Queen & Slim
Knives Out
Ad Astra
The Mandalorian
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A film about friendship and forgiveness more than a film about Mr. Rogers, it's told through the lens of a friendship with Mr. Rogers. That's really the best way you could do this type of story though I think. Tom Hanks is such a powerhouse icon himself it might be hard to see Rogers through him, but he's so damn good that pretty quickly you just fall into it. The growing friendship is genuine and intriguing as hell. Honestly the best part of the movie is scenes of these two clashing personalities just talking to each other. It's so simple, just a room and two opposing types chatting, and it's riveting as all hell. Seeing Rogers break down his barriers to the human inside is heartwarming and real. It's just a sweet movie, and a fascinating look at what this legend would have been like when the cameras weren't rolling. The answer, it turns out, is not all that different.
While it's miles ahead of the Jim Carrey one purely on charm and appearance alone, it's still not a great movie. It's still a little conflicted in following the source material and making up its own stuff, and it does sometimes go too far into modern pop culture sense. Compared to previous Illumination entry The Lorax though and especially compared to the Carrey film, it's surprisingly charming and even makes some attempt at being timeless and faithful to the classic. Is it entirely successful? No, but I appreciate the attempt. I also appreciate the new focus, where we only see a hint of the Grinch's origins with the focus much more on his stealing Christmas, and the origins we do get were much sadder for me and didn't betray the character of the Whos the way the Carrey film did. There's still a lot of dumb stuff though, like a punk skater Cindy-Lou, and forced message with her mom that just didn't work for me. But in terms of visuals and just Christmas spirit the movie has it. It looks great, and just feels like Christmas. It's not great, but I liked it.
The biggest issue this movie has is with its villain. I guess I won't spoil it, but really if you've read the comics, played the games, or just googled any of the character names of people in this movie you know who it is and yet they treat it like this big reveal. The first movie had something of a villain reveal too, but they handled it in such a way that it really worked. Here, it just doesn't. On top of that, his motives and overall goals are a little difficult to follow. Regardless, it's still a helluva fun ride. His missions were some of the ones I enjoyed the most in the Spider-Man games, and it allows for some truly mind-bending trippy visuals later in the film. That's where the film shines the highest, in its warped inception-ey trip-out sequences. Also, in it's character moments with the heroes. Tom Holland is still the best Spider-Man, and damnit all Zendaya is really winning me over. Those two are just really cute, and their developing relationship is charming as hell. That relationship and seeing Spidey try to fill Tony's shoes (spoilers) is great stuff. It's another solid, if not perfect, Spider-Man film.
It's a film of great moments more than an overall feeling. When it's Scary Stories, it's great. Adapting stories like Harold or Jangly Man, they don't follow the originals exactly, but capture their spirit and have some genuinely creepy moments. However, then there's the stuff in between with the teenagers solving the mystery of the book and that stuff gets really hokey. The lead girl's acting also sways back and forth wildly. Sometimes she's genuinely incredible, other times she's soap opera melodramatic. Then of course we have our studio mandated "maybe things aren't so bad" ending that puts a bow on top. So yeah, it's a mixed bag. But as everyone else has said, it's good gateway horror. There are some genuinely creepy scenes that have a ton of creativity behind how they pull of their scares that I really wish more horror would attempt. But then you have you're Nancy Drew time-is-running out mystery they cut back to. I'm conflicted on this one. However, the stuff that's good is just too good to miss for fans of the book series.
Who'd have thought this is how to make a Pokémon movie work, take a c-grade Pokémon game and throw in Deadpool. But damnit all it kinda' does. The mystery is pretty basic and predictable and…well, silly. However, it pulls the movie through and the characters actually make it work. Detective Pikachu himself is especially likable, particularly from Ryan Reynolds immense charm. It's also just a fun movie with a fun world. It took forever for us to see the Pokémon world in live action, but now that we do, it looks great, and there's some real solid action sequences here. It's fairly standard family fare overall, but for Pokémon fans, it's great fun.