I’ve been off from reviewing for a few weeks. I had a Florida trip that was taking my attention. That intersected my adventure with COVID, which ended this past week. Now, I’m back on my normal routine, just in time for me to get in Oscars mode. More on that next week. On to the reviews!
Films based on Stephen King works are a tricky thing. We haven’t had a arguably good one since maybe 2019’s In the Tall Grass. Since then, we have had a shaky It Chapter 2, another Children of the Corn entry, and remakes of Firestarter and Salem’s Lot that didn’t need to exist. Having said that, we have three new adaptations this year that are all high on my list of what I am looking forward to. Mike Flanigan’s The Life of Chuck is being released in June, and the Edgar Wright The Running Man remake will be in November. Before those two come out though, we have Osgood Perkin’s next feature based on the short story The Monkey from King’s 1985 anthology collection Skeleton Crew. With this being Perkin’s follow up after Longlegs, my interest was there right away. The story is not complicated, and that isn’t a bad thing. You aren’t here for the complex plot. We follow a pair of twins (who hate each other) that find their Dad’s toy drumming monkey, and when they turn the key it’s back, someone dies in horrible way. 25 years later, the toy is back in play, and at least one of the twin’s, played by Theo James, wants to end the madness.
The cast is fun here because everyone knows the absurd film they are part of. Tatiana Maslany is especially good as the twin’s mother Lois. If I had to poke at this film a little, I thought the first 30 minutes of the film was kind of a drag. We really didn’t need all that time to see the twin’s despise each other. I’d say that we could have cut some of it out, but this is already a 98 minute film, and there isn’t a lot of fluff here. It is a constant stream of off the wall, gory deaths that are mainly played for laughs. That is a good thing, because if Perkins didn’t frame this as a dark comedy, this might not have worked as well. If you are like me, and get squeamish with gore, you are hit with it in the first 5 minutes and it never stops. After awhile, I didn’t really notice the icky stuff as much. I’m not sure that is a comforting thing for me.
On my Letterboxd account, I have a list of the MCU entries ranked. That shouldn’t really surprise you. On that ranking, Captain America: Civil War and Captain America: The Winter Soldier are both in the Top 10 comfortably. While I like 2021’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Cap not being Steve Rogers anymore was kind of weird. It isn’t because Sam is a bad character, or a bad Cap. It is just always going to be weird having different Captain Americas. “Weirdness” is a good word to use for Brave New World. It is weird having Sterns back like the MCU is not pretending 2008’s The Incredible Hulk was a thing. Tim Blake Nelson was ok in this, but The Leader was kind of a lame villain here. Also, Giancarlo Esposito was kind of wasted here as the secondary villain, Sidewinder.
The big new change here is Harrison Ford playing Thaddeus Ross. Thunderbolt had been played by William Hurt over five movies, but unfortunately he lost his battle with prostate cancer in 2022, so the role had to be recast. It isn’t like Ford is bad here. He very much isn’t. It is just some of the emotional moments he has regarding his daughter Betty (Liv Tyler is back here) that just don’t have the punch that they certainly would have had if Hurt were still playing the character. Again, there isn’t anything they could do about that, and things went the best they could have. The only part of this movie I didn’t like was Danny Ramirez’s Joaquin Torres, the new Falcon. I know that was coming since it was teased in FatWS, but he is just so annoying in parts, and even the characters in the film know that.
This entry in the series was just two hours of meh. Nothing was bad, but only a couple movements were cool or nice. Anthony Mackie is great as Sam, and he is a good Cap, but with him not being a “super”, there is only so much he can do. I did find it kind of hilarious that he was able to fight Thunderbolt in his Red Hulk form, and he didn’t get crushed. That sequence had a moment where you could see the reported reshoots clearly. It looked like we were watching a Disney+ series for a bit. This isn’t the death knell of the MCU by any means, but after this one, there is added pressure on May’s Thunderbolts* and July’s The Fantastic Four to be hits. We seem to be coming closer and closer to the end of this MCU ride. We certainly don’t need another solo Cap adventure.
The Paddington series of films might just be the greatest kid’s series we have. It certainly might be the most consistent. All three are really good, but 2017’s Paddington 2 is by far the best of the trilogy. Peru might be the weakest of the three, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad by any means. It is basically a road trip adventure movie, which is just so different from the first two. We replace London as a location to being primarily in Peru for the runtime. We are there because Paddington’s Aunt Lucy has gone missing from the Home for Retired Bears, and it’s up to Paddington and the rest of the Brown family to find her. Our new characters in this are a nun played by Olivia Coleman, and a boat captain played by Antonio Banderas. Both are good here, and work better than Kidman did in the first one, but really fail to reach the highs that Hugh Grant got to.
There are a couple reasons why this one was a small step back for me. First, Paul King did not return to direct the third installment. He is part of the story writing team on this, but he chose to leave the director spot to go do Wonka. I think we have seen that wasn’t too bad a decision by him. Still, this entry just feels different in not a good way. Also not returning is Sally Hawkins as Mary. She is replaced by Emily Mortimer, and while her version of Mary isn’t bad, it’s a completely different character. However, you aren’t watching the movie for the humans. Ben Whishaw is still great as Paddington, and the major reason why these films are thought of so highly. All the emotion in the film runs through him, and it’s very effective. This is a very good option to take the kids to see a movie. It is fun for them, and the bigger themes should work for the adults. As long as you don’t have a fear of spiders like Henry (and me) do….
This next weekend is going to be interesting. We only have one major release, The Monkey, so it will be a week to see how other movies do after they have already been in theaters. I’m not the only one who thinks Cap is going to plummet in week 2, but with such a weak set of options, it will still be towards the top of the weekend. Paddington though should be the new kids film to live in the Top 5 for weeks to come. The only real competition it will have next month is The Day the Earth Blew Up in 4 weeks or Snow White in 5 weeks.
- Paddington in Peru
- The Monkey
- Captain America: Brave New World
- Dog Man
- The Unbreakable Boy
I have a double feature Monday since it’s a day off for me. Obviously, Screen Unseen is the nightcap, but I finally see I’m Still Here earlier in the day. That is one of the films I had to cancel due to COVID. There is also The Gorge sometime this week. That’s an Apple release, so when I watch it is more flexible.
Mitten Film Nerd 
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