It’s a new year, and what you might have already noticed on the site is I changed how things look. Same info, just a different style. One addition on the reviews you will see below is I am including the premise at the start of each review. By doing that, I can go right into my thoughts more smoothly. This week, there is one last film from 2025 (the 189th of the year), and the first three of the new year. On to the reviews!
Now that Dan’s assassin days are behind him, all he wants for Christmas is quality time with his kids. But when he learns his daughter has her own plans, he books a family trip to London, putting them all in the crosshairs of an unexpected enemy.
2023’s The Family Plan was aggressively average. I gave that one a 2.5, so I guess progress. I’m not sure what was the reason for that increase though. This was a forgettable hour and 40 minutes. I thought the action sequences were good, and I thought adding Kit Harrington and Reda Elazouar were good decisions. What I didn’t think we really needed, other that a sequel in the first place, was keeping the story so close to the original. It felt a little like running it back, and if Apple decides the world needs The Family Plan 3, I am not sure where it would go other than doing the same thing over again for a third time. No body is bad in this one, but nobody is great either. The film just kind of happens, just in Europe in the grand tradition of sequels going overseas, like the Vacation series did with 1983’s European Vacation. This isn’t really a film you should grab an Apple TV+ account for, but if you have one, there are worse ways to spend your time. What are you going to watch instead on the platform? The Gorge? I didn’t think so.
A socially awkward 12-year-old endures the ruthless hierarchy at a water polo camp, his anxiety spiraling into psychological turmoil over the summer.
This film premiered last May at Cannes. What I took out of this film was being a kid is tough. When people say they want to go back to being a kid, they seem to forget about why it is a bad idea. We all know a version of all the kids in this film. We know, or maybe were, the bully, the socially awkward kid, the maybe autistic one, or the followers that just want to be in the cool group. This is a true fact for every person. It is why watching this film about bullying at water polo camp so interesting. We follow shy Ben as he arrives at a summer water polo camp. He meets his fellow campers, and all but one are a group a of fowl kids that gravitate around cool Jake. The only outsider is Eli, who has a rash problem and is “weird”, that the others pretend he is untouchable and had the titular plague. I will just say now what you as an adult kind of can guess: the plague isn’t a real thing. It’s just a way to alienate the wierdos and make your own group feel stronger. We see this through Ben who at first is in the “good” group, but he dares to have compassion for Eli, and finds himself in the same situation. What we watch is the panic that so many of us have felt when you feel the world is just falling apart. He is 12 after all. Being thought of as cool is still the most important thing. The story does go in a direction I didn’t think it would in the third act, but it still works. I did like the scenes where Joel Edgerton (who plays the coach) attempts to be the adult. Nearly all of these attempts fails because it is a group of 12 & 13-year-olds. I’ve seen people compare this to Lord of the Flies and I don’t think we are at that point in this one. Ben never really had a chance to fit in with the cool group. Jake clocks Ben can’t say his T’s when he first meets the group, so he was marked as weirdo right away. It was just a matter of time before he got the plague too. I wouldn’t say this is a fun watch, or a difficult one. It is an interesting one though, and one to seek out on I think Shudder in a couple months.
A successful black businessman, haunted by his crumbling marriage and identity crisis, is drawn into a sexualized game of cat and mouse with a mysterious white woman on a subway that could lead to violent possibilities.
Another festival premiere, this time March’s South by Southwest. Oh man was this a tough one to sit through. It was just a mess in my mind. The basis of the film is Clay’s (Andre Holland) wife Kaya has cheated on him. After a session of marriage counseling, the Doctor leading the session (Stephen McKinley Henderson) tells Clay a play called The Dutchman. While heading to a political rally, he comes across Lula (Kate Mara) on the train, and the plot stumbles on from there. I say that as before he gets on the train, the film itself gives away the ending. It’s not exactly subtle. Mara is the only one bringing life into this film, but her character wears out pretty quickly. The saving grace is this was under 90 minutes in length, so there is that. Holland also gets his moment in the third act, but after sleepwalking through the first 70 minutes, it doesn’t save things. It’s super early to say this, but this film has a chance to go the distance in the Bottom 10 this year.
In 1977, a technology expert flees from a mysterious past and returns to his hometown of Recife in search of peace. He soon realizes that the city is far from being the refuge he seeks.
Second Cannes premiere this week, but this one fared better. It competed for the Palme d’Or (losing to It Was Just an Accident), and had two winners: Wagner Moura for Best Actor and Mendonca Filho for Best Director. When we get to the Oscars in March, this should be a player. It is a shoe in for an International nom (it is Brazil’s entry), and has a good chance to show up in Actor, Director, and Picture. We will know for sure about all of that in a few weeks.
So, what did I think of it? Well, to get into that, I’ll have to talk spoilers, so if you want this unspoiled, move along. Ok, this was kind of a mess. There are two storylines that make up the film. Our “A” one following Moura’s Armando, and the “B” one following the aftermath of a shark attack. These two storylines barely if at all intersect, and the “A” makes a whole lot more sense. Moura is great in this, but we never get too much into either his backstory, or even how he got to the point where hit men are sent after him. It’s already a pretty long film, so if you replaced at least half of the nonsense storyline, you could at least get a little more of what led to the events of the other one. The film never gets boring. It just fells like we are being led to something that never comes. I didn’t need a happy ending, but I did need one that didn’t feel like it ends abruptly, then switches to something else to close the film. There is one other part of this I will keep secret that kind of acts like a framing device that I didn’t think needed to be there. There was a lot of potential in this film that I think many others did see, but I just couldn’t. I certainly see why it’s an Oscar contender, but for me, I still have No Other Choice and It Was Just an Accident above it on the International side.
Avatar has been in first place for going on 3 weeks, but it shouldn’t take too much for Greenland’s sequel to overtake it for the top spot.
- Greenland 2: Migration
- Avatar: Fire & Ash
- Primate
- Zootopia 2
- Marty Supreme
I have developed a special hatred for the trailer for Primate, and thankfully that is what I think the Screen Unseen is tonight. That means I shouldn’t see that trailer anymore. Later in the week is Greenland 2: Migration on Thursday, and Father Mother Sister Brother some day this weekend.
Mitten Film Nerd 
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