews!
Netflix movies are hit or miss. Sometimes you get a great one (Hit Man) and sometimes you get a bad dumb one (Damsel). This was a dumb one. Set sometime in the future in a world where AI has taken over, it’s up to Jennifer Lopez to stop Simu Liu’s AI terrorist. I may have simplified the plot down there, but that basically is all there is. Every other character other than Sterling K. Brown’s character is barely present. It’s just a lot of López talking to a computer voice. Any scene where she is in danger has zero tension in it since you know she will make it through.
That is the problem with this movie, by making it a point to clear out any allies she has on an alien planet, you know she will have plot armor until the end of the movie. That is unless the movie goes bleak and she doesn’t survive, which would have only made this a more pointless movie. Also, this was a 90 minute movie at best. Two hours is a reach, and since it’s on Netflix, it would be interesting to see how many people turn the movie off part way through. Netflix would never share that though.
I won’t waste time like this movie did. It’s terrible, and makes so little sense. The plot is a serial killer played by J.K. Simmons chases a girl through the woods. That’s it. I know why Simmons chose to be in this movie. His wife is the director and writer, and his daughter has a small part in it. That doesn’t mean it was a great choice. His character is so underwritten. They kind of show why he snaps and starts killing people ( one of his students in his survival class says “those who can’t do, teach“), but there is no reason why he chooses to terrorize the family of our main character. As for her character, I know in this kind of movie, the stalkee can’t be too smart, but maybe not have an app that shows where you are all the time so the person trying to kill you will always find you? It’s the little things sometimes. There are so many better things you can do with 100 minutes. Don’t bother with this movie..
I only planned on three films this week, but after watching two stinkers already, I thought this post needed something better this week. So when I saw this was playing near me, I added it to the schedule. This is Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s next film after 2021’s Drive My Car. This film won the Grand Jury Prize at last year’s Venice International Film Festival, losing to Poor Things for the Golden Lion. This newest one is definitely shorter than Drive My Car, which was a hair below 3 hours long. That isn’t to say this one doesn’t feel longer than it really is though. Nearly every scene is so, so long that it might start to wear on you a bit. While quite a few of them are beautify tranquil to watch, there came a point where I was ready to move on. For example, there will be a static shot of a landscape, and a character will enter on one side of the shot at a fair distance away from where we are. We then watch them walk all the way across the screen until the exit on the other side of the shot. Imagine this over a large amount of the screentime. You ability to sit through that might vary.
What kept me going was the glimpses of the plot we get through the landscape adventures. The film can be boiled down to a very simple summary: A group from Tokyo is planning to construct a glamping resort for tourists that could possible ruin the resources for the area that the residents there find sacred. The film highlights the disconnect of the “sophisticated” city dwellers and the perceived “simple” country folk in one scene that gave us brief look at what the people of the countryside have inevitably coming for them. What I found jarring though was the final 10 minutes or so. What happens in there I won’t share here, but while I know what they were trying to say with it, it just didn’t really mesh with the story that was told up to that point. I’m sure when I watch this again, It might open up a little more, but for now it just left me puzzled as to why it ended in such a way.
This was a mixed bad of a movie. On the down side first, Martin Lawerence really wears on me, and Marcus was a little more annoying in this one than in the previous three entries. The trailer monster struck this movie, with a lot of the movie in the trailer. What I did like is what this series always is good with: the action. The last 30 minutes was fun to watch, and it makes up a lot of the movie that didn’t work. It was still good to watch, even though it was a little long in the first half.
Next week will depend on if parents decide to stay home and wait for Inside Out 2 to hit Disney+. Still, there should be more than enough people seeing it in theaters for it to win next weekend. Its competition isn’t very impressive otherwise.
- Inside Out 2
- Bad Boys: Ride or Die
- IF
- The Garfield Movie
- The Watchers
Inside Out made me cry. I’m not asking a lot from the sequel this week. Just make me feel something. Pixar movies used to do just that. Hopefully, it’s a return to form.
Mitten Film Nerd 
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