Tia Carrere Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘Lilo & Stitch’ (2025), starring Maia Kealoha, Sydney Elizebeth Agudong, Billy Magnussen, Tia Carrere, the voice of Chris Sanders, Courtney B. Vance and Zach Galifianakis

May 20, 2025

by Carla Hay

Stitch (voiced by Chris Sanders) and Maia Kealoha in “Lilo & Stitch” (Photo courtesy of Disney Enterprises Inc.)

“Lilo & Stitch” (2025)

Directed by Dean Fleischer Camp

Culture Representation: Taking place in Hawai’i and in outer space, the live-action/animated film “Lilo & Stitch” (a remake of the 2002 animated film) features a predominantly Pacific Islander cast of characters (with some white people and African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A mischievious outer-space alien crash lands on Earth, where he is adopted by a 6-year-old girl and her guardian 18-year-old sister, while outer-space officials hunt for the alien to bring it back to captivity.

Culture Audience: “Lilo & Stitch” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the 2002 “Lilo & Stitch” movie, the movie’s headliners, and family-friendly entertainment that delivers a good mix of comedy and drama.

Billy Magnussen and Zach Galifianakis in “Lilo & Stitch” (Photo Zach Dougan/Disney Enterprises)

The good news is that “Lilo & Stitch” is a worthy remake of the 2002 animated film, with an ending that’s arguably better. The bad news is that the hunt for fugitive alien Stitch is worse than the original movie. That’s because the 2025 version of “Lilo & Stitch” clumsily adds a body-transformation aspect to the story’s two space-alien hunters that makes them impersonate buffoonish humans who just aren’t very funny. Fortunately, these two bozos are not the movie’s main characters. The main characters in 2025’s “Lilo & Stitch” are endearing, doing justice their counterparts in 2002’s “Lilo & Stitch,” while bringing their own admirable qualities to these characters.

Directed by Dean Fleischer Camp, the 2025 version of “Lilo & Stitch” was written by Chris Kekaniokalani Bright and Mike Van Waes. Camp received an Oscar nomination (Best Animated Feature Film) for directing and producing 2021’s “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On,” a quirky live-action/animation hybrid that he also co-wrote. Because the 2025 version of “Lilo & Stitch” is a remake of a Disney classic, there isn’t much room to be offbeat, but 2025’s “Lilo & Stitch” mostly strikes the right balance of energetic comedy and heartfelt drama. The movie also has perfect casting of the two sisters who are the main human characters of the story.

The 2025 version of “Lilo & Stitch” begins in the same way as the 2002 “Lilo & Stitch” movie: In outer space, on the fictional Planet Turo, a rogue scientist named Jumba (voiced by Zach Galifianakis) has gotten into trouble for inventing a creature through illegal experimentation. The male creature, which looks like a blue koala with antennae, is called Experiment 626, and will later be named Stitch when the creature lands on Earth and impersonates a dog. Chris Sanders, who co-directed and co-wrote 2002’s “Lilo & Stitch,” returns as the voice of Stitch/Experiment 626, a character that Sanders is credited with creating.

Jumba is facing punishment before a committee led by the Grand Councilwoman (voiced by Hannah Waddingham), the leader of the Galactic Federation. The Grand Councilwoman decides that Experiment 626 (who is hyper, mischievous and very intelligent) must be exiled on a desert asteroid. However, Experiment 626 causes havoc on the spaceship carrying him. The ship crashes instead on Earth, on the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i. (The 2025 version of “Lilo & Stitch” was actually film on the Hawaiian island of O’ahu.)

A horrified Grand Councilwoman orders Jumba to retrieve Experiment 626 from Earth and send him to the original asteroid destination. Jumba admittedly doesn’t know much about Earth. But an eager law enforcement official named Agent Pleakley (voiced by Billy Magnussen), a self-proclaimed Earth expert, offers to accompany Jumba on this mission. Pleakley (who has a cheerful and goofy personality) explains that he’s been doing extensive research of Earth, which he and his colleagues have been using as a planet to repopulate mosquitos.

Grand Councilwoman allows Pleakley to go on this mission. Jumba, who is gruff and impatient, isn’t pleased about this situation because he’s somewhat of a loner who likes to be the “alpha male” of everything. Predictably, Jumba thinks Pleakely is annoying, and thier conflicts sometimes hinder their mission. It’s a familiar story formula of two beings with opposite personalities who are forced to work together for a common goal.

In the original “Lilo & Stitch,” Jumba and Pleakley kept their original alien bodies but were under strict orders not to reveal themselves to humans. Jumba and Pleakley had the ability to make themselves invisible. In the 2025 version of “Lilo & Stitch,” Jumba and Pleakley can still make themselves invisible, but this time, they decided to disguise themselves as humans, to make it easier to interact with people.

How do Jumba and Pleakley disguise themselves as humans? Jumba and Pleakley are at a Hawaiian airport and take photos of two male companion travelers (played by Galifianakis and Magnussen), who are outside of a terminal on their way to getting checked in for their flight. Jumba and Pleakley then use those photos to transform themselves into looking like these two human travelers. There’s some not-that-funny sitcom-ish slapstick where Jumba and Pleakley both have problems adjusting to walking and dressing like humans.

Meanwhile, the two main human characters of the story are introduced: Lilo (played by Maia Kealoha) is an energetic and curious 6-year-old girl, who lives with her bright but overwhelmed 18-year-old sister Nani (played by Sydney Elizebeth Agudong) in a modest Kaua’i house. Nani is Lilo’s guardian because their parents died in a car accident a few months ago. Nani has been juggling child-raising responsibilities with her job as a server at a resort restaurant called Jimmy’s Luau, which has live entertainment.

A new aspect to the story is Nani had plans to study marine biology at her first-choice college: the University of California at San Diego, where she had a full academic scholarship. But because Nani has to take care of Lilo, Nani has put her college plans on indefinite hold. Nani has to deal with a lot because Lilo has a tendency to get into trouble. Viewers have to assume that this story takes place during the summer because Lilo is never seen in school.

In both “Lilo & Stitch” movies, Lilo is treated like a weird outcast by her peers. Just like in both movies, an early scene shows Lilo is late for a hula dancing performance at the resort because she was busy feeding a sandwich to some fish in the sea. Lilo also says she can communicate with the fish. She gets teased about it by some “mean girls” in the group.

In both “Lilo & Stitch” movies, Lilo gets kicked out of the dance group because of a conflict with a “mean girl” in the group who insulted Lilo. In the 2002 “Lilo & Stitch.” Lilo punches the girl and gets in a brawl with her. The 2025 “Lilo & Stitch” tones down Lilo’s violence and just has Lilo pushing the mean girl off of the dance stage.

Nani is understanding but exasperated by Lilo’s rebellious antics. Lilo asks Nani, “Am I a bad person?” Nani replies, “No, but sometimes you do bad things.” Just like in both movies, the concept of ‘ohana (family) is repeated as “no one gets left behind.”

And just like in both movies, Lilo is lonely and wants a best friend. She loves animals and is a big fan of Elvis Presley’s music, which is played throughout the movie. The Presley songs include “Heartbreak Hotel,” “Hound Dog,” Suspicious Minds,” “Stuck on You,” “(You’re the) Devil in Disguise” and a Bruno Mars cover version of “Burning Love.” Hawaiian music is also part of the movie’s soundtrack, including songs written for the movie (such as “He Lei Pāpahi No Lilo a me Stitch” and “Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride”) and Hawaiian music classics, such as “Aloha ‘Oe” and “Henehene Kou ‘Aka.”

In both “Lilo & Stitch” movies, Nani’s guardianship of Lilo is under scrutiny by a social worker, who does home visits and is concerned about the sisters’ living situation and Nani’s ability to properly take care of Lilo. In the 2002 “Lilo & Stitch” movie, Tia Carrere was the voice of Nani. In the 2025 “Lilo & Stitch” movie, Carrere has the role of social worker Mrs. Kekoa, who is assigned to monitor Nani’s guardianship of Lilo.

Mrs. Kekoa’s first visit to the home is a disaster. The place is a mess. There’s not enough food in the refrigerator. And she finds out that Nani sometime leaves Lilo by herself, which is something that Nani lies about by denying it. Mrs. Kekoa tries to give Nani some leeway by telling Nani that Nani has three tasks to complete before Mrs. Kekoa’s next visit: (1) stock the fridge; (2) clean up the house; (3) and get health insurance for Nani and Lilo.

Later, Mrs. Kekoa is aided by a CIA operative named Cobra Bubbles (played by Courtney V. Vance), who is also looking for Experiment 626, but Cobra fools Mrs. Kekoa by going posing as the director of the social services agency. In the 2002 “Lilo & Stitch” movie, the Cobra Bubbles character (voiced by Ving Rhames) was much more menacing and imposing than the Cobra Bubbles in 2025’s “Lilo & Stitch.” Cobra was the only social services worker in 2002’s “Lilo & Stitch,” and his CIA identity was revealed much later in the movie.

It just so happens that on the night that Experiment 626 crash-landed on Earth, it looked like a falling star that Lilo and Nani could see from Lilo’s bedroom window. Just like in both movies, Lilo pushes Nani out of the room so that Lilo can be alone to wish on the falling star. Nani eavesdrops and sees that Lilo’s wish is to find a best friend who loves her unconditionally and will never abandon her.

It doesn’t take long for Experiment 626 to cause chaos on Earth. He crashes and runs all over a wedding reception, where people scream, fall down and hurt themselves when they see this creature. Experiment 626 is then taken by animal care control workers to a local animal rescue shelter called Na Me Ola, where he is put in the section for dogs.

Lilo’s introduction to Experiment 626 is slightly different in both movies, but the end results are the same. In 2002’s “Lilo & Stitch,” it’s Nani’s idea to bring Lilo to the shelter so that Lilo can find an animal friend. In 2025’s “Lilo & Stitch,” an elderly neighbor friend named Tūtū (played by Amy Hill) suggests that Lilo go to the animal shelter and accompanies Lilo to this visit. In 2002’s “Lilo & Stitch,” Hill had a different elderly woman role: Mrs. Hasagawa, the owner of a fruit stand.

Tūtū lives with her grandson David (played by Kaipo Dudoit), a surfer who has a crush on Nani, who is also an avid surfer. David asks Nani to go on surfing dates, but she politely turns down his invitations. It’s in contrast to 2002’s “Lilo & Stitch,” where Nani’s romance with David was already established. Jason Scott Lee was the voice of David in 2002’s “Lilo & Stitch.” In 2025s “Lilo & Stitch,” Lee portrays the manager of Jimmy’s Luau.

The workers at the animal shelter don’t know what type of animal Experiment 626 is, so they plan to have the creature stay at the shelter until some local scientists can take this creature for evaluation. Experiment 626 sees dogs and photos of dogs at the shelter, and he is intelligent enough to transform himself to look as much like and act as much like a dog as possible. That includes make his antennae and extra feet hide inside his body. In 2002’s “Lilo & Stitch” the other dogs are so frightened of Experiment 626, they hide on top of their cages. But in 2025’s “Lilo & Stitch,” the dogs in the shelter aren’t bothered by Experiment 626.

When Lilo meets Experiment 626, she’s immediately interested in him because he looks so different from other animals in the shelter. Even when she’s told that this animal is not up for adoption, Lilo insists that this is the pet that she wants. Just like in both movies, Experiment 626 sees a poster of a girl hugging a dog, so he hugs Lilo to ensure that she will want to adopt him. The tactic works.

Of course, once Experiment 626 is in Lilo’s home, it acts like an unruly dog. One day, while he’s in Nani’s truck with Nani and Lilo, Experiment 626 rips the upholstery on a car seat. Nani is annoyed and says that she’ll now have to get the seat stitched up. And that’s how Lilo gets the idea to name this pet Stitch.

The rest of “Lilo & Stitch” is delightful to watch when Lilo, Nani and Stitch are in the scenes. Kealoha and Agudong (who are both native Hawaiians) are completely believable as sisters. Agudong gives a likable and relatable performance, even though she looks like she’s in her mid-20s instead of the 18-year-old character she’s supposed to be.

And although Stitch is the cute creature of the movie, precocious Kealoha as Lilo is an equal star of the show. Kealoha has great comedic timing and performs convincingly in the dramatic scenes. “Lilo & Stitch” is Kealoha’s first movie. And it’s a very impressive debut for her. The rest of the human characters in the movie are serviceable or fairly bland.

Where 2025’s “Lilo & Stitch” falters is in showing Jumba and Pleakley’s pursuit of Stitch/Experiment 626. In the 2002 “Lilo & Stitch” movie, there was more suspense for this hunt because Jumba and Pleakley actually seemed to be dangerous. In the 2025 “Lilo & Stitch” movie, Jumba and Pleakley are just bickering clowns in cartoonish human form, wearing garish tourist clothing. Pleakley’s wardrobe choices are especially cringeworthy because he dresses like a 5-year-old boy and often acts like one.

The 2025 “Lilo & Stitch” movie also doesn’t seem to know how to deal with Jumba and Pleakley, whose hunt is so inept, it feels like the stakes are diminished because of how Jumba and Pleakley are presented as screw-ups in this version of “Lilo & Stitch.” The Cobra character is brought in the middle of the film and is more fatherly than scary. In other words, the villains in this movie needed act more like villains.

Despite these flaws, 2025’s “Lilo & Stitch” retains the warmth and playfulness of the 2002 movie. The live-action visuals are an obvious improvement from the 2-D animation of the 2002 version of “Lilo & Stitch.” Best of all, 2025’s “Lilo & Stitch” gives a more realistic view of the world from the perspectives of Lilo and Nani, particularly in how Nani’s guardianship of Lilo is handled. The movie gives an important lesson that life doesn’t always work out as originally planned but it can work out for what’s best at that particular time.

Walt Disney Pictures will release “Lilo & Stitch” in U.S. cinemas on May 23, 2025.

Review: ‘Paradise’ (2024), starring Patricia Allison, Tate Donovan, Bashir Salahuddin, Adam Lustick, Arjun Gupta, Myles Evans, CJ Hoff and Tia Carrere

March 21, 2024

by Carla Hay

Patricia Allison in “Paradise” (Photo courtesy of Tubi)

“Paradise” (2024)

Directed by Max Isaacson

Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional city of Paradise, Hawaii, the action film “Paradise” features a racially diverse cast of characters (white, African American and Asian) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A rebellious misfit goes on a killing spree against the people whom she blames for the murder of her police sheriff father.

Culture Audience: “Paradise” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and action movies that don’t do anything innovative or exciting.

Tate Donovan and CJ Hoff in “Paradise” (Photo courtesy of Tubi)

“Paradise” is trying to be a “Kill Bill” type of action movie, with a female protagonist out for deadly revenge, but the screenplay is so messy and moronic, it just ends up being another forgettable, substandard flick with bloody violence. Patricia Allison has charisma in the starring role, but “Paradise” is a failure of imagination and just drowns in stupid dialogue and a cesspool of clichés.

Directed by Max Isaacson and written by Tony Borden, “Paradise” is their feature-film debut. The movie (which takes place and was filmed in Hawaii) has some eye-catching and somewhat stylish-looking cinematography. However, the movie’s story is so amatuerish, you have to wonder why the fairly well-known actors in the cast agreed to do this movie. Maybe the appeal of filming in Hawaii was too tempting to pass up.

“Paradise” is named for the fictional city in Hawaii where the story takes place. (“Paradise” was actually filmed in Hilo, Hawaii, which is about 13 miles northwest of Hawaiian Paradise Park.) The movie’s central character is Ella Patchet (played by Allison), who is supposed to be about 18 or 19 years old. Ella has a reputation for being a rebellious misfit.

Ella works in a gun shop and is the type of person who gets thrown out of places for getting into physical fights. That’s what happens in the movie’s opening scene that shows Ella racing off on her bicycle after getting into an altercation at a seedy-looking place. The altercation is not shown on camera, but there will be plenty of other scenes in the movie that show how Ella fights.

Why does Ella has a very angry streak to her personality? It has a lot to do with the fact that her mother and brother were shot to death by unnamed drug dealers, who were not brought to justice. To make matters worse, Ella’s father Dan Patchett (played by Bashir Salahuddin) is the sheriff of Paradise, so Ella puts a lot of blame on him for not being able to catch the killers. The movie never explains if Ella was always this violent and angry, or if the bitterness of her family members’ murders caused her to be this violent and angry.

Ella has a sidekick friend named Townes (played by Myles Evans), who apparently has nothing better to do in his life than hang out with Ella and participate in whatever troublemaking she gets involved with or instigates. Ella and Townes both dislike Giles Whitney (played by CJ Hoff), the spoiled and obnoxious teenage son of Paradise’s smarmy mayor Calvin Whitney (played by Tate Donovan), who is the type of phony-acting politician who pretends to be an upstanding citizen in public but is obviously unethical behind the scenes.

Mayor Whitney, who is the wealthy owner of the Whitney Water and Power company, is in the midst of negotiating a lucrative deal to bring a solar farm to Paradise. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who will personally profit the most from this deal. Much of “Paradise” tries to come across as being a mystery thriller, but everything about this poorly conceived movie treats viewers like idiots. “Paradise” has so many glaringly obvious clues, there is no real mystery to solve.

At a party with other young people, Giles taunts Ella over her father not being able to solve the murders of Ella’s brother and Ella’s mother. Ella’s response is to shoot a gun at Giles. Luckily for Giles, the bullets miss Giles, and there are no injuries to anyone else. Later, Ella goes over to the mayor’s house and demands that more should be done to investigate the murders of her brother and mother. Calvin promises Ella that he will get justice for her murdered family members.

An early scene in the movie shows Calvin visiting the local police station to meet with Dan. Calvin shows Dan a newspaper article reporting that a crime boss named Lee Paige (played by Tia Carrere) and her group of thugs have returned to the area. Calvin asks Dan, “Did you really think that they wouldn’t come back?” Dan replies, “After 10 years? Yeah.”

One of Dan’s subordinates is a police officer named Troy Hobbes (played by Arjun Gupta), who is very eager to please the mayor. “Paradise” makes it too easy to see early on in the movie where loyalties might lie and who is most likely be corrupt. The mayor also has a henchmen/fixer named Sam Mayo (played by Adam Lustick), who is a typically generic lackey enforcer.

It should come as no surprise that Ella doesn’t want to wait for the mayor to get justice. The stakes get even higher for her when her father Dan ends up being murdered. The rest of “Paradise” then just becomes one shooting spree/murder scene after another, often clumsily staged. The people responsible for the murder of Dan are exactly who you think they are. The people who die in the movie are exactly those you expect to die.

The dialogue is bad enough in “Paradise,” but a lot of the acting isn’t much better. Gupta is very over-the-top (and not in a good way) in many of his scenes, while Donovan gives a very lackluster “I’m just here for the salary” type of performance. Carrere (who really has a cameo role, not a starring role) acts like she’s in a campy comedy, not a gritty action flick. Allison as the Ella Patchet character could have been iconic with a clever screenplay and skillful direction. As it stands, “Paradise” can only describe some of the Hawaiian locations in the movie, not the soulless junk that is the actual movie.

Tubi premiered “Paradise” on March 21, 2024.

Review: ‘Easter Sunday’ (2022), starring Jo Koy

August 4, 2022

by Carla Hay

Pictured in front: Joey Guila, Elena Juatco, Jo Koy, Melody Butiu and Lydia Gaston in “Easter Sunday” (Photo by Ed Ariquel/Universal Pictures)

“Easter Sunday” (2022)

Directed by Jay Chandrasekhar

Some language in Tagalog with no subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in California’s Los Angeles County and Daly City, the comedic film “Easter Sunday” features a cast of predominantly Asian characters (with some white people and a few African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A struggling, divorced actor in the Los Angeles area is pressured to go to his family’s annual Easter Sunday dinner about 385 miles away in Daly City, on the same day that he might have to be in Los Angeles for an important event that could change his career for the better.

Culture Audience: “Easter Sunday” will appeal primarily to people are are fans of star Jo Koy and any family comedy that wallows in mediocre and predictable stereotypes.

Jo Koy, Brandon Wardell and Carly Pope in “Easter Sunday” (Photo by Ed Ariquel/Universal Pictures)

The uninspired comedy “Easter Sunday” is like being served rotten Easter eggs that went stale years ago. It piles on over-used and tired clichés about family reunions, while dumping in a silly subplot about paying a debt to a vengeful criminal. This predictable tripe might have been more appealing if it had just stuck to the family issues. But instead, “Easter Sunday” goes off the rails toward the last third of the movie when it forces a ridiculous and horribly written crime caper into this already weak storyline.

Directed by Jay Chandrasekhar, “Easter Sunday” (which was written by Ken Cheng and Kate Angelo) can certainly be praised for having diversity in the movie’s cast and behind-the-scenes filmmaking team. However, that diversity doesn’t automatically mean that the movie is going to be any good. Unfortunately, “Easter Sunday” missed an opportunity to be a standout comedy film for having a truly original and amusing story. “Easter Sunday” has so many ripoffs and recycled tropes from similar comedy films, it’s embarrassing.

There’s the male protagonist who has a love/hate relationship with certain family members. There’s the big family reunion that’s supposed to cause him a lot of stress. There’s the goofy sidekick who gets the protagonist in all sorts of trouble. And that trouble usually involves cartoonish violence and hard-to-believe scenarios. All of these stereotypes are in “Easter Sunday,” which mostly fails to be funny, charming, bold or interesting.

In “Easter Sunday,” the protagonist is a struggling actor named Joe Valencia (played by Jo Koy), who is on the verge of getting his first big break in years: starring in a TV comedy series. Joe, who lives in Vernon, California (a suburb of Los Angeles), is a divorced father to a son who is about 16 or 17 years old. Joe’s son is also named Joe but is nicknamed Junior (played by Brandon Wardell), who is often estranged from Joe because Joe has a long history of being a flaky parent who avoids spending family time with Junior.

What makes Joe’s unstable parenting even worse is that Junior doesn’t live very far from Joe. Therefore, Joe has no real excuse for why he doesn’t spend time with Junior as much as Joe should. Joe’s ex-wife Catherine (played by Carly Pope), who is remarried, has custody of Junior. Catherine’s current husband Nick (played by Michael Weaver) is a player for the professional ice hockey team the Los Angeles Kings. Nick is good-looking, athletic, and makes a lot more money than Joe does. Nick and Junior also get along with each other.

And you know what that means: Joe is predictably jealous. This jealousy comes out in a scene where Joe makes a rare visit to Catherine and Nick’s home to pick up Junior for a father/son visit. Before they leave, Nick and Joe have a petty argument because Nick insists on making Joe a nutritious smoothie drink. Joe reluctantly takes the smoothie drink but then dumps it out on a street near the house as Joe is driving away. Joe deliberately does it in full view of Catherine and Nick, so that the couple can see Joe make this mess. It’s the first of many signs that Joe can be obnoxious and immature.

Junior is close to being put on academic probation at the private school that he attends, but Joe doesn’t feel equipped to handle this problem. Still, Joe agrees to attend a parent-teacher meeting at the school with Catherine and Junior to discuss this issue. And it should come as no surprise that the meeting is on the same day that Joe has to audition for this sitcom, which is called “Great Scott.”

Joe is being considered for the TV show’s starring role, in which he would be portraying an attorney. Joe’s ambitious and smarmy agent Nick (played by “Easter Sunday” director Chandrasekhar) knows that this audition is the biggest thing that’s come along for Joe in years. This major opportunity leads to Nick putting enormous pressure on Joe to do whatever it takes to get the job.

Joe’s main claim to fame is starring in a beer commercial that aired years ago. In this commercial, he shouted the catch phrase, “Let’s get this party started, baby!” (with “baby” pronounced “baybay”), which became his signature line as an actor. The problem is that Joe has become pigeonholed as that “beer commercial guy,” and people who know he’s an actor always expect him to say that line. (And expect to hear people in “Easter Sunday” say “Let’s get this party started, baby!,” repeatedly, to annoying levels.)

The school meeting is scheduled to take place after the audition. During the audition, Joe’s racial identity becomes a point of discussion that borders on offensive. Just like Koy’s real-life racial identity and family backround, Joe is biracial. His mother is an immigrant from the Philippines, and his father is a white American, who abandoned the family when he was a child. In the audition, Joe is asked to make his voice sound more “half-Filipino.” Joe is insulted because he thinks he should play the role with his natural American accent.

However, the audition runs much longer than Joe expected. And so, Joe misses the parent-teacher meeting. Junior and Catherine are disappointed, but not surprised. Meanwhile, Nick tells Joe in multiple phone calls that Joe will get the role in “Great Scott,” but only if Joe does what the TV network wants for the “half-Filipino accent.” Joe is told to stand by and be available in case there needs to be a follow-up meeting with executives from the TV network.

In the midst of this potential career-changing opportunity, Joe gets a call from his domineering mother Susan (played by Lydia Gaston), who lives in Daly City, a San Francisco suburb that’s about 385 miles north of Los Angeles. Susan insists that Joe and Junior attend their family’s annual Easter Sunday reunion. Joe reluctantly agrees, even though he knows he could be called to have a last-minute meeting with TV executives in Los Angeles. And so, Joe and Junior take a road trip to Daly City.

The other family members attending the reunion are:

Teresa (played by Tia Carrere), Susan’s sister/Joe’s aunt, who has been feuding with Susan for years for a reason they both can’t remember. Teresa (who is vain and shallow) and Susan (who is cranky and judgmental) are highly competitive with each other to prove who’s the “best” family member.
Eugene (played by Eugene Cordero), Teresa’s ne’er-do-well son, who is always on the hustle for his next “get rich quick” scheme. Eugene greatly admires his older cousin Joe, who has recently invested $20,000 for Eugene’s new business venture.
Regina (played by Elena Juatco), Joe’s sensible younger bachelorette sister, who works as a nurse. Regina is slightly envious but happy that Joe got to follow his dreams to become an actor, while she felt pressured by their mother Susan to have a more stable profession.
Yvonne (played by Melody Butiu) and Manny (played by Joey Guila), Joe’s married aunt and uncle, who can be boisterous and opinionated at family events, but these spouses generally get along with everyone in the family. Yvonne and Manny (who is the brother of Susan and Teresa) try to stay out of the feud between Susan and Teresa.
Arthur (played by Rodney To), Joe’s eccentric bachelor uncle, who works as a mailman and likes to keep a secret arsenal of weapons hidden in his clothes. (You can bet that this weapons stash will be used for slapstick comedy in the movie.)

Eugene told Joe that Eugune’s new business venture would be a taco truck. But after Eugene took Joe’s money, Eugene changed his mind and decided the truck (which Eugene has named Hypetruck) would sell the latest fad games and toys. Bizarrely, Eugene also wants to sell trendy designer clothes and high-priced athletic shoes from the truck, without thinking that the image-conscious target customers for this type of apparel wouldn’t want to tackily buy these items from a truck. Joe isn’t happy when he finds out about this “bait and switch” scam that Eugene pulled on him.

Joe gets even more irritated when he finds out that Eugene owes $40,000 to a gun-toting shady character named Dev Deluxe (played by Asif Ali), who owns and operates a jewelry store called Jewelry Jamz in a Daly City shopping mall. But the store is just a money-laundering front for Dev’s illegal businesses, which aren’t named in the movie, but viewers can use their imagination. It doesn’t take long for Dev to show up with some of his thugs to threaten Eugene with bodily harm if Eugene doesn’t pay back the money in the short period of time that just happens to be the same period of time that Joe will be in Daly City.

The rest of “Easter Sunday” is an awkward mix of Joe and Eugene trying to come up with the money while attempting to make it to Susan’s home on time for the Easter Sunday dinner. It leads to a not-very-funny subplot of stolen boxing gloves that were worn by Manny Pacquiao; an encounter with actor Lou Diamond Phillips (playing a version of himself); and lots of bickering and nagging from Susan and Teresa.

Junior has taken up photography as a hobby (he has a vintage camera that uses film), which is how he meets his love interest Tala (played by Eva Noblezada), when Junior is taking some photos in a park. After a brief flirtation, Junior (who doesn’t have a lot of experience in dating) and Tala (who is sassily confident and sarcastic) start hanging out together. Junior shyly invites Tala to the Easter Sunday family dinner. It’s just an excuse for Tala to be with this family when some of the dumb shenanigans start happening.

And gee, what a coincidence: Tala works at Jewelry Jamz, the store owned by Dev, Eugene’s angry and violent debtor. “Easter Sunday” also has a clumsily written “coincidence” when Joe, Eugene, Tala and Junior end up in a high-speed car chase. The cop who pulls them over just happens to be Joe’s ex-girlfriend Vanessa Morgan (played by Tiffany Haddish), who is still bitter that the relationship ended because Joe cheated on her. This encounter with Vanessa is in the “Easter Sunday” trailer, and it’s just more of Haddish playing a tacky “angry black woman” stereotype that she keeps doing for most of her on-screen roles.

In the race against time to get the money to pay back Dev, “Easter Sunday” has a subplot about Joe and Eugene enlisting the help of an acquaintance named Marvin (played by Jimmy O. Yang), who sells black-market designer merchandise (mostly athletic shoes) in the back room of a store. Marvin’s role in “Easter Sunday” isn’t nearly as terrible as Vanessa’s role, but it’s still not a very interesting character. Yang is a skilled stand-up comedian whose talent is under-used in this fairly bland role.

“Easter Sunday” wastes some time where Koy, who’s best known as a stand-up comedian, has to have a scene where he does a version of his stand-up act. This inept scene takes place during a church service, where it goes from the priest Father Hildo (played by Rodney Perry) publicly shaming Joe for not donating enough money to the church, to Joe getting in front of the congregation and doing low-rent, stand-up comedy to win over the crowd. Yes, it’s as bad as it sounds.

The movie’s ways of depicting Filipino culture and Filipino American culture are superficial at best and mishandled at worst. There are the expected close-up shots of Filipino food on dining tables, which is something that is very easy to do in a movie. What’s much harder to do, especially in a comedy, is depiciting Filipino cultural pride in an authentic way that doesn’t pander to negative clichés. For example, in the “Easter Sunday” subplot about Manny Pacquiao’s boxing gloves, Joe insists that only someone of Filipino heritage can own the gloves, which is just a phony and cumbersome way to drag out the hijinks related these boxing gloves.

The performances by the “Easter Sunday” cast members range from adequate to over-the-top hammy. Koy’s Joe character is just a formulaic retread of what stand-up comedians usually do when they have a starring role in their first major feature film: They play a character who’s a clownish screw-up in need of redemption and “important life lessons.” Wardell and Noblezada (as would-be couple Junior and Tala) fare the best at having the most naturalistic performances and the best comedic timing. Everyone else is just playing stereotypes.

Expect to see a lot of pouting and preening from Gaston and Carrere as feuding sisters Susan and Teresa. The way this family feud is handled in “Easter Sunday” plays into outdated and sexist perceptions of women as “catty” and “difficult” if they’re obnoxious, but irresponsible men like Joe and Eugene are supposed to be thought of as “funny” and “freewheeling” if they’re obnoxious. Unfortunately, the very talented Phillips is not in “Easter Sunday” as much as people might think he’s in the movie. His “Easter Sunday” screen time is less than 15 minutes.

“Easter Sunday” does make an attempt to have some heartfelt family moments, but they are too often marred by making these family members look very dorky—and not in a good way. There’s an extremely cringeworthy karaoke scene involving the family singing Black Eyed Peas’ over-played 2009 hit “I Gotta Feeling,” as if they’re the coolest family in California. This scene will just make viewers wonder what year this moldy and out-of-touch “Easter Sunday” screenplay was completed.

Sometimes, a movie can have a scene-stealing villain who makes the film more entertaining to watch. “Easter Sunday” doesn’t have this type of villain. Dev is just a complete buffoon who has some of the worst lines in “Easter Sunday.” Dev’s last few scenes in the movie are just a sloppily edited and witless atrocity that looks like the “Easter Sunday” filmmakers ran out of ideas for this foolish character.

At the same time, “Easter Sunday” tries to cram in too many subplots with the Joe character and ends up over-relying on lackluster and predictable ways to try to resolve these subplots. Easter Sunday is a religious holiday about a miracle. This hackneyed “Easter Sunday” movie needed a miracle to make it a throroughly entertaining comedy.

Universal Pictures will release “Easter Sunday” in U.S. cinemas on August 5, 2022.