Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed North American city, the sci-fi dramatic film “Levels” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with one Asian person) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A man tries to solve the mystery of why his “dead” girlfriend is contacting him from another dimension.
Culture Audience: “Levels” will appeal mainly to people who don’t mind watching low-quality sci-fi movies.
Aaron Abrams in “Levels” (Photo courtesy of RLJE Films)
Everything about the sci-fi clunker “Levels” is mishandled and poorly made. It’s a jumbled mess of bad ideas about a man, his girlfriend, multiverse dimensions, and artificial intelligence. This forgettable flop has no intelligence, artificial or otherwise.
Written and directed by Adam Stern, “Levels” is his feature-film directorial debut. Unfortunately, “Levels” is so amateurly made (despite having an ambitious concept), the movie is filled with a lot of mistakes that are often in movies from first-time feature directors. Among those mistakes is trying to cram in too many ideas in a flimsy plot. As a result, everything falls apart in the story, long before the movie is over.
In “Levels ” (which takes place in an unnamed North American city and was filmed in Canada), a man named Joe (played by Peter Mooney) witnesses his girlfriend Ash (played by Cara Gee) get gunned down right in front of him. The murderer, who runs away before being caught, is a man named Anthony Hunter (played by Aaron Abrams), whose backstory is revealed much later in the movie. At the time of the murder, Joe doesn’t know anything about this killer except what the killer looks like.
Joe falls into a deep depression and attempts suicide by shooting himself with a gun. The gun doesn’t work when it’s pointed at him, but the gun works when it’s pointed at objects. Joe discovers the reason why, later in the movie. After this suicide attempt, Joe finds a new purpose in his life when he is unexpectedly contacted by Ash on a video monitor in his home. Ash says she “died” in the world where Joe exists, but she is now living in another reality dimension.
Ash asks Joe for his help so that they could possibly reunite. She wants him to pick up a package at a local bookstore. Joe readily agrees. The rest of “Levels” is just time-wasting junk about Joe trying to reunite with Ash and trying to find her murderer. A local newsstand owner named Oliver Hunter (played by David Hewlett) plays a pivotal role in the story. “Levels” is just an onslaught of terrible acting and cringeworthy filmmaking. The only level this movie is on is “bottom of the barrel.”
RLJE Films released “Levels” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on November 1, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Europe, the United States and Africa, the superhero action film “Kraven the Hunter” (based on Marvel Comic characters) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some black people and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: The estranged son of a Russian crime boss becomes a superhero with lion-like abilities, and he is called on to rescue his kidnapped younger brother.
Culture Audience: “Kraven the Hunter” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of movies based on comic books, the movie’s headliners and action movies that are empty spectacles.
Alessandro Nivola and Christopher Abbott in “Kraven the Hunter” (Photo by Jay Maidment/Columbia Pictures)
The misfire “Kraven the Hunter” has a lion-inspired superhero and wildlife protection themes, so it’s ironic that this mind-numbing film acts like a drugged lion trapped in a cage. It stumbles repeatedly and is barely coherent. “Kraven the Hunter” is yet another example of a comic book adaptation that had a big budget but a small imagination. Adding to this fiasco is the fact that the principal cast members are very talented, but even they seem bored and/or unconvincing when they utter their awful dialogue in the movie.
Directed by J.C. Chandor, “Kraven the Hunter” is based on Marvel Comics characters. Richard Wenk, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway co-wrote the dismally dull screenplay. “Kraven the Hunter” takes all the worst clichés of superhero origin movies and crams them into a soulless movie where the characters have about as much personality as cardboard cutouts. What’s even more embarrassing for “Kraven the Hunter” is the fact that two Oscar winners are among the principal cast members of this atrocious movie.
“Kraven the Hunter”—which clocks in at 127 minutes, but this monotonous movie feels longer than that—is another superhero movie where the superhero has “daddy issues,” either because his father is dead or emotionally distant. The movie takes entirely too long (more than 20 minutes) showing a repetitive childhood backstory about how Sergei Kravinoff (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who renames himself Kraven the Hunter, becomes estranged from his father Nikolai Kravinoff (played by Russell Crowe, the Oscar-winning actor of 2000’s “Gladiator”), who is a wealthy and ruthless crime lord in Russia.
Flashbacks show teenage Sergei (played by Levi Miller) was considered the “brave” son, compared to Sergei’s more sensitive younger brother Dmitri (played by Billy Barratt), who was considered the “cowardly” son by their father Nikolai. The mother of Sergei and Dmitri committed suicide when the boys were teenagers. A scene in the movie shows Nikolai abruptly taking Dmitri and Sergei to Africa for a hunting trip so he can teach them predatory skills.
During this hunting trip, a lion attacks Sergei, who freezes when he had a chance to shoot the lion. Nikolai doesn’t hesitate to shoot the lion but he’s not able to kill it right away. The lion runs away and carries a severely wounded Sergei in its mouth. A drop of the lion’s blood enters one of Sergei’s wounds. (And you know what that means in a superhero movie.)
The lion leaves Sergei to die in a grassy area. But lo and behlod, here comes a teenager named Calypso Ezili (played by Diaana Babnicova), whose tarot-reading sorceress grandmother (played by Susan Aderin) just happened to have given her a magical potion that can heal severe wounds. Calypso applies the potion to Sergei, who ends up in a hospital, where he is told he was dead for three minutes but made a miraculous recovery. Calypso left behind the tarot card for Strength, which Sergei keeps with him for years.
Teenage Sergei soon finds out that he has the same physical abilities a lion. Expect to see multiple scenes of Sergei climbing trees like a big cat, having acute vision, and extraordinary skills at maiming. As a young adult, Sergei gets fed up with living with Nikolai, so he leaves home and says a sad goodbye to Dmitri (played by Fred Hechinger), who loves Sergei but is somewhat resentful of him because Dmitri knows that Nikolai prefers Sergei.
Dmitri has an exceptional talent of mimicking people and things. He works as a singer/pianist at a nightclub, where the movie has a comically bizarre scene of Dmitri singing Black Sabbath’s 1972 ballad “Changes.” And if you know enough about the Kraven stories Marvel Comics, then you can easily guess why Dmitri has these uncanny mimicry skills.
Sergei, now known as Kraven, makes a home for himself in the forests of Russia. He has reunited with an adult Calypso (played by Ariana DeBose, the Oscar-winning actress of the 2021 remake of “West Side Story”), who works as an attorney and occasionally pilots a helicopter whenever Kraven needs help getting out of a bad situation. Kraven gets pulled back into his estranged family’s orbit when Dmitri is kidnapped.
The two main villains in the movie are Aleksei Sytsevich, also known as the Rhino (played by Alessandro Nivola) and a mysterious operative named the Foreigner (played by Christopher Abbott), who forms an alliance with the Rhino. Nikolai could be considered another villain. Greedy poachers are other villains in the movie. The Rhino is someone who wants revenge on Nikolai because Nikolai humiliated and rejected him to become part of Nikolai’s inner crime circle. The villains in this movie aren’t very menacing and are almost like cartoon characters.
“Kraven the Hunter” also falls short of having thrilling action scenes, which all seem utterly generic. There is much more bloody violence in “Kraven the Hunter” than in the average superhero movie, but that doesn’t give the film any interesting edginess. The acting performances in the movie are quite stiff and often awkward. And the visual effects are mediocre and often look took fake. “Kraven the Hunter” won’t be considered the worst superhero movie ever, but this disappointing dud proves that this Kraven origin story does not deserve a franchise of several movies in a series.
Columbia Pictures will release “Kraven the Hunter” in U.S. cinemas on December 13, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Colorado, the sci-fi action film “Elevation” features a cast of African American and white characters, who are survivors of a creature-invasion apocalypse on Earth.
Culture Clash: A man and two women race against time to get medical supplies for the man’s 8-year-old son, while the adults battle the creatures, which cannot live above 8,000 feet.
Culture Audience: “Elevation” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of stars Anthony Mackie and Morena Baccarin and don’t mind watching sci-fi movies that have derivative and sloppy storytelling.
Anthony Mackie and Danny Boyd Jr. in “Elevation” (Photo courtesy of Vertical)
“Elevation” is a misleading title for a movie with below-average storytelling. This sci-fi action flick, which takes place during an Earth apocalypse caused by giant creatures, has competent acting but is substandard in everything else. “Elevation” introduces multiple concepts but leaves many different questions unanswered by the end of the film.
Directed by George Nolfi, “Elevation” was written by John Glenn, Jacob Roman and Kenny Ryan, who filled the screenplay with a lot of dimwitted scenarios, boring dialogue and exposition dumps. The movie was filmed on location in Colorado, where “Elevation” is supposed to take place somewhere in the Rocky Mountains area. The story begins three years after an apocalypse where mysterious giant creatures (which look like a combination of lizards and scorpions) rose up from the underground and killed 95% of Earth’s population in just one month. The apocalypse has left the survivors with no electricity or modern communication.
This worldwide massacre is not seen in any flashbacks. All that is seen in “Elevation” are how survivors in this part of Colorado are living and trying not to get killed by the creatures, which the survivors are calling “reapers.” The reapers have one big physical limitation: They cannot survive in any space that’s at least 8,000 feet above the ground. Anything below 8,000 feet on Earth is called “below The Line,” where the reapers live. People who venture below The Line are at great risk of being killed by a reaper or reapers.
The Lost Gulf Refuge, which has a population of 193 people, is 8,460 feet above the ground. Among the Lost Gulf Refuge residents are a brave widower named Will (played by Anthony Mackie); Will’s 8-year-old son Hunter (played by Danny Boyd Jr.); a hard-drinking and cranky physicist named Nina Richmond (played by Morena Baccarin); and Will’s good-natured close friend Katie (played by Maddie Hasson), who was the best friend of Will’s deceased wife Tara (played by Rachel Nicks). Tara is seen in some flashback scenes in the movie.
“Elevation” begins by showing that Hunter has gone 260 feet below The Line in the wooded area, even though he knows it’s strictly forbidden for him to be there. And you know what that means: Hunter gets chased by a reaper. He narrowly escapes death by throwing himself into an area on the ground that is surrounded by a circle of white rocks.
In another part of the movie, certain characters also are able to survive a chase from reapers in the woods by going to an area that is surrounded by a circle of white rocks. “Elevation” is so terribly written, the movie never explains why these areas surrounded by circles of white rocks give special protection from the reapers. And there’s no explanation for who put those rocks there and why the people being chased just happened to know that these rock circles give special protection.
When Hunter goes back home after escaping from being killed by a reaper, he gets scolded by Will for making the life-risking choice to go below The Line. “I just wanted to see other people,” Hunter explains. Katie is sympathetic to Hunter and says to Will: “We may be safe up here, but this mountaintop is like a prison to him.” Will says he knows the real reason why Hunter went back to a specific area in the woods below The Line is because it was the last place where Hunter saw his mother Tara.
Concerned father Will soon has something bigger to worry about than this act of rebellion from Hunter. Hunter uses an oxygen tank at night, and their household is almost out of filters for the tank. These filters are necessary for Hunter to survive. Will knows that he can probably find unused filters at an abandoned hospital in the city of Boulder. However, Boulder is about 2,000 feet below The Line.
It’s explained early on in the movie that Nina is the only known human who has been able to kill a reaper. She’s been obsessed with trying to find a scientific way to kill these creatures and sharing that knowledge with people so she can be credited with literally saving the world. Nina is an abrasive loner who abuses alcohol, so she hasn’t been making much progress with her research.
Still, when it comes time for Will to make his dangerous trek to Boulder, he asks Nina go with him. Will persuades her by saying, “All you can think about is killing one of these things, and you need something from down there to do it. You owe me this much, for Tara.”
Will and Nina have a tense relationship because he blames her for Tara’s death, for reasons that are explained in the movie. Maddie also dislikes rude and arrogant Nina. At one point, the two women get into a physical fight.
Nina makes an insulting remark by saying to Maddie: “You want to fuck your best friend’s husband.” Maddie responds by punching Nina. Maddie also accuses Nina of only wanting the kill the reapers so that Nina can be famous. This is the type of cattiness that looks like it belongs on a tacky reality show, not a sci-fi movie that’s supposed to be suspenseful.
Will, Nina and Maddie arm themselves with military-styled rifles that they get from a guy named Tim (played by Tyler Grey), who hands them the weapons from a back room in his store, with no questions asked and no signs of a transaction being made. It all looks so phony. Even though it’s made clear in the movie that the reapers can’t be killed (only wounded) by the ammunition in these guns, these are the best weapons available to Will, Nina and Maddie at the time.
On the way to Boulder, there is more bickering between Will, Nina and Maddie. And then, the inevitable happens: The reapers appear. There are encounters with the reapers that involve trying to escape on ski lifts, inside a mine shaft, and in a truck.
One of the biggest problems with “Elevation” is that many of the action scenes look fake—not just with the visual effects but also with how everything is staged. At the mine shaft, helmets with flashlights are conveniently there for Will, Nina and Maddie to wear. The ski lifts are conveniently not rusty.
When they go in the mine shaft, Will has a vague idea that there will be a tunnel leading to the hospital. But why would they go in a mine shaft when they know these creatures have a tendency to live and thrive underground? None of it really makes any sense because the entire movie is just a poorly conceived story that rips off some aspects of 2018’s “A Quiet Place,” another apocalypse movie with giant creatures that have a big physical liability.
The production design for “Elevation” is off-kilter. Most of the buildings looks desolate and shabby, as they should during a massive disaster such as an apocalypse that started three years ago. But during the trek to Boulder, there are scenes where the travelers stay overnight in a lodge that looks pristine and picture-perfect, with a cozy library full of books in the lounge area and beautifully lit candles everywhere. (There are no lodge employees in sight.) You’d never know there’s an apocalypse going on, with shortages of food and other resources, just by looking at how clean and well-stocked this lodge is.
In reality, this lodge would have been looted or destroyed a long time ago, based on how an earlier scene makes a big deal out of showing that something as simple as a box of macaroni (which Will gets from a store to make mac and cheese for Hunter’s birthday) is scarce in this post-apocalyptic world. And speaking of food, during this trip to Boulder, which takes place over at least two days, the travelers are never seen worried about how they’re going to get their next meal in this world that has food shortages. It’s as if the “Elevation” filmmakers wanted to erase any need for the characters to have these basic life necessities because the movie becomes so focused on the not-very-convincing action scenes.
Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the plot in “Elevation” is a surprise reveal that comes toward the end of the movie. It’s supposed to be shocking information, but the information is dropped like a bomb and never addressed again. And the movie has a laughably bad way of presenting a certain solution to the reaper problem. “Elevation” has a talented cast that deserves much better than this low-quality dreck that most viewers will forget quicker than it takes for a reaper to kill someone in the movie.
Vertical released “Elevation” in U.S. cinemas on November 8, 2024. The movie was released on digital and VOD on November 26, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed area of the United States, the sci-fi drama film “Things Will Be Different” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A brother and a sister are stuck at a farmhouse where they can time travel and are under attack by mysterious forces.
Culture Audience: “Things Will Be Different” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of time-traveling movies and sci-fi movies films about convoluted puzzle solving.
Adam David Thompson and Riley Dandy in “Things Will Be Different” (Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing)
“Things Will Be Different” has an ambitious time-traveling concept revolving around a brother and a sister. Unfortunately, this botched sci-fi drama gets caught up in being too mysterious for viewers to care what happens to these underdeveloped characters. This is the type of movie where viewers will start to lose interest about 30 minutes into the film because the basic plot of the movie still hasn’t been coherently explained by then.
Written and directed by Michael Felker, “Things Will Be Different” is his feature-film directorial debut. The movie had its world premiere at the 2024 SXSW Film & TV Festival. It’s a low-budget film with a very small number of people in the cast and very few locations but the movie has a lot of problems with its narrative structure. The majority of the film’s scenes take place at a farmhouse in an unnamed area of the United States. (“Things Will Be Different” was actually filmed in Fremont, Indiana.)
“Things Will Be Different” begins by showing a phone call between the protagonist siblings (who are in their 30s), as they talk about meeting up the next day. The brother says to his sister, “We can catch up on some brother/sister rekindling time. See you in the morning.”
The brother is Joseph, also known as Joe (played by Adam David Thompson), who is a former bar owner. Joseph’s sister is Sidney (played by Riley Dandy), who owns a pawn shop. Joseph is a bachelor with no children. Sidney is a single mother to a 6-year-old daughter, who is not seen in the movie. Sidney’s daughter has given a handmade bracelet to Sidney, who wears it as a good luck charm. The parents of Joseph and Sidney are deceased.
Joseph and Sidney meet up at a diner and have the type of pleasant but strained conversation that people have when they haven’t seen a relative for quite a while and have had a period of tense estrangement. Most of the movie’s dialogue is very forgettable and bland. Sidney and Joseph quickly leave the diner when they hear a police siren.
It’s explained later in the movie why the sound of a police siren is cause for the siblings to be alarmed: Sidney and Joseph have committed a robbery. And they are going to a hideout that was arranged for them in advance. This isn’t spoiler information because it’s part of the official plot description for the movie.
Later in “Things Will Be Different,” it’s mentioned that Sidney got arrested (the movie doesn’t say why she was arrested) when she was 24 years old and going through a rebellious phase in her life, but she has (until ths robbery, at least) supposedly turned her life around and become a responsible adult. Joseph distanced himself from her during this low period in Sidney’s life, and she has lingering resentment toward Joseph over what she thinks is his emotional abandonment. That’s about all viewers will learn about the personal lives of these two siblings in this very muddled movie.
Sidney and Joseph make their way to a farmhouse in a wooded area with a nearby corn field. There are three men parked in the house’s driveway as unwelcome trespassers. Sidney takes out a rifle, shoots the gun near the three strangers and yells, “You have five seconds to get off of my land!” Joseph has a shotgun and shoots too. The three men quickly drive away,
The house is abandoned and looks like it hasn’t been lived in for quite some time, because in the front hallway, there’s a dead cat with flies buzzing around it. Inside the house, Joseph and Sidney spin the hands on two separate clocks to try and open a locked closet door. The clocks seem to work as combination lock keys to open the closet. Sidney uses a rotary phone to call someone and says something in an unknown language.
It turns out that this how Joseph and Sidney have turned back time by about two weeks. Sidney later tells Joseph that it’s kind of weird how the owner of this house let them borrow the house but didn’t tell them how the house works. And who is or was the owner of this house? Don’t expect to get the answer to that question until much later in the movie, which becomes even more convoluted as it stumbles along.
The rest of “Things Will Be Different” is a repetitive slog of Joseph and Sidney finding mysterious written messages in the house and communicating by audiocassette recorder with an unknown man, who seems to be watching the siblings’ every move. What’s strange about this communication is that every time the play button on the recorder is pushed, it works like two-way walkie talkie instead of a recorder. Don’t expect an explanation for that either.
Here’s an example of what could have been an intriguing sequence but just falls flat with tedium: Sidney and Joseph see a wooden sign on the closet door that says, “Go to the mill,” with no explanation for how that sign got on the door when it wasn’t there before. When the siblings find the miil, there’s a human body inside that’s completely burned. Sidney and Joseph unrealistically barely react to this gruesome discovery.
The siblings then see this puzzling message scratched on a wooden table: “You are in the group on the rise. I’m on the left side. Another is the right. Give in or join them. Carve here to comply.”
The unknown person who’s been communicating with them tells Joseph and Sidney that the siblings are in the middle of the right and left. The mystery man adds, “Someone is coming: an unknown visitor. All we know is that they are using the door and leaving destruction in their wake.”
If all of this is too obscure for you to know what this movie is about, you should know that “Things Will Be Different” is a tedious loop of this vagueness for the majority of the movie’s 102-minute run time, with filler scenes of Joseph and Sidney doing a lot of bickering about what they should do next. The movie’s performances are adequate, but the screenplay is like a tangled knot of yarn with many loose ends that go nowhere. It’s one of those irritating movies that is poorly written but tries to make viewers feel not very smart if viewers don’t know what’s going on in the movie.
Viewers who are patient enough to watch all of “Things Will Be Different” might be very let down by the plot twist/reveal at the end because the plot twist/reveal is so derivative. How derivative is it? It’s almost exactly the same plot twist/reveal as a better-known low-budget sci-fi thriller about people stuck in a house in a remote wooded area. (Hint: The other movie was Drew Goddard’s feature-film directorial debut and had Chris Hemsworth in the cast.)
In the production notes for “Things Will Be Different,” Felker describes “Things Will Be Different” this way: “It’s a heady movie where you won’t pick up everything it’s putting down the first time around, but you’ll have a blast watching it, and hopefully that’ll compel you to watch it again and pick up more stuff to piece together on the eighth, maybe ninth time.”
Watching a movie eight or nine times assumes that viewers will love it enough to invest that much time for those repeat viewings. It’s hard to imagine a lot of people wanting to see “Things Will Be Different” eight or nine times when the movie does a substandard job of telling the story the first time that people see this disappointing film.
Magnet Releasing released “Things Will Be Different” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on October 4, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in the United States and in the fictional North Pole, the sci-fi/fantasy/action film “Red One” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans and Asians) and fictional creatures representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A rebellious bounty hunter/computer hacker and Santa Claus’ uptight security chief meet each other and team up to find and rescue Santa Claus, who has been kidnapped.
Culture Audience: “Red One” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and Christmas-themed movies that are loud, hyperactive and silly.
Kristofer Hivju and Dwayne Johnson in “Red One” (Photo by Frank Masi/Amazon Content Services)
The Christmas action comedy “Red One” is the equivalent of Santa Claus delivering an avalanche of coal. The incoherent plot is about rescuing a kidnapped Santa, but viewers will feel like the ones being taken hostage by this unfunny and bloated abomination. It’s the type of big-budget movie that looks like it came from a low-rent concept for a video game with product placements.
Directed by Jake Kasdan and written by Chris Morgan, “Red One” lurches from scene to scene, often by explaining what’s going on in a sloppy and hyperactive way. There is no character in this movie that has an emotional range that goes beyond (1) inflicting chaos or (2) reacting to the chaos inflicted. There’s some half-hearted preaching about adults keeping their inner child alive during the Christmas holidays, but it all comes across as tacked-on sentimentality.
Product placements and visual effects are the main priorities for “Red One,” which has a story that’s overstuffed with stupid distractions and moronic dialogue. The movie clumsily begins with a scene showing future bounty hunter Jack O’Malley as a kid (played by Wyatt Hunt), who’s about 8 or 9 years old and has an enthusiasm for using the Internet. Jack doesn’t really believe in Santa Claus, even though Jack’s Uncle Rick (played by Marc Evan Jackson) tells Jack that Santa Claus really exists. It’s mentioned that Rick is a father figure in Jack’s life because Jack’s biological father abandoned Jack and Jack’s mother.
Thirty years later, Jack (played by Chris Evans) is a bounty hunter and an elusive hacker on the Dark Web, where he has the nickname The Wolf. Jack is a freewheeling bachelor with commitment issues. It’s one of the main reasons why he’s been a flaky and frequently absentee father to his son Dylan (played by Wesley Kimmel), who’s about 13 or 14 years old.
Dylan lives with his mother Olivia (played by Mary Elizabeth Ellis), a medical doctor who is currently married to a husband who is not named or seen in the movie. It’s implied that Jack and Olivia were never married, never lived together, and never even had a committed relationship, but they decided to co-parent Dylan. So far, self-absorbed Jack has been failing miserably at being a responsible parent.
Meanwhile, Santa Claus (played by J.K. Simmons), also known as Nicholas or Nick, has been dutifully making an appearance at a shopping mall to meet children who tell him what they want for Christmas. This Santa Claus is not a traditional jolly and plump Santa. The Santa in “Red One” lifts weights for physical workouts and has an attitude of a cynically wise grandfather who knows what he has to say to make kids happy, even if he really doesn’t mean it.
Santa Claus’ security chief is Callum “Cal” Drift (played by Dwayne Johnson), a muscular and stern protector who has been working with Santa Claus for the last 542 years. (Johnson is also one of the producers of “Red One.”) Callum has recently given his resignation to Santa Claus because Callum believes that things have gotten worse in the world and there are more naughty people than nice people. Callum says he can also no longer see the inner children in adults. Christmas no longer makes him happy but has made him sad for this reason.
This is the type of abysmal dialogue that’s in “Red One.” In a scene where Callum and Santa discuss Callum’s impending exit from the job, Santa Claus says about the world’s people: “They need us now more than ever.” Callum responds: “You need someone younger.”
Santa comments, “We don’t need to change them. They need to change themselves. We work for the kids, Cal—even when they’re not kids anymore.” Santa adds, “Let’s have a cookie.” Callum replies, “The answer to everything.”
Santa is obviously disappointed that he is losing Callum, but Callum has made up his mind that he wants to retire from this line of work. Callum works for the Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority (MORA), a secretive security corporation where he reports to Zoe Harlow (played by Lucy Liu), a no-nonsense supervisor. MORA looks out for mythological beings and protects them at all costs. Santa Claus’ code name with MORA is Red One.
Jack was hired by an anonymous entity to hack into a computer system. Unbeknownst to Jack, this hacking exposed the secret location of Santa Claus on the North Pole to the entity that hired Jack. Santa Claus is then kidnapped from his home on the North Pole. MORA finds out that Jack was indirectly responsible for this kidnapping, so Callum is dispatched to force Jack to help Callum find Santa Claus.
If you’re already rolling your eyes at the description of this plot, “Red One” gets even worse as it goes along. Other characters who are part of the story are Krampus (played by Kristofer Hivju), the horned mythological creature who punishes naughty children; a Christmas witch named Gryla (played by Kiernan Shipka); and a sleazy business jerk named Ted (played by Nick Kroll), who is tracked down by Jack and Callum on a Hawaiian beach. It’s all just an excuse for “Red One” to be filmed partially in Hawaii, where the movie filmed on the island of Oahu.
In “Red One,” Krampus is supposed to be Santa’s brother, with no explanation for why human Santa and non-human Krampus could be related. Krampus is also an ex-lover of Gryla, who is described as a “900-year-old ogre with 13 sons who work at her command.” The scenes with Krampus are some of the worst in this already bad movie, which didn’t need the Krampus character at all.
The visual effects in “Red One” also include life-sized villain snowmen that are about as exciting as watching snow melt. There’s a North Pole security team called ELF (an acronym for enforcement, logistics and fortification) that includes a talking polar bear named Agent Garcia (voiced by Reinaldo Faberlle), another character that didn’t need to be in this movie. There are also humanoid robots that show up with no real explanation of their origin. And, of course, there are Santa’s reindeer, who have no names and no personalities.
Jack and Callum go through the usual formulaic motions of two characters with opposite personalities who must learn to work together for a common goal. The expected bickering and wisecracking banter ensue. And almost all of it in “Red One” fails to be funny or entertaining. Johnson and Evans have played these types of roles in many other movies. There’s nothing new to see here in their mediocre performances in “Red One.”
Except for Gryla, female characters in “Red One” are merely sidelined observers of most of the action. “Red One” mainly has Mrs. Claus (played by Bonnie Hunt) in a small role as the worried wife at home who bakes cookies. Hunt’s considerable comedic talent is wasted in this movie, which relegates her to a shallow and almost useless role. Zoe is Callum’s boss, but Callum gets to make the biggest and boldest moves. Shipka looks like she’s having fun playing a villain, but this villain’s personality is restricted to being one-dimensional stereotype.
“Red One” tries to juggle many different subplots like a juggler who ends up dropping too many things thrown in the air. There might be enough in “Red One” to satisfy viewers looking for some fantasy genre visual effects, but the movie’s main characters and story are extremely derivative and fail to be interesting. “Red One” is just an unimaginative mush of ideas using the same formula as comedic movies about buddy cops with clashing personalities. “Red One” is also a shameless showcase of what people dislike the most about the crass commercialism of Christmas.
Amazon MGM Studios will release “Red One” in U.S. cinemas on November 15, 2024. A sneak preview of the movie was shown in U.S. cinemas on November 10, 2024. Prime Video will premiere the movie on December 12, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in California, Nevada and briefly in New York City, the sci-fi/action film “Venom: The Last Dance” (based on Marvel Comics characters) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some black people and a few Asian people and Latin people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: San Francisco journalist Eddie Brock, who has an antihero alter ego named Venom, becomes a fugitive suspect in a cop’s murder, and he travels to Nevada, where he gets mixed up with secret government activities involving outer-space aliens.
Culture Audience: “Venom: The Last Dance” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movies based on comic books, the movie’s headliners and mindless action flicks.
Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple and Clark Backo in “Venom: The Last Dance” (Photo by Laura Radford/Columbia Pictures)
“Venom: The Last Dance” is so sloppily made and uninteresting, it’s an example of a sequel that doesn’t need to exist. Talented cast members are stuck in this dull and predictable comic book movie. “Venom: The Last Dance” also has an uneven tone, as the movie seems unsure of how far it should lean into the campy comedy that made the first two “Venom” movies more watchable than this underwhelming third “Venom” movie.
Written and directed by Kelly Marcel, “Venom: The Last Dance” is the follow-up to 2018’s “Venom” and 2021’s “Venom: Let There Be Carnage.” Marcel co-wrote “Venom” and “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” and makes her feature-film directorial debut with “Venom: The Last Dance.” People who’ve seen “Venom” and “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” are more likely to understand what’s going on in “Venom: The Last Dance” but are also more likely to be disappointed.
All of these “Venom” movies (which are based on Marvel Comic characters) have never been considered top-tier comic book adaptations. However, the “Venom” and “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” had more suspense that was a lot more entertaining to watch than what’s in “Venom: The Last Dance.” Unfortunately, “Venom: The Last Dance” just plods along until the very silly and unimaginative ending. All of the acting in the movie is lackluster or trite.
“Venom: The Last Dance” begins by showing San Francisco journalist Eddie Brock as a fugitive who is a suspect in the death of Detective Patrick Mulligan (played by Stephen Graham) of the San Francisco Police Department. Eddie, who is brash and somewhat brutish, has an alter ego named Venom, a pitch-black demon-like creature that lives inside Eddie’s body. In other words, Venom is a symbiote. Venom, who has an appetite for eating humans, comes out and attacks when Eddie is angry or needs help in the many fights that Eddie gets involved with in these movies.
Eddie finds himself trapped in a cell of a hideout used by a gang that engages in dog fighting. (The dogs are kept in cages.) Of course, Eddie uses Venom to break out of cell. Eddie and Venom then fight the gang members and get away. The entire beginning of the movie is so poorly explained, it would be understandable for anyone (including people who’ve seen the first two “Venom” movies) to be confused by what’s going on in the movie’s first few scenes.
Meanwhile, “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” (which takes place mostly in Nevada) jumps around from showing activities at the highly secretive Area 51 Military Base and the Area 55 Imperium Program. The Area 51 Military Base is supervised by General Strickland (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor), a rigid leader who is on the hunt for Eddie. Why? Because (mild spoiler alert) in “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,” Eddie was exposed as having Venom as a symbiote.
It turns out that Detective Mulligan really isn’t missing. He’s being held captive in the Area 55 Imperium Program, which is conducting experiments on him because Detective Mulligan has his own symbiote, which is green. General Strickland’s colleagues include the more laid-back scientists Dr. Teddy Paine (played by Juno Temple) and Sadie (played by Clark Backo), whose purposes in the movie become all too obvious when they handle the symbiote samples too closely.
While on the run, Eddie gets a ride from a family of four who are traveling in a van to Area 51. The family’s patriarch is a shaggy-haired weirdo named Martin (played by Rhys Ifans), who is obsessed with seeing outer-space aliens at Area 51. The other family members are Martin’s wife Nova (played by Alanna Ubach) and their two underage kids: teenage daughter Echo (played by Hala Finley) and pre-teen Leaf (played by Dash McCloud).
One of the silliest parts of “Venom: The Last Dance” is when Eddie ends up in Las Vegas and sees Mrs. Chen (played by Peggy Lu), the convenience store manager from San Francisco who found out about Venom in the first “Venom” movie. Mrs. Chen and Eddie see each other by chance in a casino and start dancing together to ABBA’s “Dancing Queen.” Yes, this really is in the movie. It’s supposed to be hilarious, but it just looks awkward.
Aside from all the mindless dialogue and the mediocre action scenes, “Venom: The Last Dance” has too much choppy editing that makes the flow of the movie sputter and stall like a failing engine. The new characters introduced in “Venom: The Last Dance” are very generic. And the few characters that aren’t generic (such as Martin) are very irritating.
And when you have a movie that takes place in Area 51, don’t be surprised to see outer-space aliens. But since this an action film, these aliens are not harmless-looking creatures who are shorter than the average humans. These aliens are giant monsters.
The back-and-forth banter between Eddie and Venom is one of the main reasons why people like the “Venom” movies. However, in “Venom: The Last Dance,” this banter seems very flat and not funny at all. There’s a sentimental montage toward the end of the movie that might get unintentional laughs.
“Venom: The Last Dance” has a mid-credits scene and an end-credits scene that hint at how the “Venom” saga could continue in movies, but these apparent sneak peeks don’t inspire much curiosity or enthusiasm. Fans of superhero/comic book movies have been burned by end-credits scenes that ended up going nowhere. (For example: “Eternals” and “Black Adam.”) “Venom: The Last Dance” is the worst type of sequel: A movie that doesn’t even try to have a good story and just reeks of “contractual obligations.”
Columbia Pictures will release “Venom: The Last Dance” in U.S. cinemas on October 25, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional U.S. city of New Rome, the sci-fi drama film “Megalopolis” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Latin people and African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A property mogul causes controversy over his development of an urban mega-complex, as he juggles various problems in his personal life.
Culture Audience: “Megalopolis” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and many of the movie’s headliners, but celebrity name recognition does not save this disastrous and ill-conceived movie.
Aubrey Plaza in “Megalopolis” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)
“Megaflopolis” is a more accurate title for the bloated and idiotic “Megalopolis,” which is drunk on its own pretension and fails miserably to tell a coherent and interesting story. A star-studded cast can’t save this mess. This is the type of movie that can only be described as a giant waste on many levels: production budget, talent and a potentially intriguing concept.
Written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, “Megalopolis” has been an idea of Coppola’s since 1977. The movie’s production budget was reportedly $120 million to $136 million, much of which was independently financed by Coppola, whose best work is still considered to be his Oscar-winning films from the 1970s, such as 1972’s “The Godfather,” 1974’s “The Godfather Part II” and 1979’s “Apocalypse Now.” Coppola has been coasting on his reputation for being an “auteur,” so “Megalopolis” came with a certain standard of expectations. “Megalopolis” had its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.
Unfortunately, the end result of all the years and money it took to make “Megalopolis” (which takes place in a futuristic fictional city of New Rome, inspired by New York City) is a movie that looks like a hack job on an over-inflated budget. This 138-minute catastrophe has a lot to show but doesn’t have much to say. Here’s the gist of the plot: An ambitious and frequently dour property mogul named Cesar Catilina (played by Adam Driver), who prefers to be called Catilina, causes controversy because of his high-priced plans to build a mega-complex called Megalopolis in the middle of the city. Meanwhile, Catilina gets involved in a love triangle, he has struggles with “mother issues” because his mother dislikes him, and he deals with various other people who come in and out of his orbit.
Catilina is getting a lot of criticism for displacing low-income people from their housing because of his development of Megalopolis, which includes business buildings, a shopping center and a giant recreational park. Years ago, Catilina went on trial for murder after he was accused of poisoning his wife. He was acquitted of the charges, but the scandal still affects his reputation.
One of Catilina’s biggest enemies is Mayor Franklyn Cicero (played by Giancarlo Esposito), who was the prosecuting district attorney in the murder trial. Mayor Cicero still thinks Catilina is guilty. Catilina calls Mayor Cicero “the chief slum lord” and doesn’t understand why the mayor is opposed to Catilina’s plan to “beautify” the city with Megalopolis. Another person who doesn’t get along well with Mayor Cicero is his hard-partying, sexually fluid daughter Julia Cicero (played by Nathalie Emmanuel), a medical school dropout, who is frequently in the tabloid media for her antics. Teresa Cicero (played by Kathryn Hunter), who is Mayor Cicero’s wife/Julia’s mother, is the calm counterpoint to Mayor Cicero’s fiery personality.
“Megalopolis” opens with a captioned statement in Latin (with subtitles): “Our American republic is not that much different from Old Rome … Will we fall victim, like Old Rome, to the insatiable appetite for power from a few men?” All this means is that “Megalopolis” has a lot of people looking ridiculous as they wear togas and other clothing that are supposed to be inspired by Old Rome. But then, the movies bizarrely drops in some references to William Shakespeare, such as in an early scene in “Megalopolis” when Catilina utters the famous line “To be or not to be” from “Hamlet.”
In the beginning of the story, Catilina has been having a casual fling with a TV talk show host named Wow Platinum (played by Aubrey Plaza), who has grown frustrated that Catilina won’t commit to a more serious relationship. In a TV interview, Wow Platinum asks him: “What’s it like to be rich?” Catilina answers, “You can scare people.” Get used to the cringeworthy dialogue, because “Megalopolis” is full of it.
Wow tells Catilina that she’s “bored” with being his casual lover and declares that she wants to be “one-half of a power couple.” She’s tired of waiting around for Catilina to propose marriage to her. And so, gold digger Wow has a quickie wedding with elderly billionaire Hamilton Crassus III (played by Jon Voight), who is Catilina’s uncle and who obviously has a lot of influence in the city. Hamilton’s sister is Cesar Catilina’s widowed mother: Constance Crassus Catilina (played by Talia Shire), who doesn’t hide her disdain for Cesar. Constance openly tells Cesar that she wish he had been born a girl.
Hamilton is a lot like dying prey, with vultures circling to wait until he can die and fight over his fortune. These vultures include his heirs and his new wife Wow. Hamilton has four grandchildren who are all spoiled siblings: Clodia Pulcher (played by Chloe Fineman), Clodio Pulcher (played by Shia LaBeouf), Claudine Pulcher (played by Isabelle Kusman) and Claudette Pulcher (played by Madeleine Gardella). Claudine is a party girl who is a lover of Julia, the mayor’s “wild child” daughter.
Supporting characters drift in an out of the story, some with more purpose than others. A pop music superstar named Vesta Sweetwater (played by Grace VanderWaal), who has an image of being a teenage virgin, performs at the wedding reception for Hamilton and Wow. Fundi Romaine (played by Laurence Fishburne) is Catilina’s loyal driver/butler/flunky. Nush “The Fixer” Berman (played by Dustin Hoffman) briefly scurries in and out of the movie like a rat scrounging for scraps. Nush is opposed to Megalopolis because he says it’s built on a waste foundation. Jason Zanderz (played by Jason Schwartzman) is a “yes man” in Mayor Cicero’s entourage.
It should come as no surprise that Julia (because she’s got “daddy issues”) decides to work for Catilina, her father’s biggest enemy. One thing leads to another, and Julia and Catilina become lovers, much to the horror of Mayor Cicero. “Megalopolis” has a tired, catty subplot of a jealous Wow trying to break up the relationship between Julia and Catilina (even though Wow is now married to Hamilton) because Wow can’t stand to see Catilina be in love with another woman.
“Megalopolis” lurches from scene to scene and puts forth some not-very-original futuristic ideas (such as cars that travel by air) that are clumsily plopped into the story but never fully developed. Many of the scenes are mind-numbingly bad and embarrassing for the people in these scenes, as well as for Coppola, because of all the substandard acting and terrible dialogue. If you waited your whole life to see disgraced actor LaBeouf in drag as he says, “Revenge tastes best when wearing a dress,” then “Megalopolis” is the movie for you. For people with good taste in cinema, “Megalopolis” should definitely be left off of the menu.
Lionsgate released “Megalopolis” in U.S. cinemas on September 27, 2024. A sneak preview of the movie was shown in U.S. cinemas on September 23, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place mostly in outer space, the sci-fi drama film “Slingshot” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) who are connected in some way to a space mission.
Culture Clash: A captain and two other astronauts have disagreements with each other during a claustrophobic and disorienting mission to find methane in outer space.
Culture Audience: “Slingshot” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and don’t mind watching a dull outer-space movie that is poorly conceived.
Emily Beecham and Casey Affleck in “Slingshot” (Photo courtesy of Bleecker Street)
The sci-fi drama “Slingshot” starts off with a flimsy concept (a claustrophobic outer-space mission seeking methane to save Earth) and flounders in the middle of the movie. The story’s divisive ending seems like a rushed and lazy cop-out among plot twists. There are any number of ways that “Slingshot” could have ended. The ending that was chosen for this disappointing dud of a movie comes across as the cinematic equivalent of throwing spaghetti against a wall and seeing what sticks. It still leaves an unpleasant mess.
Directed by Mikael Håfström and written by R. Scott Adams and Nathan C. Parker, “Slingshot” takes place almost entirely on a spaceship that’s floating in outer space. (The movie was actually filmed in Hungary.) “Slingshot” also has a very small number of people in the cast. Three astronauts on the ship get most of the focus, while the lover of one of the space travelers is mostly seen in flashback memories. Everyone else who’s in the movie either has a short amount of screen time to speak and/or is a background extra.
“Slingshot” begins on December 23 in an unnamed year. On the spacecraft Odyssey 1, three astronauts are tasked with a mission called Titan, to find an overabundance of methane that could save Earth. (No reason is given for this nonsensical plot that methane can save Earth.) The Slingshot in the movie refers to a breathtaking display of orbital mechanics.
The movie is shown from the perspective of an American astronaut named John (played by Casey Affleck), who is on the spacecraft with a stern leader named Captain Franks (played by Laurence Fishburne) and a rebellious French astronaut named Nash (played by Tomer Capone), who all occasionally check in by satellite with their supervisor Sam Napier (played by David Morrissey), who has a British accent. The movie’s story has a non-linear timeline which reveals that John has been going through hibernation training to prepare for the mission. The beginning of the movie shows him emerging from a hibernation session, where he is told that the side effects can include confusion, nausea and dizziness.
Most of “Slingshot” consists of John on the spacecraft (1) getting into conflicts with Captain Franks or Nash and (2) having flashbacks to his romantic relationship with Zoe Morgan (played by Emily Beecham), one of the Odyssey’s designers. The movie intends to make the time as disorienting to viewers as it is to John, but it’s really all just muddled screenwriting.
After a while, everything drags with repetition until the last 20 minute of the film crams in several plot twists that have some plot holes. None of the acting is particularly special; the visual effects are competently basic. “Slingshot” doesn’t have much to say about what created the situation where Earth is desperate for methane. The movie is called “Slingshot,” but it ends up missing the mark in too many ways.
Bleecker Street released “Slingshot” in U.S. cinemas on August 30, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in various universes, the sci-fi/fantasy/action film “Deadpool & Wolverine” (based on Marvel Comics is the first “Deadpool” and “X-Men”-related movie that is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans and Asians) portraying superheroes, supervillains, powers and regular human beings.
Culture Clash: Bickering superheroes Deadpool and Wolverine team up to stop certain villains who want to make Deadpool’s universe disappear.
Culture Audience: “Deadpool & Wolverine” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, superhero movies and action films that have some bawdy comedy with self-referencing jokes.
Emma Corrin in “Deadpool & Wolverine” (Photo by Jay Maidment/20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios)
“Deadpool & Wolverine” takes a joke-filled grenade and throws it at previous perceptions of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This hyperactive superhero sequel goes all-in with meta references, surprise appearances, and male homoerotic flirting. There are so many references to previous MCU movies, Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox, executive decisions for superhero movies, and some of the cast members’ personal lives in the real world, it would be easy for anyone not familiar with any of these references be confused or not understand at last half of the jokes in the movie. “Deadpool & Wolverine”(based on Marvel Comics characters) is still an adrenaline-packed, crowd-pleaser for anyone inclined to like superhero movies, even if the movie is overstuffed with “surprises” to bulk up what is essentially a very thin plot.
Directed by Shawn Levy, “Deadpool & Wolverine” is the first MCU movie starring Marvel Comics characters from 20th Century Fox Studios (now known as 20th Century Studios), which was acquired by Disney (also owner of Marvel Studios) in 2019, about two years before the acquisition was announced. As a result, Marvel characters that have had movies from 20th Century Fox, such as Deadpool, the X-Men (which includes Wolverine), the Fantastic Four, Blade, Daredevil and Elektra, are among the characters who can now be part of the MCU. “Deadpool & Wolverine” was written by Levy, Ryan Reynolds, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick and Zeb Wells.
“Deadpool & Wolverine” is also the first MCU movie to have a movie rating that is recommended viewing for people at or close to adult ages. The movie gets this rating because of the bloody violence and cursing. “Deadpool & Wolverine” also has some sexual comments/innuendos that are intended for mature/adult audiences. Do people need to see any of 20th Century Fox’s previous superhero movies to better understand “Deadpool & Wolverine”? Yes. The best ones to see before “Deadpool & Wolverine” are 2016’s “Deadpool,” 2018’s “Deadpool 2” and 2017’s “Logan.”
In the very beginning of “Deadpool & Wolverine” wisecracking superhero Deadpool (played by Reynolds) is seen digging up a grave in a snowy wooded area. He’s trying to find and resurrect surly superhero Wolverine (played by Hugh Jackman), a human-wolf mutant also known as Logan, who died in the “Logan” movie. Wolverine is one of the main characters in the “X-Men” series of movies and comic books. Deadpool, whose real name is Wade Wilson, is a Canadian mercenary nicknamed Merc with a Mouth. Wade was disfigured by tumor-like scars that he received from being in a hypobaric chamber, and he has superhuman regenerative healing abilities. Wade’s main weapons are his guns and swords, while Wolverine’s main weapons his retractable hand claws that are very large blades.
The meta references in “Deadpool & Wolverine” start from the very first scene. Deadpool can be heard saying in a voiceover about resurrecting Wolverine/Logan: “Marvel is so stupid. How are we going to do this without dishonoring Logan’s memory? We’re not.” There’s an amusing fight scene that Deadpool has with some soldiers the wooded area, where Deadpool dances to *NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye.” And then, there’s a flashback to Deadpool’s life in 2018 and in 2024, before he ended up in this fight.
The flashbacks show that Wade has retired his Deadpool superhero persona and is working as a salesperson for a company called Drive Max, which is a lot like the real-life automobile sales company CarMax. Wade is close to a middle-aged co-worker named Peter (played by Rob Delaney), who is also a salesperson at Drive Max. A flashback to 2018 shows that Wade is unhappy in this dead-end job, so he interviews with Happy Hogan (played by Jon Favreau), Iron Man’s former chauffeur, to see if he can get back in the superhero business. Deadpool says he needs to join the Avengers (Marvel’s most famous group of superheroes), but Happy tells Wade that people aren’t Avengers because they need to be but because people need the Avengers.
In 2024, Wade is living with elderly roommate Blind Al (played by Leslie Uggams), who mentions several times that she’s a cocaine dealer. (The cocaine comments in the movie are played for laughs.) On his birthday, Wade goes home and gets a surprise birthday party, whose guests are Blind Al; Wade’s ex-girlfriend Vanessa Carlysle (played by Morena Baccarin); and various superhero friends who were introduced in 2018’s “Deadpool 2”: Dopinder (played by Karan Soni); Negasonic Teenage Warhead (played by Brianna Hildebrand); Yukio (played by Shioli Kutsuna); Colussus (played by Stefan Kapicic); and Buck (played by Randal Reeder). At this party, Vanessa tells Wade that she has a new boyfriend. Wade (who’s still in love with Vanessa) is visibly disappointed that she has moved on to someone else.
After this birthday party, Wade suddenly finds himself transported to the headquarters of the Time Variance Authority (TVA), which is responsible for various timelines in the multiverse. Wade meets a pompous TVA official named Mr. Paradox (played by Matthew Macfadyen), who informs Wade that when an anchor being dies in a universe, the universe and its timeline will eventually fade from existence. Mr. Paradox tells Wade/Deadpool that the universe of Wade/Deadpool and all of Wade’s loved ones will eventually cease to exist. Mr. Paradox has been tasked with overseeing this extinction.
Wade/Deadpool finds out that the “anchor being” for this universe is Wolverine/Logan. And so begins a race against time to find Wolverine/Logan (there are several in the multiverse) who is alive and team up with Wolverine to save Deadpool’s universe. “Deadpool & Wolverine” has a flurry of alternate Wolverines/Logans who make quick appearance in this search, including one played by an actor who is famous for starring as a DC Comics superhero.
The Wolverine/Logan who ends up teaming up with Deadpool/Wade is dealing with massve guilt over the death of millions of beings in his universe. The movie’s chief villain is Cassandra Nova (played by Emma Corrin), the twin sister of “X-Men” character Charles Xavier. She lives in a place called The Void, which “Deadpool & Wolverine” is quick to self-referentially point out is the movie’s ripoff version of what’s in the “Mad Max” movies. Cassandra has extremely powerful telekinesis abilities. She can also take her hands to go inside bodies and grab onto people’s organs. When she takes a hold of someone’s brain, she can read their mind and enter their thoughts.
The movie’s visual effects are above-average but they’re not groundbreaking. “Deadpool & Wolverine’s” soundtrack songs lean heavily into nostalgia. In addition to *NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye,” other songs featured prominently in the movie are Madonna’s “Like a Prayer”; John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John’s “Grease” duet “You’re the One that I Want”; and Huey Lewis & the News’ “The Power of Love” and “If This Is It.” This isn’t a soundtrack that will have an award-winning hit original song written for the soundtrack.
“Deadpool & Wolverine” also mines nostalgia in other ways, such as plenty of surprise superhero appearances—some that are more predictable than others. Some of these superhero appearances are played by the same cast members who were these superheroes in other movies, while other superhero appearances are from cast members playing these superheroes for the first time in a movie. Perhaps the biggest surprise is the appearance of someone who seems to be one superhero but then is revealed to be another superhero.
Reynolds and Jackman play up the “opposites attract and clash” personalities of Deadpool and Wolverine to the hilt. They get into some epic battles with villains and with each other. Reynolds has said in interviews that he thinks Deadpool is probably bisexual or sexually fluid, and so he portrays the character in this way. “Deadpool & Wolverine” doesn’t come right out and declare Deadpool’s sexuality, but the movie doesn’t really play coy about Deadpool’s sexuality either. There are numerous scenes that show Deadpool/Wade is still in love with Vanessa but he is sexually attracted to Wolverine/Logan.
Corrin is quite good in the role of ice-cold Cassandra, but this villain won’t go be remembered as the most fearsome or entertaining MCU villain. Macfadyen (the Emmy-winning former co-star of “Succession”) also has a role as an icy Brit villain, although prissy Mr. Paradox doesn’t have any superpowers and is a lot less menacing than Cassandra. There’s also a Deadpool dog named Dogpool who is in the movie for offbeat cuteness and comic relief. Cassandra’s minions are generic and forgettable, except for an underdeveloped character named Pyro (played by Aaron Stanford), who can make flames come out of his hands.
The movie has some snarky references to a few of the cast members’ personal lives. For example, Deadpool says that Wolverine has let his toned physique go flabby because of the divorce, which is in reference to Jackman’s own real-life divorce that Jackman going through while filming “Deadpool & Wolverine.” There’s also a joke about two real-life ex-spouses who co-starred as superheroes in a superhero movie that was released in the early 2000s, a few years before the now-divorced couple got married.
“Deadpool & Wolverine” has an overload of references to past superhero movies, pop culture and celebrity gossip. Viewers who are unfamiliar with any of the above will just feel lost but can still enjoy the action and the characters. The movie’s end-credit scene is not a preview for a sequel but is an amusing reference to a previous scene in “Deadpool & Wolverine.” As far as MCU movies go, “Deadpool & Wolverine” is a wacky and entertaining ride that doesn’t take itself too seriously. “Deadpool & Wolverine” revels in poking fun itself as much as it pokes fun at the movie industry.
Marvel Studios and 20th Century Studios will release “Deadpool & Wolverine” in U.S. cinemas on July 26, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in the United States and in Morocco, the sci-fi/horror film “Lumina” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A man and three of his friends look for his missing girlfriend, who disappeared from his home under mysterious circumstances.
Culture Audience: “Lumina” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching extremely low-quality movies.
Eric Roberts and Rupert Lazarus in “Lumina” (Photo courtesy of Goldove Entertainment)
The sci-fi horror flop “Lumina” is a pathetic mess of sloppy filmmaking and cringeworthy acting. This incoherent story, which is about a woman’s disappearance that is linked to outer space, gets worse as the movie sinks into a void of irredeemable idiocy. “Lumina” is the type of stinker that’s destined to end up in shows or lists that make fun of terrible sci-fi movies or the worst movies of the year.
Written and directed by Gino J.H. McKoy, “Lumina” is his feature-film directorial debut. It’s the type of movie that was made because the director and some the director’s family members paid to get it made. The producers of this dreck movie are Gino J.H. McKoy, Lynda McKoy, Hudson McKoy and David Seychell. It’s hard to imagine real movie producers with credibility wanting to get involved in this hopelessly amateur-looking junk.
“Lumina” has more science fiction than horror. The horror part of the movie doesn’t really kick in until the last third of the film. By then, it’s a lost cause. The visual effects in “Lumina” are so cheap-looking and tacky, it makes a lot of no-budget YouTube videos look like masterpieces in comparison.
“Lumina” actually starts off looking like a boring soap opera instead of a sci-fi horror thriller. The opening scene shows a man in a space suit walking around on what appears to be another planet. Who is this person? Where is he? And why? The movie answers those questions in the last third of the story. In the meantime, it’s a slog to get there with many scenes being absolutely unnecessary or making no sense.
After the scene with the spacesuit man, the movie then abruptly shifts to six months earlier. At a Los Angeles mansion, wealthy trust-fund heir Alex (played by Rupert Lazarus) is having a house party. It’s mentioned later in the movie that Alex doesn’t have a job. He just lives off of his trust fund. (“Lumina” was actually filmed in Morocco.)
Alex and his attractive blonde girlfriend Tatiana (played by Eleanor Williams) are in love and happy with each other. However, because Alex has the personality of a slug, you have to wonder what Tatiana sees in him. It must be his money. But there’s trouble in a paradise for this couple because of a jealous person in a love triangle.
Alex has a platonic friend named Deliah (played by Andrea Tivada), who is in love with Alex and wants him for herself. Alex has a hanger-on living with him named Patricia (played by Sidney Nicole Rogers), who doesn’t have a job either. Patricia is a platonic friend of Alex’s, but it’s unclear what led to Patricia living with Alex. It’s implied that she’s a freeloader.
Patricia is a close friend of Delilah, who asks Patricia to help her in spying on Alex and Tatiana. Don’t expect to find out what any of these so-called friends do with their lives or how they met. None of that information is mentioned in this poorly written movie.
At the house party, Patricia tells Delilah will just have to “learn how to share” Alex because Alex won’t break up with Tatiana. Delilah won’t accept that advice. Delilah says to Patricia: “He thinks he loves her, but he doesn’t. He’ll be better off without her. Actually, I know he’ll be happier.”
Almost all of the dialogue in this movie sounds like it was spit out by a third-rate artificial intelligence program. The stiff and unnatural acting in “Lumina” isn’t much better. There are robots that could be more believable than the human cast members who show a sorry display of acting in “Lumina.”
As the party ends and the guests have departed, something strange happens in the living room where Delilah and Patricia are sitting on a couch: Liquid in drinking glasses starts to float in the air. Tatiana is outside near the swimming pool when there’s a huge flash of light. Suddenly, Tatiana has disappeared.
A frantic Alex looks everywhere for Tatiana but can’t find her. And so, Alex calls police to report her as a missing person. Here’s how bad the “Lumina” screenplay is: When a cop shows up to interview Alex and asks him to describe Tatiana, Alex only gives this vague description: “5’8″, 130 [pounds], long hair, beautiful eyes.”
Alex doesn’t mention Tatiana’s hair color or eye color. And the cop never asks. The cop doesn’t ask for a photo of Tatiana, nor does Alex mention giving a photo of Tatiana to help with the search for her. The stupidity doesn’t end there.
While all of this turmoil over Tatiana’s disappearance is going on, Delilah and Patricia are still sitting on the couch. Alex walks into the room right at the moment that Delilah can be heard listening to a recording she made on her phone where Delilah says repeatedly, “I wish that bitch would disappear.”
Alex immediately has a meltdown because he knows Delilah is talking about Tatiana. He yells at Delilah: “Why would you say that?” He then shouts at Delilah: “This friendship is over! Get out of my house!” Of course, this won’t be the last time that Alex and Delilah see each other.
An unspecified period of time has passed when the movie then abruptly cuts to the next scene, which shows a forlorn Alex with a very shaggy beard. Alex mopes around his house and stares off into space a lot because he’s depressed about Tatiana, who’s still missing. A talkative and hyper acquaintance of Alex’s named George (played by Ken Lawson) shows up at the house and immediately starts spouting conspiracy theories about alien abductions. Alex starts to believe him.
George is friendly with Alex but apparently doesn’t know Alex very well, because when George arrives at the house, he’s surprised that it’s a mansion. George is a nerdy creep who often makes inappropriate comments. He’s immediately attracted to Patricia and lets her know it. This is George’s idea of flirting with Patricia: He tells Patricia within minutes of meeting her to take off her clothes. George means it as a joke, but it’s still a boorish thing to say. Patricia lets George know that she thinks he’s kind of repulsive.
The rest of “Lumina” stumbles around from scene to scene, as Alex, Patricia, George and Delilah (who convinces Alex to let her hang out with him again) search for Tatiana. The scenes get weirder more irritating. Some characters show up in the movie but have no real purpose or bearing on the plot before they go away and are never seen again.
George introduces the three pals to another conspiracy theorist named Thom (played by Eric Roberts), who hangs out in a cave-like structure with some control board equipment that looks like throwaway props from an outdated sci-fi movie. Roberts gets top billing in “Lumina,” but he’s in this two-hour movie for less than 15 minutes. Roberts’ mumbling performance is the very definition of “phoning it in,” because he looks like he could care less about embarrassing hmself in this terrible movie.
There’s a part of the story where Alex and his pals go to Morocco to visit Tatiana’s parents Teresa (played by Rachael Mellen) and Martin (played by Collin Goodwin), who have some information about Tatiana to tell Alex. Why did Alex have to go all the way to Morocco to get this information? The parents insist that they can only tell Alex this information in person.
One of the most mind-boggling and time-wasting scenes in “Lumina” is when Alex, George, Patricia and Delilah encounter a couple named Sonny (played by Mohamed Nmila) and Chere (played by Emily Hall) at night in a remote area with a shallow pond near some rocks. (Don’t ask.) Chere strips down to her underwear and wades in the pond. She takes Alex by the hand and gets him to also remove his outer clothing and go in the pond with her.
Chere tells Alex, “You need to be invited, like we were invited.” Delilah predictably gets jealous and call Chere a “bitch,” which seems to be Delilah’s go-to word for a woman she sees as competition for Alex’s attention. Delilah and Chere almost have a catfight as Delilah pulls Alex away from this “temptress.” Don’t expect this scene to explain anything.
It’s at this point in the movie when you know that the “Lumina” filmmakers absolutely did not care about having an entertaining story and just threw some stupid ideas together and called it a plot. “Lumina” just exists to fulfill some people’s misguided fantasy of making a sci-fi horror movie that actually turned out to be an unintentional comedy because of how laughably bad everything is. Many viewers won’t be laughing though. The joke is on anyone who thinks “Lumina” is a good movie.
Goldove Entertainment released “Lumina” in U.S. cinemas on July 12, 2024.
