Rose Byrne Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem,’ starring the voices of Nicolas Cantu, Brady Noon, Shamon Brown Jr., Micah Abbey, Ayo Edebiri, Ice Cube and Jackie Chan

July 31, 2023

by Carla Hay

Michelangelo, aka Mikey (voiced by Shamon Brown Jr.); Donatello, aka Donnie (voiced by Micah Abbey); Leonardo, aka Leo (voiced by Nicolas Cantu); and Raphael, aka Raph (voiced by Brady Noon), in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” (Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem”

Directed by Jeff Rowe; co-directed by Kyler Spears

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, the animated film “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” features a cast of characters portraying mutant animals and a racially diverse mix of humans representing the middle-class and working-class.

Culture Clash: Four crime-fighting hero brothers, who happen to be teenage mutant ninja turtles, team up with a teenage aspiring journalist, to stop a mutant insect named Superfly from his plans to enslave and torture humans worldwide.

Culture Audience: Besides appealing to the obvious target audience of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” franchise fans, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching comical adventure animation that various generations of people can enjoy.

April O’Neil (voiced by Ayo Edebiri); Raphael, aka Raph (voiced by Brady Noon)l Leonardo, aka Leo (voiced by Nicolas Cantu); Donatello, aka Donnie (voiced by Micah Abbey); and Michelangelo, aka Mikey (voiced by Shamon Brown Jr.), in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” (Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” is a vibrant example of how good storytelling, talented cast members, and appealing visuals can make animation the ideal format for the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” franchise. “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” started out as a comic book series in 1984. It has since spawned several animated series and films (live-action and animated), as well as albums, live tours and a seemingly never-ending supply of merchandise. “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” is among the best of what the franchise has to offer.

Directed by Jeff Rowe and co-directed by Kyler Spears, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” doesn’t do anything radically different with the basic concept of the franchise. The story still takes place in New York City, where four teenage mutant ninja turtle brothers grew up in the city’s sewers and now fight crime. Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Jeff Rowe, Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit wrote the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” screenplay.

What’s different about “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” is that the movie is much more centered around the teenage characters than the live-action “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” movies, which tended to give human adults about the same amount of screen time. The chief villain in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” is not human, but a giant mutant insect named Superfly.

The four mutant turtles brothers have distinct personalities, signature colors and preferred weapons that identify each brother.

Michelangelo, also known as Mikey (voiced by Shamon Brown Jr.), is the level-headed leader of the group. His signature color is blue. His preferred weapons are katanas.
Raphael, also known as Raph (voiced by Brady Noon), is the hot-tempered and physically strongest brother, who often clashes with Mike over decisions. Raph’s signature color is red. His preferred weapons are sai.
Donatello, also known as Donnie (voiced by Micah Abbey), is the mild-mannered tech expert of the group and the brother who’s most likely to be a peacemaker in fights between Mikey and Raph. Donnie’s signature color is purple. His preferred weapon is an oak Bō.
Leonardo, also known as Leo (voiced by Nicolas Cantu), is the goofy and impulsive brother who is the one most likely to want to party. His signature color is orange. His preferred weapons are nunchucks.

Do viewers have to know the above information about the brothers before seeing “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem”? No, but it helps viewers tell these characters apart quicker than viewers who are unfamiliar with these characters. The brothers’ origin story is explained early in the movie, which generally does a good job of setting up the story for people who might be seeing these characters for the first time.

In the beginning of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem,” it’s shown how these mutant characters came to be. An eccentric scientist names Baxter Stockman (voiced by Giancarlo Esposito) went rogue and created mutants from animals that he kept in his lab. His lab was eventually raided by the government. Stockman died during this raid, but he left behind a toxic ooze that can turn any being into a mutant.

Four baby turtles managed to escape from the raid and were found and raised by a mutant rat Splinter (voiced by Jackie Chan), a jaded but very overprotective adoptive father who kept the four brothers hidden in the sewers with. When the brothers became old enough to be curious about the outside world where humans live, Splinter reluctantly gave in to the brothers’ pestering to take them outside.

The experience did not go well at all. Upon emerging in the middle of Times Square, this mutant family was attacked and taunted by humans, out of fear and hatred. Splinter vowed never to take the brothers above ground again. But now that the brothers are teenagers, they want to defy a parent’s rules, as teenagers tend to do. These brother turtles have been sneaking out at night and fighting crimes, but they have to do so in disguise (they wear masks) and as mysterious and elusive heroes.

“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” has many themes about “fitting in” to society, trying to find self-acceptance, and experiencing prejudice based on outward appearances. The turtle brothers long to be part of the human world but can only watch from a certain distance. While many human teenagers in high school think school is to confining, the turtle brothers feel confined in their own environment and are fascinated with wanting to go to high school, which represents freedom to the turtle brothers.

One night, the turtle brothers help a human teenager named April O’Neil (voiced by Ayo Edebiri), who’s about 16 or 17 years old, after her scooter is stolen. (The character of April is usually an adult in other “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle” stories.) April (who is an aspiring investigative journalist) is smart and witty, but she has her own “misfit” issues because she’s bullied at school and is somewhat of a social outcast with her student peers. She’s been given the unflattering nickname Puke Girl by some of the school bullies because of an incident when she vomited out of nervousness during the school’s live closed-circuit TV newscast. Meanwhile, Mikey develops a crush on April and gets a little bit of teasing about it from Raph.

The word is out that there’s a criminal mastermind who’s plotting to destroy the world. His named is Superfly (voiced by Ice Cube), a swaggering mutant insect, who has a hatred of humans because of the way he was treated by humans. Superfly has a gang of mutant accomplices, of course. These sidekicks include Leatherhead (voiced by Rose Byrne), Mondo Gecko (voiced by Paul Rudd), Ray Fillet (voiced by Post Malone), Genghis Frog (voiced by Hannibal Buress) and Wingnut (voiced by Natasia Demetriou).

The turtle brothers team up with April to try to stop Superfly, with the hope that if they succeed, then human society will finally accept the turtle brothers. In addition to battling Superfly, the turtle brothers also have to contend with a nemesis named Cynthia Utrom (voiced by Maya Rudolph), a government official who was responsible for the raid that led to Dr. Stockman’s demise. Cynthia is menacing in a bureaucratic way, unlike Superfly’s street-tough methods. Other supporting characters are two dimwitted mutants: warthog Bebop (played by Rogen, one of the producers of the movie) and rhinoceros Rocksteady (voiced by John Cena), who both bring some comic relief with their buffonery.

All of the principal cast members do admirable jobs of making their characters memorable and with identifable personalities, while the animation is a combination of gritty and gorgeous. Superfly is a ruthless “gangster” villain (Ice Cube plays this role to the hilt), but the movie also shows Superfly as an example of someone who was bullied who ends up becoming a worse bully than his tormentors. Another standout is Edebiri in her voice role as April, who has a lot of heart and relatable humanity, thanks to Edebiri’s engaging performance.

Fortunately for viewers, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” doesn’t over-complicate its “good versus evil” plot. The action sequences are entertaining to watch, while the dialogue is often laugh-out-loud funny. “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” doesn’t get preachy about it, but amid all the cartoonish fun is a cautionary message about the repercussions of mistreating others. The movie ends on a cliffhanger, but there’s so much to like about “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem,” many viewers will still want a sequel, even if there had been no cliffhanger.

Paramount Pictures will release “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” in U.S. cinemas on August 2, 2023.

Review: ‘Insidious: The Red Door,’ starring Ty Simpkins, Patrick Wilson, Sinclair Daniel, Hiam Abbass, Andrew Astor and Rose Byrne

July 6, 2023

by Carla Hay

“Insidious: The Red Door”

Directed by Patrick Wilson

Culture Representation: Taking place on the East Coast of the United States, the horror film “Insidious: The Red Door” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Latinos and African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: Divorced father Josh Lambert and his estranged teenage son Dalton continue to find terror in their astral projection abilities where they can see and communicate with spirits from a ghostly realm.

Culture Audience: Besides appealing to the obvious target audience of the “Insidious” movie franchise, “Insidious: The Red Door” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star/director Patrick Wilson and horror movies that dumb everything down.

Patrick Wilson in “Insidious: The Red Door” (Photo by Boris Martin/Screen Gems)

“Insidious: The Red Door” is a poorly constructed and dull horror movie with subplots that go nowhere. The movie’s ending is a mishmash of lazy and ineffective jump scares. It’s disappointing, because the story had potential but is badly mishandled. “Insidious: The Red Door” is an example of a sequel that’s leeching off of the name recognition of the original movie but doesn’t deliver anything close to the quality of the original film.

Directed by Patrick Wilson and written by Scott Teems, “Insidious: The Red Door” is the fifth movie in the “Insidious” series. “Insidious: The Red Door” is also Wilson’s feature-film directorial debut. Wilson co-stars in “Insidious: The Red Door,” as well as the first “Insidious” movie (released in 2010) and 2013’s “Insidious: Chapter 2.” The other previous movies in the series are the prequel “Insidious: Chapter 3” (released in 2015) and 2018’s “Insidious: The Last Key.” Most of the stars from these first two “Insidious” movies are in “Insidious: The Red Door.” Unfortunately, they returned for an embarrassing sequel.

“Insidious: The Red Door” takes place in an unnamed U.S. state on the East Coast and was filmed in New York state and New Jersey. The movie begins shortly after the end of “Insidious: Chapter 2,” when the middle-class Lambert family has gone through another ordeal with evil spirits inhabiting a realm called The Further. Family patriarch Josh Lambert (played by Wilson) and his oldest child Dalton (played by Ty Simpkins) have the abilities to astral project and go into The Further, where they become invisible in the real world but visible to the spirits and other entities that exist in The Further.

Spoiler alert for those who haven’t seen “Insidious: Chapter 2”: Dalton and Josh were both trapped in The Further and managed to escape by the end of the movie. The plots of the first two “Insidious” movies are mentioned in conversations and in flashbacks in “Insidious: The Red Door.” Anyone who sees “Insidious: The Red Door” but not the first two “Insidious” movies will be getting a lot of spoiler information about the first two “Insidious” movies in “Insidious: The Red Door,” whether people like it or not.

The opening scene of “Insidious: The Red Door” shows Josh and 10-year-old Dalton undergoing hypnosis so they won’t remember what happened to them in The Further. Other members of the family are in the same room, including Josh’s wife Renai Lambert (played by Rose Byrne) and Josh’s mother Lorraine (played by Barbara Hershey), who look like they were the ones who wanted this hypnosis to happen. Dalton’s two younger siblings are brother Foster and sister Kali. During this hypnosis, which is performed by an unseen female priest (voiced by Dagmara Dominczyk), Dalton is told that he will only remember that he was in a coma.

The movie then fast-forwards nine years later. Josh and Renai are now divorced. Josh, Renai, Dalton, Foster (played by Andrew Astor) and Kali (played by Juliana Davies) are at a graveside funeral cerrmony for Lorraine, who passed away after an illness. Dalton is now a mopey 19-year-old who’s about to go away to an art college somewhere on the East Coast. The college is not close to where his parents live but it’s far enough away that it requires a road trip. Dalton is a talented illustrator, so you know what that means: Dalton will be sketching a lot of creepy drawings in this movie.

Foster is about 15 or 16 years old. Kali is about 10 or 11 years old. At the graveside, Kali mournfully says that she misses her grandmother. Dalton cynically replies that dead people don’t miss living people. Renai comforts Kali by saying that it’s not true and that Lorraine misses Kali too. Dalton is firm in his belief that there’s no such thing as the afterlife. He will soon change his mind.

Dalton and Josh have a tension-filled relationship where they are barely on speaking terms. Renai suggests that it might be a good idea for Josh to be the one to drive Dalton off to college and perhaps mend their father/son rift during this road trip. After the graveside ceremony, Josh is sitting alone in his parked car when he decides to text Dalton with this road trip proposal. Josh doesn’t notice (but viewers can see) that the ghost of a man is right behind the car. It’s later revealed who this man is. It’s enough to say that he has the names Smash Face and Ben Burton (played by David Call) in the movie.

Dalton reluctantly agrees to let Josh drive him off to college, where Dalton will be living on campus. During the trip, they argue. Josh, whose father abandoned the family when he was a boy, thinks that Dalton is ungrateful and should feel lucky that Josh wants to be a part of Dalton’s life. Dalton thinks that Josh was too much of an absentee father after the divorce.

When they arrive at the campus and start moving Dalton’s possessions in his dorm room, they argue some more. Josh feels hurt and rejected when he sees that Dalton is putting up illustrations on the wall of all of Dalton’s relatives except for Josh. In the middle of this family tension, Dalton’s roommate suddenly arrives. She’s a young woman named Chris Winslow (played by Sinclair Daniel), who is talkative, sarcastic and a little offbeat.

There’s a not-very-believable explanation that Chris was assigned to this room because she has a unisex name, and the college’s housing staff assumed that she was male. (Most colleges have a policy for first-year students to have on-campus roommates who are of the same gender. ) Dalton and Josh say that they didn’t expect to her to be female, so Chris graciously says that she’ll make other living arrangements with the campus’ housing staff.

After the argument that Dalton and Josh have on the day that Dalton moves into his dorm room, Dalton dismisses Josh with a brusque comment when Josh is about to leave: “No wonder Mom divorced you. Thanks for the ride.” “Insidious: The Red Door” eventually shows why Josh and Renai got divorced, in a scene that’s a ripoff from a well-known horror movie from the 1980s. (Hint: It’s a movie based on a Stephen King novel.)

Josh has no memory of the horror experiences that he’s had, but he senses that there are parts of his life that are unexplained, dark secrets. He mentions early in the movie that he feels like his brain has become foggy and that he’s losing his memory skills. Later in the movie, there’s a fairly insipid scene of Josh testing his memory skills by taping family photos backwards on a window in his house and trying to remember who is in each photo.

A red door is a portal to The Further, but don’t expect much to be happening with the “red door” part of “Insidious: The Red Door” until the last third of the film. The first two-thirds of the movie are a boring slog of Dalton and Chris adjusting to college life and to each other as roommates. Dalton starts to have hallucinations, while Chris tries to get Dalton to open up about himself. Dalton, just like Josh, feels there are secretive things in his life that are buried in his psyche, but he doesn’t quite know what they are.

Expect to see repetitive scenes of people seeing ghosts and then “waking up” as if they just had a nightmare. It happens to Josh. It happens to Dalton. And it eventually happens to Chris. There’s a time-wasting scene where Josh has a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan, and visions from his past come back to haunt him. Dr. Phillip Brower (played by E. Roger Mitchell), who gives Josh the MRI scan, tells that Josh was asleep the entire time that Josh insists that he was being attacked by menacing people.

Dalton is anti-social and doesn’t want to go a frat house party thrown by a fraternity that Josh was a member of when Josh was in college. Chris doesn’t really care about the frat party either, but she convinces Josh that they should go to this party together, if only to make fun of the ridiculousness that will happen at the party. It’s at this party that Josh begins to find out that he can see dead people.

There’s an insecure dork with the name Nick the Dick (played by Peter Dager), who’s some kind of leader of the fraternity. At the party, Dalton witnesses a student (played by Stephen Gray) vomiting in Nick’s bathroom toilet. There’s a backstory about this student that’s one of the unfinished subplots. The main purpose of introducing this mystery character seems to be to have a gross-out scene later involving much more vomit. Nick gets into a conflict with Chris, who kicks Nick in the groin after Nick calls her a “clown.”

“Insidious: The Red Door” also wastes time showing Dalton in class sessions taught by his pretentious and frequently cruel art teacher Professor Armagan (played by Hiam Abbass), who seems to enjoy humiliating students and expelling them from her class whenever she feels like it. However, Dalton is spared from the wrath of Professor Armagan because she like his drawings. Not surprisingly, Dalton’s drawings become increasingly macabre when Professor Armagan orders her students to dig deep into their souls and draw what they feel.

Dalton ends up drawing a red door with a demon outside. He accidentally cuts himself after making this illustration, and the blood becomes a long stain on the drawing. You can easily predict what will happen next. (Hint: It involves The Further and a lot of “daddy issues.”) But all of it is just so jumbled and ridiculous, with one flimsy horror scene after another. The average “Insidious” fan could’ve written a better screenplay than this mess.

“Insidious: The Red Door” also throws in cameos of familiar characters from “Insidious” Chapter 2,” as if these cameos will somehow make “Insidious: The Red Door” any better. They don’t. Lin Shaye, who has the role of psychic/medium Elise Rainier, shows up in archival video footage and in someone’s visions. Her screen time in “Insidious: The Red Door” is less than five minutes. Her appearance in “Insidious: The Red Door” is expected, but ultimately it’s very underwhelming.

Leigh Whannell, who wrote the first four “Insidious” movies, returns with Angus Sampson as their respective characters of Specs and Tucker, two paranormal investigators, who are only seen on a TV screen in “Insidious: The Red Door.” Steve Coulter reprises his role as Carl (a former colleague of Elise’s), in a cameo where Carl shows up at Lorraine’s funeral and has a brief conversation with Josh, who doesn’t remember Carl. All these cameos do is remind “Insidious” fans that the first two “Insidious” movies are still the best of the series.

The acting performances in “Insidious” The Red Door” are adequate. Simpkins has the most difficult role to play, since his Dalton character goes through the most emotional and physical ups and downs. Wilson has some depth as Josh, but this character has become an annoying whiner going through a midlife crisis. Daniel’s Chris character, who acts like she dropped in from a young-adult sitcom, is an awkward sidekick to Dalton. “Insidious: The Red Door” keeps bungling what could have been an intriguing story. It will make “Insidious” fans think that the door should remain shut on these characters who were brought back for a painfully awful movie.

Screen Gems will release “Insidious: The Red Door” in U.S. cinemas on July 7, 2023.

Review: ‘Spirited’ (2022), starring Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds

December 24, 2022

by Carla Hay

Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell in “Spirited” (Photo courtesy of Apple Studios)

“Spirited” (2022)

Directed by Sean Anders

Culture Representation: Taking place in Minnesota, New York City and briefly in Vancouver, the musical comedy film “Spirited” (a reimagining of “A Christmas Carol”) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans, Asians and Latinos) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: The Ghost of Christmas Present is determined to redeem a corrupt media strategist who is considered irredeemable.

Culture Audience: “Spirited” will appeal primarily to fans of “A Christmas Carol,” musical comedies, and stars Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds.

Octavia Spencer in “Spirited” (Photo courtesy of Apple Studios)

“Spirited” revels in being a campy, musical reimagining of “A Christmas Carol,” the classic 1843 novella by Charles Dickens. The movie combines formulaic comedy with unexpected plot twists and catchy songs. The cast members also look like they’re having fun, which brings some enjoyment to watching. With a total running time of 127 minutes, “Spirited” has a sluggish middle section that somewhat drains the movie of its lively musical energy with too much dialogue. However, “Spirited” recovers in the last third of the movie, with a tone that is expected but plot developments that might surprise many viewers.

Directed by Sean Anders (who co-wrote the “Spirited” screenplay with John Morris), “Spirited” begins by showing the Ghost of Christmas Yet-to-Come, also known as Yet-to-Come (played by Loren G. Woods and voiced by Tracy Morgan), who looks like a Grim Reaper. Yet-to-Come is haunting Ms. Karen Blansky (played by Rose Byrne) in a graveyard. She has apparently been a mean-spirited person, who is about to be punished by the ghost. Before the ghost plunges her underneath the ground, she begs for mercy and promises that she will not yell at the neighbors’ children any more.

Luckily for Karen, the ghost only wants to scare her into redeeming herself. Karen wakes up to find out that her life has been spared. And she decides to turn her life around and become a friendly person. She’s seen playing outdoor hockey with the neighborhood kids, using a round Christmas ornament instead of a hockey puck. Now that Karen has become a better person, time temporarily freezes, and several ghosts from the afterlife appear to sanction this redemption.

The Ghost of Christmas Present (played by Will Ferrell), also known as Present, says in a voiceover: “That’s what we do: We haunt someone, we change them into a better person, and we sing about it.” The ghosts then go back to their afterlife “headquarters” to celebrate this successful redemption. The other ghosts who work at the afterlife “headquarters” include the Ghost of Christmas Past (played by Sunita Mani), also known as Past, who is fun-loving and somewhat sarcastic, and ghost supervisor Marley (played by Patrick Page), who is a no-nonsense taskmaster.

Present has been dead since the 1800s and has spent the past 46 seasons redeeming people. A human-resources employee named Margot (played by Lily Sullivan) asks Present if he will ever retire and suggests that he should, but he’s not ready to retire. Present later reveals what he will get if he retires: a watch, a Sephora gift card, and a chance to go back to Earth and relive his life as a human.

One of the reasons why he doesn’t want to retire yet is that he has his sights set on redeeming what the ghosts call a “perp” (short for perpetrator): Someone who is their next target to haunt and possibly redeem. His name is Clint Briggs (played by Ryan Reynolds), the owner/president of Briggs Media Group, a consulting firm whose specialty is creating toxic controversy for publicity and profits.

Marley looks at the file on Clint and thinks that Clint is irredeemable and says it’s not worth trying to save Clint. Present vehemently disagrees and threatens to quit and retire if the group doesn’t try to redeem Clint. Marley reluctantly agrees because he doesn’t really want to lose this valuable ghost employee. Clint’s work has a worldwide influence, so Present believes that if Clint can be redeemed, the new and improved Clint can do good deeds that will have ripple effects around the world.

And so, this ghostly group travels to a hotel in Vancouver, where Clint is making a speaking appearance at a convention for the National Association of Christmas Tree Growers, who are worried about the rising popularity of artificial Christmas trees. Instead of telling these tree growers positive things that they want to hear, Clint gives a cynical lecture about how people prefer artificial Christmas trees because they are lazy and desperate. He also says that the Christmas tree growers need to sell not only the trees but also sell the idea that a real Christmas tree is about continuing Christmas traditions.

Clint has an executive vice president named Kimberly (played by Octavia Spencer), who is loyal to her boss but also morally conflicted about the dirty tricks that the company uses to get what Clint wants. The Briggs Media Group frequently ruins people’s reputations with smear campaigns. Kimberly will eventually reach a point where she will decide if she will continue with this type of work or not.

The ghosts have done a background check on Clint and found out that he grew up in Minnesota’s Minneapolis-St. Paul area, as the middle child of a single mother named Wendy (played by Jen Tullock), who is later revealed in a flashback to be an irresponsible alcoholic. Clint’s older sister Carrie (played by Andrea Anders), who was a single parent, died six years ago. It’s revealed in a flashback that Carrie decided to become a mother through a sperm donation.

Carrie’s daughter Wren (played by Marlow Barkley), who is now 13 or 14 years old, is being raised by Clint’s younger brother Owen (played by Joe Tippett), who is almost the opposite of Clint. Clint is clean-cut, wears business suits, and has an intense, competitive personality. Owen is long-haired, wears jeans and flannel shirts, and has a laid-back, mild-mannered personality.

A big part of the “Spirited” plot revolves around Wren wanting to be elected her president of her eighth-grade class. Her biggest rival in the campaign is a popular kid named Josh Hubbins (played by Maximillian Piazza), whose parents own a charitable, non-profit group that does an annual Christmas dinner event for homeless people. Wren asks Clint for help in her campaign.

And you can easily guess what happens next: Clint, with Kimberly’s help, finds “dirt” on Josh. Two years ago, Josh made a TikTok video where he insulted the Christmas dinner event for the homeless. Josh deleted the video two years ago, but Kimberly was able to find it. Kimberly has mixed feelings about using this video to ruin Josh’s reputation, but she gives this video to Wren anyway. Clint encourages Wren to make the video public when the time is right.

There are some other subplots in “Spirited” that get varying degrees of development. Clint is supposed to be haunted by Past, but her judgment is affected, because she thinks Clint is attractive and quickly develops a crush on him. Meanwhile, Present shows himself to Kimberly by accident, and they have a mutual attraction that Present doesn’t know how to handle because he’s afraid to tell Kimberly that he’s really a ghost.

In between, there are some very entertaining song-and-dance numbers, with the movie’s original songs written by Oscar-winning “La La Land” composers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. The movie’s choreography (led by Chloe Arnold) is a very good complement to the peppy and frequently amusing original songs. No one should expect Ferrell, Reynolds and Spencer to be fantastic music artists, by they handle their musical performances with a lot of charisma and skilled emotional expressions.

Some of the original songs in the film include “Bringin’ Back Christmas,” “Tiny Ripple,” “The View From Here,” “Good Afternoon,” “The Story of Your Life,” “Do a Little Good,” “That Christmas Morning Feelin’.” Not all of the songs are meant to be comical or jolly. Spencer’s solo singing of “The View From Here” expresses Kimberly’s regretful contemplation that Kimberly got what she wanted in her career ambitions, but she worries that she could have lost her conscience in the process.

A running joke in the movie begins during a time-traveling segment going back to the 1820s, when the saying “Good afternoon” is supposed to be an insulting comment. The time traveling and flashbacks in “Spirited” aren’t always handled very smoothly. And the movie occasionally gets overstuffed with subplots, which leads the movie to go off on a few tangents that run a little too long before things get back on track. (Look for a very quick and amusing cameo from Judi Dench.)

One of the main reasons to watch “Spirited” is that the cast members have engaging chemistry with each other. Ferrell and Reynolds have a talented ability to deliver goofy comedy with some heartfelt moments, while Spencer and the other supporting cast members are also a compatible match in this ensemble. Unless someone watching “Spirited” is in a very bad mood, it’s the type of movie that can guarantee some laughs and good-enough entertainment that puts a unique spin on a Christmas classic.

Apple Studios released “Spirited” in select U.S. cinemas on November 11, 2022. The movie premiered in Apple TV+ on November 18, 2022.

Review: ‘Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway,’ starring Rose Byrne, Domhnall Gleeson, David Oyelowo and the voices of James Corden, Colin Moody, Margot Robbie, Elizabeth Debicki, Aimee Horne and Lennie James

June 9, 2021

by Carla Hay

David Oyelowo, Rose Byrne, Domhnall Gleeson with Cotton-Tail (voiced by Aimee Horne), Flopsy (voiced by Margot Robbie), Mopsy (voiced by Elizabeth Debecki), Peter Rabbit (voiced by James Corden) and Benjamin Bunny (voiced by Colin Moody) in “Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway” (Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures)

“Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway”

Directed by Will Gluck

Culture Representation: Taking place in various parts of England, “Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway” features a cast of characters representing humans (mostly white, with a few black and Asian people) and animals in working-class and middle-class environments.

Culture Clash: While on a family trip to London, Peter Rabbit separates himself from the rest of the group and falls in with a gang of thieving animals.

Culture Audience: “Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway” will appeal primarily to people looking for lightweight, family-friendly animated entertainment.

Barnabas (voiced by Lennie James), Samuel Whiskers (voiced by Rupert Degas), Peter Rabbit (voiced by James Corden), Mittens (voiced by Hayley Atwell) and Tom Kitten (voiced by Damon Herriman) in “Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway” (Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures)

Just like the hyper rabbit who’s the title character, “Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway” hops all over the place, as Peter Rabbit becomes more restless about seeing the world outside of his home. This wandering spirit mostly works well in this affable sequel. And fortunately, people don’t have to see 2018’s “Peter Rabbit” movie to understand or enjoy this follow-up movie. The movies are based on the beloved Beatrix Potter children’s book series.

“Peter Rabbit” director/co-writer/producer Will Gluck returned to direct, co-write and produce “Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway,” but he changed screenwriting collaborators. The “Peter Rabbit” screenplay was co-written by Rob Lieber, while Patrick Burleigh co-wrote the screenplay for “Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway.” The results are a much more frenetically paced, travel-oriented film that stuffs in a “race against time” plot development the last 10 minutes of the movie.

This “race against time” plot development could have worked as the plot of an entire film instead of being rushed in at the end. It seems like the filmmakers tried to incorporate several different plot ideas into the same movie instead of sticking to just one. For the most part, it works, especially if viewers have short attention spans. But other times, “Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway” seems as if there are three different movies in one film.

One part of the movie is about the mischievous Peter Rabbit (voiced by James Corden) running away from his family and befriending a gang of thieving animals. Another part of the movie is about Peter going home, missing his new friends, and recruiting his rabbit relatives and some animal pals to go back and help the gang of thieves with a big heist. And another part of the film involves a big rescue mission that won’t be revealed in this review. And there’s an over-arching theme about not changing your identity to please other people.

Because of all these different story ideas going on in the same movie, “Peter Rabbit 2” increases the energy level from the first “Peter Rabbit” movie, but sometimes to the detriment of staying focused. It’s not a perfect film. However, it’s good enough to bring some lighthearted chuckles while watching the antics of these precocious talking animals and how they interact with each other and with humans.

There are also some sly meta-references that poke fun at certain members of the cast and the “adventure story” aspect of this sequel. Some adult viewers might get the jokes. For example, Corden is somewhat of a divisive personality in real life. Some people adore him, while others think he’s extremely annoying. In “Peter Rabbit 2,” Peter asks certain animals more than once if they think his voice is annoying. It’s a question that Corden could be asking about his likability in real life.

And in other parts of the movie, there are several mentions of trying to make the “Peter Rabbit” books series more appealing to a wider audience by having the rabbits dress differently and having them embark on different adventures in various locations—even outer space. It seem like a wink and a nod to the pressures the “Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway” filmmakers must have felt to make this sequel more exciting than its predecessor. As such, Peter and his animal group experience more adventures outside the comfort of their country home in Windermere, England.

In the first “Peter Rabbit” movie, the plot centered mainly on Peter’s battles with members of the McGregor family who hate rabbits and other animals that might disrupt their garden where Peter and other animals like to play. First, there was crabby Old Mr. McGregor (played by Sam Neill), who died of a heart attack near the beginning of the movie. His nephew Thomas McGregor (played by Domhnall Gleeson), another cranky loner, inherited his deceased uncle’s house that’s next door to the house of an illustrative artist named Bea (played by Rose Byrne), a pleasant and gentle nurturer who loves the animals on the property.

Bea is especially fond of a family of five orphaned rabbits that she treats as if they’re her own children. The rabbits are Peter; his three sisters—insecure Flopsy Rabbit (voiced by Margot Robbie); practical Mopsy Rabbit (voiced by Elizabeth Debicki); and cynical Cotton-Tail Rabbit (voiced by Aimee Horne, who replaced Daisy Ridley)—and their older cousin Benjamin Bunny (voiced by Colin Moody), who likes to give wise advice. The rabbits think and talk like humans. But ironically, Thomas, not Bea, can hear the rabbits talk. (Flopsy is the voiceover narrator for these movies.)

The first “Peter Rabbit” movie ends the way that you expect it would. By the end of the movie, Thomas and Bea have fallen in love, Thomas has quit his sales job at Harrod’s, and he has fulfilled his dream of opening up a children’s shop that sells toys and books. Thomas has reached a tentative truce with Peter, with the agreement that Peter won’t touch Thomas’ cherished crop of tomatoes. This is information that’s mentioned at the beginning of “Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway.” Therefore, people who didn’t see the first “Peter Rabbit” movie and want to get the full backstory probably should see “Peter Rabbit” before watching “Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway.”

“Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway” begins with Bea and Thomas getting married. They work together in the shop, and Thomas has been an independent publisher for Bea’s first “Peter Rabbit” book about Peter Rabbit and his family. The book, which is a hit, has caught the attention of a smooth-talking wheeler dealer named Nigel Basil-Jones (played by David Oyelowo), an executive at a major book publisher. Nigel comes into the shop one day and tells a delighted Bea that he wants to sign her to a multi-book deal that will significantly increase distribution and profits for her “Peter Rabbit” book series.

There’s just one problem: Nigel and his team of sycophantic executives think that the “Peter Rabbit” book series should be more appealing to modern audiences. Suggestions are made to change the rabbits’ wardrobe to T-shirts and jeans. And the executives want the rabbits to have adventures in other places besides the yard of their home.

Bea is excited about this possible contract and seems willing to make these changes, while Thomas and Cotton-Tail are more skeptical. Bea doesn’t want the changes to be too drastic, but she’s willing to compromise. Nigel can also be very persuasive. There’s a running joke in the movie that people can’t look into Nigel’s eyes for too long because his eyes have almost a hypnotic effect on people.

The first time that Bea and Thomas meet with Nigel in London, the spouses take their rabbit family with them by train. During Thomas and Bea’s meeting with Nigel (with the rabbits also in attendance), Nigel suggests that each of the rabbits should have nicknames that would make the rabbits’ personalities more marketable. For Benjamin, the suggested nickname is The Wise One. Cotton-Tail’s suggested nickname is The Firecracker. Identical twins Flopsy and Mopsy’s suggested nickname is The Dynamic Duo.

And for Peter, Nigel can’t decide between the nickname The Mischief Maker or The Bad Seed. Peter is insulted by both names, especially The Bad Seed, because he doesn’t think he’s bad. And he doesn’t want to be portrayed as a villain in Bea’s “Peter Rabbit” books.

Peter sneaks off from the meeting to sulk and spend time by himself. He wanders into the seedier areas of the city to the sound of Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” playing on the movie’s soundtrack. It’s in this part of the city that Peter meets a rabbit who’s about the same age as Peter’s father would be if Peter’s father were still alive.

This older rabbit’s name is Barnabas (voiced by Lennie James), who is a mischief maker and a longtime thief. After causing a ruckus at an outdoor grocery stand, Barnabas and Peter run away and hide in various places, including a mailbox and a recycling bin.

During their conversations where they get to know each other, Peter tells Barnabas about his family’s up-and-down history with the McGregors. Based on this information, Barnabas then tells Peter that he knew Peter’s father. An instant connection is then formed between Peter and Barnabas. Barnabas is an old roughneck who seems to have a soft spot for Peter and seems to want to be Peter’s father figure/mentor.

Barnabas also introduces Peter to the animals who are the other members of Barnabas’ gang of thieves: a cat named Tom Kitten (voiced by Damon Herriman); Tom’s sister Mittens (voiced by Hayley Atwell); and a rat named Samuel Whiskers (voiced by Rupert Degas). There’s a misadventure involving a pet store called Piperson’s Pets, which has animal catchers roaming the streets, looking for stray animals to capture and sell.

The rest of the movie could have been spent on Peter being a runaway and his family trying to find him. However, it would be too divisive to audiences to have Peter separated from his family for most of the movie. Instead, Bea and Thomas find Peter, and he goes home with the rest of the family.

At home, Peter is still thinking about Barnabas, who was like an instant surrogate father to Peter and seemed to accept Peter for who he is. Peter longs to see Barnabas again and to continue to get Barnabas’ approval. And so, Peter hatches a plan to convince his family and some animal neighbors to help Barnabas and his gang on a major famer’s market heist, with dried fuit being the biggest prized possession for the thieves.

The rest of “Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway” shows what happens to those plans. Peter’s rabbit family members go along for the ride. Also recruited for this big heist are characters from the first “Peter Rabbit” movie: a hedgehog named Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle (voiced by Sia); a pig named Pigling Bland (voiced by Ewen Leslie); a deer named Felix D’eer (voiced by Christian Gazal) who freezes at the sight of lights; a duck named Jemima Puddle-Duck (voiced by Byrne); and a badger named Tommy Brock (voiced by Sam Neill).

The neurotic JW Rooster III (voiced by Jack Andrew), with his now-older children, make recurring appearances, with the running joke that rooster thinks that the day can’t start unless he crows correctly. With all these animal characters, the humans in the story could be overshadowed. However, there’s enough of a balance and a reminder that these domesticated animals, for all of their rebellion, still rely on humans to get their food.

The comedy in “Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway” isn’t a laugh a minute. There’s a lot of predictable slapstick, of course, with Peter usually finding himself in trouble in one way or another. Thomas is still gangly and awkward, so he’s the human character who’s the most likely to be the butt of the slapstick jokes. Cotton-Tail brings some laughs with her ongoing pessimistic sarcasm.

“Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway” also has a recurring gag where Cotton-Tail over-indulges in eating candy, gets very hyperactive from a sugar high, and then her energy level crashes and burns. A joke that doesn’t work as well is Flopsy’s decision to call herself Lavoratory because she’s tired of her identity being so intwined with her identical twin Mopsy. This decision doesn’t last, but it’s a little disappointing that the filmmakers would make one the narrator of the movie call herself a toilet and that she wasn’t smart enough to know what a lavoratory was in the first place.

The movie’s soundtrack has the same rock/pop tone as the first “Peter Rabbit” movie, with prominent placement of tunes from the 1990s and 2010s. Supergrass’ 1995 hit “Alright” seems to be the unofficial theme song for the movie, since it’s played more than once in key scenes. Gluck’s direction moves the film along at a brisk but occasionally uneven pace, since the last 10 minutes of the movie really look like the narrative of the story went on fast-forward.

The movie’s visual effects that combine live action with animation continue to look seamless, thanks to the good work of visual effects company Animal Logic, which also did the visual effects for the first “Peter Rabbit” film. Will this movie win any major awards? No. Just like the visual effects, acting and everything else in the movie “Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway” fulfills its purpose of providing satisfactory entertainment for people of many age groups, but the work isn’t so outstanding that people will think that it’s the best of the best.

Columbia Pictures will release “Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway” in U.S. cinemas on June 11, 2021. The movie was released in the United Kingdom on May 17, 2021.

Review: ‘Irresistible’ (2020), starring Steve Carell, Chris Cooper, Mackenzie Davis and Rose Byrne

June 26, 2020

by Carla Hay

“Irresistible”

Directed by Jon Stewart

Culture Representation: Taking place mostly in the fictional working-class town of Deerlaken, Wisconsin, the political comedy “Irresistible” features a predominantly white cast (with a few African Americans and Latinos) representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: A high-profile and experienced Democrat National Committee strategist arrives in Deerlaken because he thinks he can groom a future Democratic presidential candidate by getting him elected as a Democrat mayor of Deerlaken, but this mayoral campaign faces stiff competition from the campaign of the Republican incumbent.

Culture Audience: “Irresistible” will appeal mostly to fans of Steve Carell and political comedies, but the movie is nothing more than a series of lazy stereotypes.

Rose Byrne and Steve Carell in “Irresistible” (Photo by Daniel McFadden/Focus Features)

Contrary to what it looks like in the trailer for the political comedy “Irresistible,” this smug and annoying movie is not centered on a possible romance between Democrat National Committee strategist Gary Zimmer (played by Steve Carell) and Republican National Committee strategist Faith Brewster (played by Rose Byrne), as they’re pitted against each other in a mayoral campaign battle in the fictional working-class town of Deerlaken, Wisconsin. Byrne’s Faith Brewster character isn’t in the movie every much, even though photos and images of Byrne in the movie’s marketing materials make it appear is if she’s a co-lead actor in the movie. She’s not. She has a small supporting role.

Instead, “Irresistible” (written and directed by Jon Stewart) is very much enamored with making the condescending, posturing “liberal” Gary Zimmer the center of the story. It’s at least commendable that “Irresistible” did not try to completely copy the “love/hate/we know they’re going to get together” relationship of political opposites that was on display in director Ron Underwood’s critically panned 1994 comedy flop “Speechless.” Geena Davis and Michael Keaton starred in “Speechless” as political speechwriters working on rival campaigns—a story inspired by the real-life romance of James Carville and Mary Matalin, except that in “Speechless,” the woman was the Democrat and the man was the Republican.

In “Irresistible,” Gary is the worst kind of liberal: He thinks he’s open-minded and progressive, but he has the same old-fashioned stereotypical beliefs about women and people of color as the conservatives he says he despises. It’s unclear if writer/director Stewart (who is an outspoken liberal in real life) intentionally set out to do a satire of this type of self-congratulatory liberal, but the end result is a comedy film that takes itself way too seriously.

And, quite frankly, the screenwriting for “Irresistible” isn’t very good at all. Just because Stewart wrote a lot of jokes and won several Emmys when he hosted “The Daily Show” from 1999 to 2015, that doesn’t mean he’s a talented screenwriter for movies. “Irresistible” (not to be confused with the 2006 “Irresistible” love-triangle drama, starring Susan Sarandon, Sam Neill and Emily Blunt) is also an odd name for a political satire/comedy, since many people find politics to be the opposite of irresistible and actually quite repellent—much like how the competing political strategists in this movie are repulsive characters.

“Irresistible” starts off with a montage of photos of U.S. presidential campaigns from various Republican and Democrat nominees, from 1968 to 2016. The movie then shows Gary and Faith experiencing Election Day for the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. Faith is reveling in the victory of Donald Trump, while Gary is crushed by Hillary Clinton’s loss.

The rest of the story then pivots to Gary’s point of view, as Faith only pops up here and there for the rest of the movie. Gary comes across a viral video of a former Marine-turned-farmer in Deerlaken (pronounced “Deer-locken”), giving a passionate pro-immigration speech at a town council meeting about undocumented workers. That farmer is Jack Hastings (played by Chris Cooper, in one of his long list of “folksy, salt-of-the-earth” roles), a widower who tells an anti-immigration city official in front of the assembled crowd: “I’m not saying you’re a bad person. I think you’re scared.”

Gary tells his assembled team at his headquarters in Washington, D.C., that this farmer could be a promising candidate to win a future U.S. presidential election because Jack is a hero ex-Marine who looks conservative but talks progressive. As far as Gary can tell, Jack is not affiliated with any political party and has no political aspirations, but Gary thinks he’s come up with a brilliant idea to groom Jack into a Democrat: Gary wants to go to Deerlaken to help Jack run for mayor.

“He’s a Democrat but just doesn’t know it,” Gary says arrogantly about Jack. Gary also crudely describes Jack to his team as “a man who makes Joe the Plumber look like [1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael] Dukakis in mom jeans and a fucking Easter bonnet.” This “joke” only works with people who know about U.S. presidential campaigns from the late 1980s and early 1990s.

When Gary tells his team that he wants to get Jack elected, it’s a problematic scene that reduces the few people of color in the scene (three Latino men and one black woman) as tokens who only speak up when Gary talks about needing representation from their racial groups. He condescendingly tells them that Hillary Clinton lost the election because not enough black people and Latinos showed up to vote for her. (Gary conveniently forgets to mention all the white citizens who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, but didn’t vote for Clinton in 2016, even though Obama campaigned for her.)

Debra Messing has a brief, uncredited cameo in the scene as another “liberal” DNC staffer who thinks she knows best, by saying the best strategy for Democrats to win the next presidential election is to get more black and Latino citizens to vote. The Latino men in the meeting agree, and join hands with the Debra Messing character, while shutting out the black woman sitting in between them. The men utter something in Spanish in solidarity.

The only black DNC staffer (played by Denise Moyé) in the meeting speaks up, by saying that she agrees with Gary’s idea of expanding the Democrats’ base and not taking votes for granted. The Debra Messing character (who also doesn’t have a name in the movie) sheepishly agrees.

It’s a cringeworthy, pandering and poorly written/depicted scene. The one thing that’s fairly accurate is how Gary, like a lot of people in power, think they can speak for all racial groups on their team, without actually checking to see how the team members from different racial groups actually feel about those topics.

At any rate, by the time Gary and his nearly all-white team head to the nearly all-white Deerlaken, his massive ego thinks that he can roll into town and tell these people what to do because he’s a big-city intellectual liberal who’s a big-shot strategist from the DNC. Of course, the movie’s biggest credibility plot hole is that in real life, a political strategist with this amount of clout would not waste all this time to get a small-town mayor elected. Why? There’s not enough money in it for the strategist.

Gary convinces Jack to run for mayor as a Democrat by saying things like: “I know you don’t think of yourself as a Democrat, but after hearing your speech, I can assure you, you are. And I would like to offer you my company services to do so … Democrats are getting our asses kicked because guys like me don’t know how to talk to guys like you.”

Faith finds out that Gary is in this small town for this campaign, so she shows up in Deerlaken to be the strategist for the Republican incumbent Mayor Braun (played by Brent Sexton), because apparently she has nothing better to do with her time either. Faith and Mayor Braun don’t get nearly as much screen time in the movie as Gary and Jack do, but these sparsely written Republican characters are also written as stereotypes. Faith could easily pass for a Fox News anchor, while Mayor Braun uses Republican tropes in his campaign, such as the love of God, guns and country folks.

Multiple times in the movie, “Irresistible” makes a heavy-handed point about campaign finances and how money can corrupt politicians. Gary is obviously in politics for the money and power. Therefore, it doesn’t ring true that someone like him would get so caught up in a small-time mayoral campaign. It seems like this common sense was thrown out the window when Stewart was writing the screenplay, whose only purpose seems to be portraying people in the political process as broad clichés.

When Gary arrives in Deerlaken, all the predictable stereotypes are on display. (Although Deerlaken is supposed to be in Wisconsin, the movie’s Deerlaken scenes were actually filmed in Rockmart, Georgia.) The only thing that Stewart didn’t do to add to the condescending stereotypes of Midwestern rural people is have anyone chew on hayseed.

The volunteers for Jack’s campaign aren’t very smart, which is the movie’s way of saying that people in this area are very uneducated. When the volunteers start calling people on their phone lists, they find out they’re accidentally calling each other at campaign headquarters instead of voters, because the volunteers mistook the office phone list for the voters phone list. And it takes Gary to point out this mistake to them. That’s how “dumb” these locals are.

Gary is staying a motel where the motel bar is also the “front desk.” It’s a bar where men wear flannel shirts and have names like Big Mike (played by Will Sasso) and Little Mike (played by Will McLaughlin) and don’t seem to have an education past high school. The motel and the town are so “behind the times” that they don’t even have Wi-Fi or broadband service throughout most of the town. They mostly access the Internet through dial-up service. The annoying screech of a dial-up modem connection is a running “joke” in the film.

And there’s a badly written scene of Gary and some of the men on his team parked in a car outside the town’s high school, one of the few places with Wi-Fi access. Gary and his team are asked to leave, but they refuse, so they get kicked out of the parking lot because the school’s security people think it’s a car full of possible sexual predators.

Even when Gary gives a lustful stare when he first sees Jack’s 28-year-old daughter Diana (played by Mackenzie Davis) at Jack’s farm, that lust turns to some disgust when he sees that she’s got her hand up the rear end of a cow. For most of the movie, Gary and his team underestimate Diana’s intelligence because they think she’s an ignorant farmer’s daughter who doesn’t know much about politics. It still doesn’t stop Gary from flirting with Diana, but he’s mostly focused on winning the campaign for Jack.

Two of the people on Gary’s team are nerdy pollster Kurt (played by Topher Grace) and abrasive digital analytics strategist Tina (played by Natasha Lyonne), who clash with each over about how they think their respective voter analysis is better. Tina huffs when she dismisses Kurt’s polling numbers by saying that people’s computer usage is a more accurate picture of who voters are: “A digital footprint is your true self.”

When Kurt and Tina get into a little verbal tiff during a campaign meeting, Diana speaks up and says to Tina, “Surely, people are more complete than their online transactions.” Tina snaps back, “Says the woman with three cats and intense [Internet] search history of the herpes virus.” This is what’s supposed to pass as humor in this movie.

In fact, there’s very little humor to be found in “Irresistible,” which is a waste of this talented cast. Faith and Gary have some obvious sexual tension with each other, but it’s written in such an off-putting way that it’s just not as funny as Stewart probably thought it was when he wrote the script.

For example, there’s one scene where Faith calls Gary “fat,” and then she gives him a long lick on his face like it’s an ice cream cone. In another scene, Gary and Faith have an argument and then say that whichever of them loses the election will have to perform oral sex on the other for an hour. This oral sex “dare” is described in much cruder terms in the movie.

By the end of “Irresistible,” there’s kind of a dumb plot twist that reiterates some of the preachy messages of the film. But this plot twist doesn’t matter too much, because the entire plot of a strategist like Gary being in a small town like Deerlaken was an ill-conceived idea in the first place. And “Irresistible” also has an unnecessary gimmick of showing three different epilogues (the last epilogue in the film is supposed to be the “real” one), even going as far as having the end credits start to roll during each epilogue, just to trick/confuse viewers over which epilogue is “real.”

With so many U.S. citizens in real life who are already cynical or apathetic about politics, “Irresistible” isn’t going to make people feel good about participating in the political process. And although “Irresistible” is obviously influenced by “The Candidate” and “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” it definitely won’t be considered a classic like those films.

Focus Features released “Irresistible” in select U.S. cinemas, digital and VOD.

Review: ‘Like a Boss,’ starring Tiffany Haddish, Rose Byrne and Salma Hayek

January 10, 2020

by Carla Hay

“Like a Boss”

Directed by Miguel Arteta

Culture Representation: Taking place in Atlanta and centered on the beauty industry, the comedy “Like a Boss” has a racially diverse cast that includes representation of white people, African Americans, Latinos and Asians in the middle and upper classes.

Culture Clash: Pandering to the worst stereotypes of women, the plot of “Like a Boss” is basically about a corporate catfight.

Culture Audience: “Like a Boss” will appeal primarily to people who like mindless comedies that sink to low and crude levels.

Tiffany Haddish, Salma Hayek and Rose Byrne in “Like a Boss” (Photo by Eli Joshua Ade/Paramount Pictures)

If you were someone who sat through the excruciatingly dumb trailer of “Like a Boss” as it played during previews of a movie you saw in a theater, you might have seen from the repulsed reactions of people in the audience that this movie was not only a turn-off but it was also going to be a flop. “Like a Boss” tries to pass itself off as a raunchy feminist film, but in the end, the movie (written and directed by men) treats women like trash by presenting them as clueless about business and being at their cruelest to other women. “Like a Boss” director Miguel Arteta and screenwriters Adam Cole-Kelly and Sam Pitman should be embarrassed about putting this crap into the world, because it shows how inept they are at making a female-centric comedy.

The plot centers on entrepreneurs Mel Paige (played by Rose Byrne) and Mia Carter (played by Tiffany Haddish), two best friends since childhood who have an Atlanta store that sells their own brand of beauty products called M&M. Mel handles the financial matters of the business, while Mia handles the creative aspects. On the surface, things seem to be going well, but Mel is hiding a secret that she eventually confesses to Mia: their company is $493,000 in debt. (This isn’t a spoiler, since the confession is in the movie’s trailers. And if you’ve seen the trailers, you’ve basically seen what could be called the best parts of this bad movie.) It doesn’t help the company’s finances that Mia likes to give deep discounts to customers for random reasons.

However, M&M is making enough sales to attract the attention of corporate shark Claire Luna (played by Salma Hayek), the owner of the successful beauty corporation Ovieda that’s supposed to be a market leader. The writers of this movie clearly don’t know that the biggest U.S.-based beauty companies in America are actually headquartered in New York or Los Angeles, but maybe the filmmakers got financial incentives from Atlanta to have this cheap-looking movie take place there.

Claire swoops in to make an offer to buy 51% of M&M and pay off all the company’s debts. Mel wants to do the deal, but Mia is reluctant because it would break Mel and Mia’s pact to never sell the business. Mia, who is more street-smart than Mel, also senses that Claire can’t be trusted. However, Mel is desperate to erase the company’s debts, and argues with Mia that the sale would be good for the company.

After Claire observes the tension that the proposed deal is causing between the two longtime friends, Claire offers to buy 49% of the company on the condition that if either Mel or Mia leaves the company, Claire will get 51% ownership of the business. Of course, in a movie as stupid and unrealistic as this one, not only do Mel and Mia cave in to Claire’s demands that they make their decision in one day, but they also sign the deal in Claire’s office without any attorneys involved.

As a further insult to women, the screenwriters came up with the catty motivation that Claire targeted Mel and Mia for a takeover because she’s jealous of their close friendship and wants the deal to break up Mel and Mia. It turns out that Claire started Ovieda with her longtime best friend, whom Claire ended up firing because Claire is basically a greedy you-know-what. Claire wants to split up Mel and Mia because Claire failed at working with her best friend, so Claire can’t stand to see two female best friends work well together as business partners. In other words, Claire isn’t thinking like a real business person but is thinking like a petty high schooler. If this corporate raider were a man, there’s no way the filmmakers would come up with this moronic motivation to take over a company.

But the cattiness doesn’t stop there in “Like a Boss.” Mel and Mia have a circle of bourgeois “frenemies”—Kim, Jill and Angela (played by Jessica St. Clair, Natasha Rothwell and Ari Graynor)—mostly married mothers who apparently look down on the unmarried and childless Mel and Mia, who still live like college students. Mel and Mia are roommates who regularly smoke pot and have meaningless flings with boy toys. Meanwhile, Mel and Mia are convinced that their own lifestyles are better than their domesticated friends because Mel and Mia don’t have the responsibilities of husbands and children. Mel and Mia and their “Real Housewives”-type friends spend almost all of their scenes together trying to outdo and impress each other instead of genuinely having fun together as real friends do.

There’s also an unnecessary subplot where Claire pits Mia and Mel against two sexist men named Greg (played by Ryan Hansen) and Ron (played by Jimmy O. Yang), who have their own beauty company that’s competing with M&M for the millions being offered by Claire in the acquisition deal. Greg and Ron are portrayed as dorks who think they’re “woke,” but they’re really dismissive of their customers’ needs. They see beauty products as a way to exploit customers’ insecurities about their looks instead of enhancing natural beauty, and so their company uses a lot of cringeworthy marketing techniques that reflect this condescending attitude.

“Like a Boss” is polluted with some not-very-funny slapstick moments and an annoying fixation on telling jokes about women’s private parts every 10 minutes. There are cheesy Lifetime movies that are better than “Like a Boss,” which certainly isn’t worth spending any money to see. Byrne is capable of doing better work in comedies (as evidenced by “Bridesmaids” and “Neighbors”), but in “Like a Boss,” her Mel character is such a one-dimensional, uptight neurotic that there’s no room for any nuanced complexities.

Haddish continues to put herself in Typecast Hell as the foul-mouthed, quick-tempered, loud caricature that she keeps doing in every movie she’s done since her breakout in 2017’s “Girls Trip,” which is still her best film. Even though her Mia character in “Like a Boss” is college-educated, Mia is an unsophisticated mess. Unfortunately, there are many people in this world who have little or no contact with black women, and they get their ideas and stereotypes of black women from what they see on screen. Fortunately, we have versatile and intelligent actresses like Viola Davis, Regina King and Lupita Nyong’o to offset the damaging, negative stereotypes of black women that Haddish continues to perpetuate in her choice of roles.

“Like a Boss” also has some Hispanic racial stereotyping, since Claire makes Mel and Mia do some salsa-like dance moves with her in the office while Mexican music suddenly plays in the background. (Hayek is Mexican, in case you didn’t know.) There’s also a running gag that Claire can’t speak proper English because she’s constantly mispronouncing and fabricating English words. The not-so-subtle message the filmmakers are conveying is that Latino immigrants who are successful in American business still aren’t smart enough to master the English language. Just because “Like a Boss” director Arteta is also Latino doesn’t excuse this awful stereotyping.

Meanwhile, Hayek and Billy Porter (who plays the sassy Barrett, an openly gay employee of Mel and Mia) have the talent to be doing Oscar-caliber work. Instead, they are slumming it in this garbage movie. Supporting characters that could have been interesting are instead poorly written knock-offs that have been seen countless times before in other movies. Jennifer Coolidge plays the ditzy blonde (Sydney, an employee of Mel and Mia), while Karan Soni plays the villain’s smarmy lackey (Josh, who is Claire’s assistant).

“Like a Boss” is supposed to be a comedy about female empowerment in corporate America, but instead this movie has a very ghetto, misogynistic mindset that belongs in the same trash pile as a bunch of toxic and outdated cosmetics products.

Paramount Pictures released “Like a Boss” in U.S. cinemas on January 10, 2020.