Uma Thurman Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘The Old Guard 2,’ starring Charlize Theron, KiKi Layne, Matthias Schoenaerts, Marwan Kenzari, Luca Marinelli, Veronica Ngô, Henry Golding, Uma Thurman and Chiwetel Ejiofor

July 2, 2025

by Carla Hay

Henry Golding, Luca Marinelli, Marwan Kenzari, Charlize Theron and KiKi Layne “The Old Guard 2” (Photo by Joshua Ade/Netflix)

Directed by Victoria Mahoney

Culture Representation: Taking place in Italy, France, South Korea, and Indonesia, the sci-fi/fantasy/action film “The Old Guard 2” (a sequel to 2020’s “The Old Guard,” based on the graphic novel series of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A team of immortal superheroes do battle against another immortal, who has nefarious plans and a team of thugs to help her.

Culture Audience: “The Old Guard 2” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, “The Old Guard” movie and graphic novel series, and action movies that are made to look like big-budget versions of poorly constructed video games.

Uma Thurman in “The Old Guard 2” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

Fans of Netflix’s 2020 blockbuster hit “The Old Guard” will be disappointed by how “The Old Guard 2” badly fumbles the continuation of the story. The entertaining banter from “The Old Guard” superhero movie has devolved into simplistic and stilted dialogue in “The Old Guard 2.” It’s a soulless sequel whose action scenes, visual effects and story are downgrades from “The Old Guard.”

Directed by Victoria Mahoney and written by Greg Rucka and Sarah L. Walker, “The Old Guard 2” is based on graphic novels of the same name written by Rucka. “The Old Guard” movie was written by Rucka and directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood. It’s obvious more care was put into making “The Old Guard,” compared to the generic dullness of “The Old Guard 2.”

“The Old Guard 2” does a terrible job of re-introducing the main characters because it does what no good movie sequel would do: It assumes that everyone watching this sequel has seen the first movie in the series. Without seeing “The Old Guard” or at least knowing what happened in “The Old Guard,” viewers of “The Old Guard 2” will be constantly lost and confused by what’s going on and who these main characters really are.

Here’s a summary of what people need to know before watching “The Old Guard 2”: A group of immortal warriors—led by Andromache of Scythia, nicknamed Andy (played by Charlize Theron, one of producers of the movie)—travel around the world as underground hired mercenaries. All of these immortals can lose their immortality for any reason at any time. They will not know in advance when they can lose their immortality.

Andy (who has a tough and occasionally tender personality) and the other longtime colleagues on her team have been alive for centuries: Gay couple Joe (played Marwan Kenzari) and Nicky (played by Luca Marinelli) are a Middle Eastern man and an Italian man who became immortal while they were fighting on opposite sides of the Crusades. Joe is more of an impulsive rulebreaker than steadfast rule follower Nicky. Nile (played by KiKi Layne), a former lieutenant in the U.S. Marines, joined Andy’s team in “The Old Guard.” Nile, who is sensitive about being the team’s rookie, has psychic visions in her dreams.

Here are spoiler alerts from “The Old Guard” that people should know if watching “The Old Guard 2”: Someone who used to be Andy’s right-hand man is Booker (played by Matthias Schoenaerts), an adventurous French soldier who became an immortal during the War of 1812. In “The Old Guard,” Booker betrayed Andy’s team and was exiled to Paris by the end of the movie. By the end of “The Old Guard,” former CIA agent James Copley (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor) went from being an enemy to an ally of Andy’s group of immortals. Andy also lost her immortality.

Andy’s biggest heartache and regret is how she couldn’t save her best friend Quynh (played by Veronica Ngô, also known as Van Veronica Ngô) from being put in an iron maiden cage and buried in the ocean about 500 years ago, when Andy and Quynh were captured and persecuted for being witches. In the beginning of “The Old Guard 2” (which takes place six months after the events of “The Old Guard”), Quynh is able to escape from the iron maiden when two men on a ship are seen opening up the iron maiden with Quynh inside. :ater in the movie, it’s shown that Quynh blames Andy for Quynh’s long and torturous imprisonment, so an enraged Quynh goes looking for Andy.

The first big action scene in “The Old Guard 2” cuts to Andy, Copley, Nile, Joe and Nicky doing a stakeout of a heavily guarded villa in Lake Como, Italy. It turns into the most impressive action sequence in the movie. Joe and Nicky distract the security guards by stealing two luxury cars that are parked outside the mansion. The chase scene is thrilling because it takes place on winding cliffside road.

Nile does combat on a nearby lake, while Andy and Copley get involved in a shootout inside the mansion. However, inside the mansion (which has a lot of tacky décor), there are some designs in bright blue that look like unnatural, as if computer-generated-imagery (CGI) was jused for everything. After all the fighting ends, the movie still doesn’t make it clear what this immortals’ mission was in this battle.

It should come as no surprise that the immortals win this battle. They go back to their headquarters to party. Andy says to the group: “The worst part of being mortal? The hangovers.” Nile looks at Andy with concern and asks, “I know you talk a lot, but how are you doing?” Andy replies, “Really happy. Peaceful.” This conversation takes on a different context of meaning if people know that Andy is now coping with losing her immortality less than a year earlier.

“The Old Guard 2” doesn’t explain a lot of things from “The Old Guard” that are necessary to fully understand “The Old Guard 2.” It’s a failure that comes down to lazy screenwriting. There are a few fleeting flashbacks to show why Quynh has a grudge against Andy, but these explanations arrive much later in the movie than they should. In the meantime, Quynh spends about half of her screen time scowling and talking out loud about how she wants to get revenge on Andy and her team.

Somehow, Quynh finds Booker in Paris, where he’s been living aimlessly with guilt and spending many days and nights getting drunk. The movie shows the outcome of this encounter and what Booker decides to do when he’s given the choice to get revenge on his former friends or reunite with them.

Nile has been dreaming about seeing mystery woman in a secret library but doesn’t know at first who this woman is and what’s the significance of this library. And that’s where another immortal named Tuah (played by Henry Golding) comes into the story. Tuah has a lot of answers, but his personality is so generic, the most memorable things about Tuah are his name, his physical attractiveness, and the fact he’s the immortal who discovers the book that gives a possible way that an immortal-turned-mortal can regain immortality.

The mystery woman in Nile’s dreams is another person targeting Andy’s team of immortals. Her name is Discord (played by Uma Thurman), who’s supposed to be the very first immortal—and that’s just about all the information that “The Old Guard 2” says about Discord’s backstory. She wants to kill all the other immortals and has a group of thugs (usually masked and wearing all black) as her team of assassins. Discord is a stereotypical snarling villain who might as well be a robot because this villain’s personality is very empty and flat.

All this means is that “The Old Guard 2” will have an inevitable showdown between Discord and Andy. And although it sounds very cool in theory to have action movie veterans Thurman and Theron battling it out in a combat scene, the fight between Discord and Andy is not as impressive as it could be and is marred by very corny dialogue. There are missed opportunities for Andy and her team to build on their camaraderie as a group because the movie has various individual members of the team going off in different directions, as they globetrot in cities such as Paris, Rome, Seoul and Jakarta.

“The Old Guard 2” is so caught up in going from fight scene to fight scene, it doesn’t take enough time to give viewers a clear sense of the characters’ backstories and personal histories with each other, which were told very well in “The Old Guard.” The acting performances in “The Old Guard 2” are serviceable, but they can’t disguise the lackluster conversations that drag down the movie. The ending of “The Old Guard 2” (where a character has a drastic, not-very-believable change in attitude) just feels like it was rushed in to set up a sequel that less people will want to see now that “The Old Guard 2” has made a boring mess of this movie series that could’ve been great.

Netflix premiered “The Old Guard 2” on July 2, 2025.

Review: ‘Oh, Canada’ (2024), starring Richard Gere, Uma Thurman, Michael Imperioli and Jacob Elordi

December 19, 2024

by Carla Hay

Richard Gere and Uma Thurman in “Oh, Canada” (Photo courtesy of Kino Lorber)

“Oh, Canada” (2024)

Directed by Paul Schrader

Culture Representation: Taking place in 2023 in Montreal, with flashbacks in the U.S. and Canada from the 1960s to the 1990s, the dramatic film “Oh, Canada” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A famous documentary filmmaker, who is terminally ill with cancer, confesses his past misdeeds during a documentary interview conducted by two of his former students.

Culture Audience: “Oh, Canada” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Paul Schrader and meditative dramas about people looking back on their lives.

Jacob Elordi in “Oh, Canada” (Photo courtesy of Kino Lorber)

“Oh, Canada” doesn’t reach its intended impact as an important movie from filmmaker Paul Schrader. However, this drama about a flawed documentarian looking back on his life has interesting performances from the cast members. This is the type of movie that isn’t horrible, but viewers should not expect “Oh, Canada” to be among the best films from Schrader or the main stars of the movie.

Written and directed by Schrader, “Oh, Canada” is based on Russell Banks’ 2021 novel “Foregone.” “Oh, Canada” had its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival and also screened at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival and the 2024 New York Film Festival. The movie takes place in Montreal, on December 23, 2023, but the story’s protagonist tells memories (seen in flashbacks) that go back to the 1960s.

“Oh, Canada” begins by showing three documentarians setting up a library/study room for an interview in the Montreal home of acclaimed documentarian Leonard “Leo” Fife (played by Richad Gere), who is terminally ill with cancer. (The movie never says what type of cancer he has.) The interview is for a CBC documentary about Leo’s life. Leo says he wants to give final confessions about his life for this interview.

The people conducting the interview are two of Leo’s former students, who are also successful documentarians on their own: Malcolm (played by Michael Imperioli) and his wife Diana (played by Victoria Hill), whom Leo jokingly says are the “Mr. and Mrs. Ken Burns of Canada.” Malcolm and Diana are accompanied by their 24-year-old assistant Sloan Ambrose (played by Penelope Mitchell), who is star-struck by Leo.

Also present during this interview are Leo’s wife/producing partner Emma (Uma Thurman) and Leo’s nursing assistant Rene (played by Caroline Dhavernas), who are there to observe and to make sure that Leo doesn’t overexert himself during this interview. Emma was a student of Leo’s at the same time as when Malcolm and Diana were Leo’s students. Although Leo’s voice can be heard for the movie’s narration of his internal and external thoughts, another narrator can be heard in the movie: Leo’s adult son Cornel (played by Zach Shaffer), whom Leo abandoned in 1968, when Cornel was abut 4 or 5 years old.

The year 1968 was a pivotal year in Leo’s life. It was the year that he became a draft dodger during the Vietnam War by moving permanently from his native United States to Canada. Jacob Elordi portrays the young Leo in flashback scenes. Because Leo’s story is told from his perspective, viewers can speculate that he is an unreliable narrator. Leo makes unflattering confessions about himself that he knows will upset Emma, but he seems to want to ease his conscience before he dies.

“Oh, Canada” jumps around a lot in the timeline, but viewers essentially find out that Leo abandoned his first two wives and children. His first wife Amy (also played by Hill) was 18 years old when she had an unplanned pregnancy. She and Leo apparently had a quickie marriage, she gave birth to a daughter named Heidi, and the marriage ended in divorce after Leo abandoned them.

In the interview, Leo would rather talk about his time with his second wife Alicia Fife (played by Kristine Froseth), the mother of Cornel. Alicia was pregnant with another child in 1968. Alica and Leo were visiting Alicia’s wealthy parents in Richmond, Virginia, and were planning to buy a home in Vermont, where Leo had been offered a teaching position at a university. Flashback memories show that Leo and Alicia were excited about her pregnancy and about their planned move to Vermont.

However, during this visit, Alicia’s businessman father Benjamin “Ben” Chapman (played by Peter Hans Benson) and Ben’s brother Jackson Chapman (played by Scott Jaeck) offered Leo a job as CEO of the family business, which would require Leo to remain in Virginia. Ben and Jackson tell Leo that they want to keep their business in the family. They think Leo is the only suitable candidate because Ben’s and Jackson’s other children (all daughters) are married to men who “aren’t fit to run a lemonade stand.” Leo asks for a few weeks to think about this job offer.

Meanwhile, flashbacks of Leo’s memories reveal that he is a serial seducer of women and committed infidelity for some of these seductions. In 1968, he became a documentarian as a “fluke,” when he was working at a trucking farm in the Canadian province of New Brunswick, and he filmed crop duster planes dispensing chemicals on the farm crops. This chemical turned out to be Agent Orange. Leo’s footage was used for his breakthrough 1970 documentary “In the Mist,” which established Leo as a documentarian with a specialty in exposing corruption.

“Oh, Canada” shows snippets from Leo’s other documentaries, but “Oh, Canada” is more concerned with Leo exposing his own personal corruption. The movie shows the events leading up to Leo deciding to permanently move to Canada as a draft dodger. Although Sloan tells Leo that she thinks he’s a “hero” for being a draft dodger to protest the Vietnam War, Leo’s confessions reveal that his reasons for dodging the draft were actually selfish motivations to abandon his family and to start over with a new life.

Emma knew that Leo was previously married with children, but it upsets her to hear the candid details about just how much Leo hurt other people with his self-centered and reckless actions. At various points during the interview, Emma wants the interview to stop because she claims Leo is “confused” because of his medication and his illness. However, Leo wants to continue and finish the interview.

“Oh, Canada” has a narrative that is purposely disjointed, as if to depict the hazy memories of a terminally ill cancer patient. During some of the re-enactments, Leo sees himself in his youthful memories either as his youthful self or as his current elderly self. Leo also remembers Sloan as looking like Alicia. And memories of time that he spent in 1968 with an artist painter acquaintance named Stanley Reinhart (played by Jake Weary) and Stanley’s wife Gloria (also played by Thurman) are also fuzzy. Leo remembers Gloria (one his sexual conquests) as looking like Emma.

“Oh, Canada” uses these twists of memory and perception in a way that might be considered artistic or might be considered off-putting to viewers. A flashback scene with Leo, Emma and an adult Cornel suggests that Emma already knew that Leo was a deadbeat dad, but Emma just doesn’t want Leo to make confessions about it on camera for a documentary about his life. There are also interpersonal dynamics at play between Malcolm, Diana and Sloan that affect what happens in the story.

“Oh, Canada” doesn’t have any major surprises, but the cast members give performances that are compelling enough if viewers to want to know how the movie ends. Gere is quite skillful at portraying a world-weary, jaded person who is coming to terms with his shortcomings as a form of self-reflection and perhaps to seek a little bit of redemption. Elordi, Thurman and the other cast members capably handle their roles in “Oh, Canada,” but don’t do anything outstanding that takes the movie to a higher level of quality.

“Oh, Canada” makes astute observations about how fame affects what famous people choose to convey about themselves for public perception and how the private reality might be very different. There is also some irony toward the end of the movie about documentary ethics and Leo as a “role model” for the type of exposé filmmaking that made him famous. “Oh, Canada” effectively shows how this documentary filmmaker tells his life story when he knows his life will soon end, but he still can’t resist the urge to make selective edits.

Kino Lorber released “Oh, Canada” in select U.S. cinemas on December 6, 2024.

Review: ‘The War With Grandpa,’ starring Robert De Niro, Uma Thurman, Rob Riggle, Oakes Fegley, Laura Marano, Cheech Marin, Jane Seymour and Christopher Walken

October 10, 2020

by Carla Hay

“The War With Grandpa”

Directed by Tim Hill

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the comedy film “The War With Grandpa” has a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Latinos and African Americans) representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: A sixth-grade boy declares war on his grandfather, because the grandfather has moved into the family home and has been given the boy’s room, while the boy has been forced to live in the attic.

Culture Audience: “The War With Grandpa” will appeal primarily to people who like silly family comedies that have a lot of predictable slapstick gags.

Cheech Marin, Robert De Niro, Jane Seymour and Christopher Walken in “The War With Grandpa” (Photo courtesy of 101 Studios)

Robert De Niro is an Oscar-winning actor who has influenced countless of other actors and worked with many of the best and most talented people in the movie business. His work with director Martin Scorsese has been highly lauded and always anticipated. But when it comes to the types of comedy films that De Niro makes, for whatever reason, he usually chooses bottom-of-the-barrel dreck. “The War With Grandpa” is one in a long list of De Niro comedy films that are downright demeaning for an actor of his talent.

De Niro hasn’t really made a good comedy film since 2000’s “Meet the Parents.” And the types of characters he’s been playing in comedies fit the same mind-numbing cliché: He’s a grumpy retiree (usually a widower) who annoys someone younger. And the movie almost always revolves around this flimsy “generation gap” premise that is poorly executed in the movie.

Such is the moldy concept presented in “The War With Grandpa,” directed by Tim Hill as if it’s a cheesy made-for-TV movie. Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember wrote “The War With Grandpa’s” awful screenplay, which is adapted from the Robert Kimmel Smith novel of the same name. The quality of this movie is so low that unknown actors could’ve played the roles and it wouldn’t have made a difference in the cheap and mostly unfunny gags and jokes in the movie.

The essential story is that De Niro plays a widower named Ed Marino, whose daughter Sally Decker (played by Uma Thurman) is worried about him being depressed and living alone. Ed is a two-hour drive away, so Sally insists that he move in with her and her family. Ed is given the bedroom of Sally’s only son Peter (played by Oakes Fegley), who is forced to live in the house’s run-down and leaky attic. Peter hates being displaced from the comfort of his bedroom, so he declares “war” on his grandfather.

Sally works at a car dealership. Her husband Arthur Decker (whom Ed likes to call Artie) works in a corporate desk job that Ed calls “soul-sucking.” Ed, who is a retired construction worker who built homes, doesn’t respect Arthur, who was an aspiring architect, but Arthur abandoned those dreams to work in a boring office job.

Sally and Arthur’s three children are Mia (played by Laura Marano), who’s about 16 years old; Peter, who’s about 11 years old; and Jennifer, or Jenny (played by Poppy Gagnon), who’s about 6 years old. Mia is a typical sarcastic teenager, while Jenny is a typical cute kid who’s the “innocent and sweet” child in the family. Peter is a typical middle child who often feels ignored and underappreciated.

Mia is at an age where she wants more independence, but Sally is paranoid about Mia’s dating activities and won’t allow Mia to be alone in the house with any teenage boys. Mia and a fellow student named Russell (played by Colin Ford) have some romantic sparks between them and they inevitably begin dating. Sally can’t even stand the thought of Mia kissing a boyfriend, which leads to an over-the-top scene later in the movie when Sally goes on a rampage and attacks Russell.

Peter begins sixth grade at around the same time that his grandfather Ed has moved into the family home and gets Peter’s bedroom. Peter complains about it to his three closest friends, who are all in the same class with him at school: anxious Steve (played by Isaac Kragten), wisecracking Billy (played by Juliocesar Chavez) and practical Emma (played by T.J. McGibbon).

In yet another cliché in movies like this, Peter is the target of a school bully (played by Drew Scheid), an older student who does things like dump chili in Peter’s backpack while Peter and his friends are seated at a table in the school cafeteria. The movie also has a running joke that Steve’s older teenage sister Lisa (played by Lydia Styslinger) frequently interrupts the friends’ conversation to mention something embarrassing about Steve, which he usually denies.

Among the problems that Peter encounters by living in the attic are a leaky roof that drips water onto one side of his bed; a mouse that chews an electrical cord, causing interruptions in the attic’s electricity; and a bat that randomly appears out of nowhere, which causes Peter to get so scared that he accidentally bumps his head on a ceiling beam. Instead of telling his parents so they could handle these problems (for starters, they could get a mousetrap), Peter blames his discomfort on his grandfather. Ed didn’t really want to live in the home in the first place, but he only agreed to live there to please his daughter Sally.

One night, Ed finds a note slipped underneath his door. The note is titled “Declaration of War,” with a demand that Ed has 24 hours to “give me back what’s mine.” The note is anonymously signed with the alias Secret Warrior, but of course Ed knows exactly who wrote this hostile missive. Ed is slightly amused and ignores the note.

After the 24 hours have passed and Ed hasn’t given up his place in Peter’s former bedroom, the war is on. After midnight, Peter sends another note, this time, by a remote-controlled noisy toy car, which wakes up Ed. The note reads, “People who steal each other’s rooms should not sleep well.”

The next morning, Ed has a heart-to-heart talk with Peter and tells him, “I’m not your enemy.” Peter remains unmoved, so Ed tells him that if they’re going to war with each other, they have to establish rules of engagement. Ed and Peter agree to two rules: (1) They won’t do anything that would involve other family members during the “war” and (2) They won’t tell anyone else in the family about the “war” while it’s still going on. Easier said than done.

What follows is a series of slapstick scenes that are mostly juvenile and unimaginative. Ed, wearing nothing but a towel in the bathroom, finds out that the shaving cream on his face is really foam sealant that was placed in the shaving can by you-know-who. Ed makes a ruckus that alarms Arthur, who goes in the bathroom to see what’s going on.

Arthur’s sudden presence startles Ed, who accidentally drops his towel in front of a mortified Arthur, who screams at the sight of his naked father-in-law. It won’t be the last time that Arthur sees Ed’s naked genitals and has the same high-pitched screaming reaction. (This is a family movie, so there’s no nudity.)

There are also numerous scenes showing Ed (in other words, De Niro’s obvious stunt double) falling down hard from tripping or losing his grip somewhere, because this movie wants people to think that it’s supposed to be funny that old people fall down in a way that could break bones or cause head injuries. Ed has a sentimental collection of marbles that he keeps in a jar. You can easily predict what happens and who’s responsible.

Ed’s pranks on Peter aren’t as harsh. At school, Peter is asked to read an essay out loud to his class about what he did for his summer vacation. As Peter starts to read the essay, he finds out that it’s been replaced with an essay that he didn’t write, which says things like, “I stopped showering until I smelled like a monkey’s butt” and “I sealed my own farts in a baggie.”

Ed decides to spy on Peter, so he buys surveillance equipment at a Best Buy type of store, where he has problems using the self-checkout machine. A store clerk named Diane (played by Jane Seymour) offers to help him use the machine. They make small talk, she asks why he’s purchasing a lot of spying equipment, and Ed tells Diane about the “war” that he’s having with his grandson Peter. Diane is sympathetic, because she says that she has a granddaughter who drives her crazy. It’s easy to see that Diane will eventually become Ed’s love interest in the movie.

Peter also does things like put hot pepper in coffee that’s intended for Ed, but Peter’s mother Sally ends up drinking the coffee instead while she’s in her car and stopped at a street intersection. She spits out the coffee, and the cup with the remaining coffee goes flying out the car window onto a cop on a motorcycle that’s right next to her car. Things escalate to a point where Peter pays Billy to borrow Billy’s pet snake, but there’s a mishap where the snake doesn’t go where it was intended. (Hint: The gag with the motorcycle cop is used more than once in the movie.)

There’s another slapstick scene where Ed is attending the funeral of a close friend, and his phone starts ringing loudly while he’s standing next to the open casket. Of course, it’s Peter who’s calling. When Ed gets the phone to turn it off, he accidentally drops the phone on top of the body and makes things worse when he tries to retrieve it. The phone slides further down the corpse in an area where Ed definitely doesn’t want to touch. Because this is a dumb movie, it’s never explained how Peter could know the exact moment to call to engineer this humiliating funeral mishap.

Ed has two close friends whom he eventually recruits to help him get revenge on Peter. Jerry (played by Christopher Walken, another Oscar winner who’s slumming it in this movie) is like a teenager in a senior citizen’s body, because he lives in a loft that’s decked out with games like pinball machines and foosball and the latest technology. Danny (played by Cheech Marin) sees himself as a ladies’ man and he flirts with younger women as much as he can.

When Ed and Peter decide to face off in a game of dodgeball with their respective friends, Ed enlists the help of store clerk Diane to join his team. Ed, Jerry, Danny and Diane then compete against Peter, Steve, Billy and Emma in a fairly long dodgeball scene that once again uses male genitals as fodder for a joke, when Steve gets brutally hit in his genitals by a dodgeball during the game. It’s a predictable gag that doesn’t work as well as the gag of Danny’s dentures flying out of his mouth during the game.

All of these gags and slapstick humor would work better if the movie’s dialogue and acting had some level of unique spark or creativity. But almost everything in “The War With Grandpa” is tiresome and formulaic. The experienced actors in the movie look like they only did this film for the money. Fegley does his best to be funny, but his Peter character (who turns into quite the annoying brat) is written in such a generic way (there are similar annoying brats in too many other movies) that “The War With Grandpa” will not be a breakout role for him.

The “war” culminates at a big Christmas-themed birthday party for youngest child Jennifer. It goes as badly as one would expect, with a lot of over-the-top and unrealistic antics and mishaps. “The War With Grandpa” isn’t the worst comedy ever, but it’s another unnecessary embarrassment that’s tainted De Niro’s illustrious career. The man who starred in the classic 1982 film “The King of Comedy” has now become the king of bad senior-citizen comedy.

101 Studios released “The War With Grandpa” in U.S. cinemas on October 9, 2020.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EohVvIWg-Oc