Wondering if you should see A BAD MOM CHRISTMAS, the extremely rushed sequel to last year’s summer hit? Well, you just have to ask yourself one question. Did you like the first one? Because if so, great, this one is exactly on par with the first. Mindless, fun, entertainment that isn’t meant to be a comedy classic, just meant for you, your family and friends to switch off your brains, laugh some and have a good time. The target audience on this is simple, moms and their friends that are moms, or a higher in age family. Anyone that thinks the holidays are stressful and a load of chestnuts. Anyone that likes Kenny G taking his flute like instrument and pretending it is his cock (yes, that does happen in this movie). Basically, anyone that likes really ridiculous crude humor. I was entertained and satisfied, what more could I want.

Sometimes I can’t expect a comedy classic. I didn’t expect it out of the first one, and I had a good time. And I especially don’t expect it out of comedy sequels, which are a really hard nut to crack. Sometimes sequels do the same old same old and it either works or doesn’t, and sometimes it tries to go really outside the box, and it either works or doesn’t. It usually doesn’t work in both cases. I am a huge supporter in comedy films NOT having sequels. I mean, do you really want a sequel to Wedding Crashers? But since the first Bad Moms was ultimately harmless and fun, I didn’t mind a sequel. And this sequel mixes it up just a tiny bit. It does the same old same old story of the first where the tired and stressed out moms try and loosen up and go crazy, but this time they do it during the holidays and try to take back making Christmas perfect for everyone.

And then this time they do the ultimate cliche thing of bringing in the mom’s mom to wreck havoc. They pair Mila Kunis with Christine Baranski, Kristen Bell with Cheryl Hines, and Kathryn Hahn with Susan Sarandon. Susan Sarandon definitely has the under developed storyline where she seems like an extended cameo more than an actual role in this. But I did see her as Kathryn Hahn’s mom. And while Christine Baranski was the most developed in this, and she had her moments, she seemed too stuck to being the same character (Leonard’s mom) in The Big Bang Theory, except that she adds a fuck and shit every now and then to her vocabulary.

But the biggest surprise of the three was Cheryl Hines. She is definitely the best mom in this film. She got all of Kristen Bell’s manurisms and quirks down and not only does she look like she is having the most fun, but she has the best moments, jokes, and “wince” ful parts in this. Every time she came on screen I knew I would have a big laugh and her chemistry with Kristen Bell was fantastic. But wait, that isn’t even the best part of the movie!

The best part of the movie is Kathryn Hahn and a Santa stripper played by Justin Hartley, some of you may either know him from the latter part of Smallville playing Arrow, but most of you know him as the good looking brother in This Is Us. The waxing scene between Kathryn Hahn and him is the most laugh riot best part of the movie and worth the price of admission alone. And just like the first movie, Mila Kunis did fine, Kristen Bell was good and weird, but the scene stealer is Kathryn Hahn, who I think is one of the most underrated comedy actresses acting today. She is delightful in this.

So yeah, see A Bad Moms Christmas. It’s harmless, it’s the holidays, you’ll have a few good belly laughs, but best of all, you’ll have fun. It seemed like everyone had fun making this film, and it surprised me that they were able to rush this sequel so fast and it be just as good as the first. I don’t know what they are going to do if they make a third one, because obviously you can’t do the holidays twice in a row, but I am looking forward to one more adventure to close out this fun little trilogy.

THE FLORIDA PROJECT is a cute yet heartbreaking little independent film that is getting some serious Oscar buzz right now. It’s about a young 6 year old girl, her friends, and her morally questionable mother living in a run down project that is managed by the fantastic Willem Dafoe. You may have seen previews for it. It is playing in limited theaters right now but should soon expand. The movie shows what can only be described as the “charming side” of poverty while still trying to show that modern America needs to be way more responsible than it actually is. While I quite liked the movie, very enjoyable to be sure, and that final little scene almost made me shed a tear, and I wouldn’t mind it being nominated, it is a movie that is hard imagining watching more than once, as a lot of the choices/actions by the mother and the kids is really hard to watch.

The reason why the movie is so good because of the acting. Willem Dafoe (who I would love to see nominated for this) is phenomenal as the manager Bobby, who is the one bright spot in this dark and foreboding place. He has to put up with bullshit from the residents each and everyday, but he does so with grace and class. Even though he’s harking down on all these rules and at points seems like he’s had it and doesn’t care, he not only looks after the kids from afar (he’s really the only positive role model around) but he tries to best to at times bend the rules to make situations not any worse than they already are. It is Dafoe’s best performance to date, just watch the scene where he confronts a old stranger getting a little too close to the children playing, it’s a classic.

But the story is truly about the mother, Halley, and her 6 year old, Moonee, played fantastically for a child actor by Brooklyn Prince. Prince is so good, that it felt like children acting like children, especially ones who don’t have a great upbringing at all. And Bria Vinaite as Halley the mom, is so damn good you just want to go through the screen and wring her neck for some of the shit that she pulls. It’s infuriating at times.

I don’t want to spoil any of the movie, but some of the shenanigans that the daughter and the mom end up getting into, it’s really hard not to cover your eyes with your hand. Not just what they do, but how they act, makes you wonder, how did we as human beings, end up sometimes being as bad as this? I loved how the movie though has these dark lives under such bright visuals, but the darker they get, the darker the visuals get, the cinematography in this is breathtaking to be sure and should be included in the list of nominees come January.

And the last scene, with Prince’s acting, is just really touching and heartbreaking, and the ending, while not making sense to some, made perfect sense to me. We live in a harsh world and sometimes you have to pay the piper with some of your actions. If these movie teaches you anything is that everyone needs to be good role models to their kids and if you can’t be, find someone who can. I completely recommend watching this movie, even if I can only watching once. It’s a beautiful sad film that is not only enjoyable, but teaches a lot of life lessons without trying to shove them in your face. I appreciated that.

 

going into a movie like GEOSTORM, any movie geek knows that you are going to get one of two possible experiences out of these four staple scenarios. With each movie you are going to get one of four possible outcomes (with some mixtures of course). I am going to list these outcomes with example of each.

1. Good Good Movie (your Oscar winners, Star Wars, some Bond films, Men In Black, etc.)
2. Bad Bad Movie (Fifty Shades series, Halloween II (Rob Zombie), The Emoji Movie, Independence Day: Resurgence, etc.)
3. Bad Good Movies (recent movies such The Snowman and mother!, two bad films in my opinion that had so much potential)
4. Good Bad Movies (Starship Troopers, spoof movies, San Andreas, Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, 2012…)

I hope you kind of recognized the last couple of films. Those were directed by the filmmaker Roland Emmerich and co-written by Emmerich and Dean Devlin. Disaster films in general always end up in the Good Bad Movie categories. Movies that on paper for some reason shouldn’t work on screen, but they do for the most part and are fun to watch. But occasionally, they can be put in the Bad Bad Movies. Case in point: the recent Independence Day: Resurgence. A movie that tried too hard to be both cheesy and try to take the possible franchise in a new direction instead of sticking to formula. And it just didn’t worked. In fact, it sucked. I would blame both Emmerich and Devlin for the sequel to a great good bad movie original to be that shitty.

Well, after that failure, Mr. Devlin recently decided he wanted to try out both writing and directing solo to see how everything would go for him. He’s had plenty of experience where he should know what to do and when to do it. So the main question is, how is Geostorm? I’m happy to report that it is at least better than Independence Day Resurgence. But I’m a bit sad to report that it doesn’t necessarily go in the Good Bad Movie category, because the second half of this films leans toward the bad bad film category. So it’s a mixture of both. If they would’ve stuck with the fun of the first half, it could’ve gone more swimmingly.

And thankfully the movie isn’t just The Day After Tomorrow Part 2. There isn’t just something wrong with this satellite/giant project that can control the world’s weather and prevent deaths/destruction/etc. The plot hints that someone is using it as a weapon. And the film balances from hanging in space where “I don’t give a fuck what movie I’m in” Gerard Butler tries to figure out what is going on, and his brother on Earth trying to figure out what’s going on, while we see some damage of what this satellite space project, code named Dutch Boy can do.

And surprisingly, the film falters in the second half, where the Geostorm is starting to happen and we see a bunch of CGI madness all happening at once. The first half builds the appropriate amount of tension needed, not going all out bukake and showing just disaster after disaster, the special effects are pretty incredible and the acting is actually decent. But then the movie gets extremely lazy, the CGI starts to show, the subplot of kidnapping the President that involves a self driving small cab and a bazooka held by the bad guy getting pretty damn ridiculous, and a hail mary of an ending that is completely eye rolling.

I heard that there were massive reshoots to this movie, and that Jerry Bruckheimer came in to clean up some of the mess. I have a feeling he reshot the first half of the movie, while leaving the second half in tack. My reason? The movie starts out with this really dumb narration by Gerard Butler’s daughter about how disaster and destruction led to the building of this device. She is telling us, and not showing us what happened. While it is a huge cop out I have a feeling Devlin actually showed us what happened at the beginning, it was cheesy as hell, and not refilmable.  I don’t know, maybe it is just me. Oh, and if you want to know who the easily predictable bad guy is, just know your cliches, and know your bad guy film history and you should be able to solve it right when the asshole comes on screen.

I was entertained throughout the entire cheese, so I wouldn’t consider the whole event a huge loss. But I wonder if a little more time and effort went into this movie we could’ve had something really good like the first Independence Day or The Day After Tomorrow? As is, it’s a pretty great Netflix rental. The perfect movie that you put on in the background while you are doing other things, something that will not hold your attention as well as other disaster movies might. I would say that is okay, but I honestly think humanity can do better with these films. They just need to stop being so damn lazy.

ONLY THE BRAVE is incredible. If made 20 years ago, between 1995 and 1999 (which is impossible because this true story tragedy happened in 2013), it would’ve been a massive blockbuster hit, with a lot of possible award nominations. Instead, due to this insane movie culture we have now that is obsessed with superhero films, reboots, remakes, franchises, and all that stuff, this film is more than likely going to be lost in the shuffle. But hey, there is still such a thing as being a cult classic or successful when it hits video right? Which is a shame. It is easily the best firefighter movie since Backdraft, has incredible acting and in the 90s Josh Brolin certainly would’ve been nominated for an award as well as Jennifer Connolly, and pretty fantastic special effects. I really loved this film.

Do you know why I mainly loved it? Because the film took its time. In a good way. Some films, when they take their time, tests the audiences patience, and in the end, the payoff isn’t worth the journey, and you end up being bored. Only The Brave accomplishes the rare feet of taking its time AND being incredibly entertaining. We get to know the characters very, very, very well. In fact, I would like to nominate this film as probably the best character development I have seen all year. We get to know the characters so well that, well, I won’t spoil anything but you can easily find out what happened to the Granite Mountain Hotshots if you go on Wikipedia, but suffice to say, when characters are in dangers, it stings like a motherfucker.

I was surprised to find out that this film was directed by Joseph Kosinski, who also directed Oblivion with Tom Cruise and Tron: Legacy, a cult classic to some of my friends (but I feel is highly overrated). This is easily his best film to date. The films climax doesn’t go into avoiding fire action movie territory, the climax is swift, brutal, and realistic with what was happening. All the characters seem like they truly do know and care about each other in real life. We get to know them several layers deep. It contains the best performance from Taylor Kitsch that I have seen. It also contains another Miles Teller fantastic performance as well playing a junkie that the hotshots take in.

The fire spreading and killing everything in its path in this is scary and real. Everything about it seems real. We see the firefighters actually work to take care of the fires, doing some things that I haven’t seen them do in movies. Usually its just a quick montage and everything is taken care of. Thankfully, not in this. It isn’t just about the Yarnell Hill Fire of 2013, we go back plenty of years before that and see how the team actually got certified as a team. Its engrossing from minute one. Josh Brolin and Jennifer Connolly share some scenes that any year in the 90s would’ve gotten them supporting actor and supporting actress performances.

The ending of this is so powerful, I teared up. Usually on this biographical dramas, I don’t tear up because I don’t care enough about the characters to actually feel their plight. This one I felt to my very soul, and that was all due to direction, the chemistry of the actors, and the screenplay actually taking its time to flesh everything out. If you read this review, and if you normally only see one movie a week or one every two weeks, try and put this one into your schedule. It’s incredible and I promise you it doesn’t waste your time.

THE SNOWMAN is one of the most poorly edited and unfinished films I have ever seen. How can I say it is unfinished? This article my friends: http://www.joblo.com/movie-news/tomas-alfredson-says-he-was-unable-to-shoot-10-15-of-the-snowman-146 . 10-15%?!?!? To me it was more like 20-25%. I could tell that large chunks of this movie was missing, and the film is still two hours long?!?!? How a studio can allow a film to go into rushed production and then not even really have a finished project before releasing it into theatres is mind boggling. This is one of the rare times where I’ll say the movie might have benefit if an extra hour had been tacked onto the run time. Everything about this movie sucks except for the hint of genius performances barely peeking their ways out of the frames. The Snowman is definitely one of the worst films of the year. And has the worst use of Val Kilmer I have ever seen.

Michael Fassbender must’ve read a tremendous script if he wanted to shoot this movie. Because he seems like he wants to be there. So does Rebecca Ferguson, so does J.K. Simmons. They all glimmer a little in their parts. Somewhere in this giant mess of a film, shoot schedule, and screenplay must’ve been a fantastic noir type serial killer thriller. When the credits rolled, I was confused as to what the film even really wanted to truly be? Tonally it is all over the fucking place, with not a shred of dread like there was supposed to be. The film is so poorly edited that one scene completely reveals the killer although I don’t think it was meant to be the case when shooting it. (the killer isn’t that hard to guess in the first place, the film sticks to one red herring and doesn’t let go until the last possible minute, and other than that there weren’t too many suspects).

And Val Kilmer in this. Sheesh, what the fuck happened to Val Kilmer. The guy in his personal life kept denying that he had cancer, but with this film, you can tell he completely had it. THEY DUB OVER HIS ENTIRE VOICE WITH THE FEW SCENES THAT HE HAS. His voice does not match his lips and you know that isn’t Val Kilmer talking. Why didn’t they just reshoot with another actor? Probably the rushed production mentioned above.

If you don’t know the plot or even care, it’s based on a series of novels with a character named Detective Henry Hole. In this novel, he is after a killer that kills women, lops their heads off and puts them on snowmen. The women that are being targeted are women that come from damaged families, are unhappy and unfaithful. You can tell that the production was rushed from the first scene, which uses CGI so terribly you know they weren’t actually filming where they were supposed to be and the editing is so choppy is never lets up.

I consider The Snowman an incomplete picture. In fact, I would like for director Tomas Alfredson to maybe try to get money from the studio, do reshoots, finish the picture and release a director’s cut and maybe I’ll try it again to see if I feel any differently. But this is one of the messiest films I have ever seen. And no, I haven’t read the book, but I want to, I feel that reading the words will get the bad taste out of my eyes and ears.

THE FOREIGNER easily contains both Jackie Chan AND Pierce Brosnan’s best performances…ever. But what I was also surprised to discover is that this movie wasn’t just another Taken or solely just another revenge plot film. It is actually a stunningly great political thriller at its forefront with that zesty revenge side dish that we all know so well. It was breathtaking and fresh to witness a film where, going into it, I thought it would just be all Jackie Chan butt-kicking action but in an R rating setting. Boy was I wrong. There is action, but not too much to the point of ridiculousness, but the film has more of a political terrorist plot that had me hypnotized throughout the 2 hour run time. With all those ingredients in this pot, this is a film you definitely do not want to miss.

Simple set up: Chan’s daughter is killed when a bomb outside a shopping center in London blows up, almost taking out Chan as well. Chan wants the police to catch the bombers first, but is impatient and decides he is going to find them and kill them himself. He targets a former IRA leader who is now an Irish Deputy Minister, played by Pierce Brosnan, because the bombers claim there are from the IRA. Hence without going into any spoilers, it becomes a large political terrorist plot with cat and mouse like proportions. Chan is trying to find the bombers that killed his daughter, and Brosnan is trying to find that bombers to get Chan off his back, while trying to keep his political power, but also downplaying that he was himself a terrorist way back when.

The movie is fantastically entertaining and resonant. The entire two hours kept me after the fact that I realized that the film wasn’t going to be “just another Taken” movie. I enjoyed the unraveling of the plot and while some things took me by surprise yet some didn’t, the journey kept at it to make me completely satisfied. The action, used sparingly is excellent, and Chan is finally showing his age, very convincing that the butt-kicking he is inducing now takes a toll on him too and not just his enemies. His acting is great here too, you can feel the anguish over losing his daughter and the authorities or anyone else taking him seriously. I would like to see more of this Jackie Chan in theaters. And don’t tell me to watch the remake of The Karate Kid, yes he is good in that (especially that one crying scene) but this is on a whole other level, in a better made film.

Pierce Brosnan is masterful here too. Giving his best performance to date, and his best since the underrated The Matador. I like that he had a complicated villain plot. He wasn’t necessarily the villain, but the fact that he was a terrorist in his earlier days and then gets to be in a high standing political position was disheartening. The movie plays off that and his arc is one that I truly found convincing and scary.

Some of the credit needs to go to Martin Campbell, who is one I admire greatly who has done some fantastic work, like Goldeneye and Casino Royale, but has had a few huge misfires (Green Lantern anyone)? Here, his talents as a director are brought back into the fold, very precise camera work and great takes. This goes along with hit hits for sure. But any Jackie Chan fan out there really needs to see The Foreigner. Especially those looking for a great story to go along with it. This isn’t a Rush Hour or Taken film, where it is all action and just has Jackie Chan doing a Charlie Chaplin martial arts like performance. This is bold, hard hitting, and deep. And I can’t wait to watch it again when it comes to video.

Now here is a cool, quirky Netflix film I can get behind, THE BABYSITTER, and no, not the trash that starred Alicia Silverstone in the 90s. This is the new film directed by McG, yes the Charlie’s Angel’s reboot McG, about a hot as hell babysitter and her friends dong some pretty shady shit as the kid being babysat tries to stop them. In the vein of the recent film I reviewed Better Watch Out, it is best not to watch a trailer for this film. Just start playing it and enjoy. It’s a quick 85 minute, bloody, hilarious,  thrill ride with some really, really cool deaths and some great bloody practical effects. It’s also funny that it is McG’s best film as well.

What happened to McG? The Charlie’s Angels reboots were halfway decent but then he failed with Terminator Salvation and hit a nail in the coffin after This Means War. I saw a little talent in him then and thankfully, here he finally releases everything full throttle (did you get the Charlie’s Angels jokes…did you get it?) This movie is just pure fun and what will be a huge star making turn for the girl that plays the babysitter Bee, Samara Weaving (Hugo Weaving is her uncle). She is incredible in this this, her acting chops on full display and her chemistry while “babysitting” Cole is one with humor, thrills and heartbreak.

Just like my review for Better Watch Out, I am not going to explain the plot all that much. Bee has always babysat Cole, and he has a huge crush on her. One of Cole’s friends tells Cole that he should stay up this time instead of going to bed, to see if Bee has sex with her boyfriend, steals stuff, trashes the house etc. Cole decides to do it…and what he discovers is more frightening than anything he could have imagined. I explained earlier that there is some great gore practical effects and some great deaths, so you might get the sense of where the film goes. Needless to say, it is almost in the same vein as Better Watch Out, but it is actually very different.

You have other people in this that are Bee’s friends as well, such as Robbie Amell, Bella Thorne, and that weird Asian chick from Pitch Perfect. They are all hilarious and great as Bee’s friends, and I even liked Bella Thorne in this, even though I think she is very very strange in real life, the few scenes she has in this, she really shines. But everything in this film belongs to Samara Weaving. She’s incredible and worth the price of one month of Netflix alone to check this film out.

McG’s quirky direction is fully developed in this film, where it inhabits its environment and takes it to the next level as it should. The use of music in here is delightful as well, especially Queen at the end. The acting all around is almost stepping into the over-the-top category, but thanks to a good script, it calls for it, sort of like the acting in a Quentin Tarantino film. That’s it, I’m done talking. Go check out The Babysitter, you won’t regret it.

 

I am going to get two things right off my chest before I dive into Netflix’s THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES (NEW AND SELECTED). First off, I don’t think Adam Sandler’s performance in this is Oscar worthy at all. It is a very good performance and easily his best since Punch Drunk Love, but I do not think it is Oscar worthy as many have been buzzing it is. Secondly, I am not a huge fan of Noah Baumbach. I think he is a talented filmmaker whose films are a little too quirky for my taste, and I haven’t really liked any of his films, maybe the closest being The Squid and the Whale. This film now beats that for me as his best work, even though I still cannot quite recommend the film. And it is mainly because of the second half of the film.

I don’t dislike Noah Baumbach at all. He does have a very good ear for dialogue and some of his scenes are engaging but he uses a lot of weird quirky moments and sight gags that take me out of the film and I have trouble that they would be in this universe that he has created. There are good sight gags and bad sight gags to be sure. And by sight gags, I’ll give you an example. While I love the movie Garden State, I can’t wait the part where Zach Braff is in that bathroom and walks near those sinks and the sinks just go off as we walks toward the exit.  That part made absolutely no sense, so I consider it a bad sight gag. Another sight gag is when he has on that shirt some Aunt made for him and it matches the wallpaper, that I considered a good sight gag. This film has a person running a car into a tree for absolutely no reason, people weirdly running away from things, weird student films, and a bunch of other sight gags that took me away from the family drama story it was trying to tell.

However, the sight gags didn’t ruin the movie for me, it was mainly the second act of the film when Ben Stiller shows up and Dustin Hoffman’s character goes out of the picture for a little bit. Before I get into the first and second act of the film Another thing I don’t necessarily like about Noah Baumbach’s filmmaking is that he never really gives us a totally likable character. Adam Sandler’s character in this is the closest he has gotten to date. Now I know you can’t a have perfect character without flaws, but surely there can be more likable characters with them. The first half of the film is clear and concise, and I thought I would come out of this putting it on one of my top fifteen films of the year, singing Baumbach’s praises. But then we get to the second half…

***spoiler alert*** I am going to spoil something that happens to Dustin Hoffman’s character where it made me not like the second act all the much and the event took a lot of the film away for me. So if you don’t want to know, turn back now. Halfway thru the film Dustin Hoffman’s character, one of the interesting ones, goes into a coma for the rest of the film. I think taking the father out of the picture and having the family drama dynamic happen between the two brothers and the sisters was a big mistake on Baumbach’s part. I think the father could’ve been in it and it would’ve made a more well rounded family story ***end spoiler alert*** The film is about a family whose father (Hoffman) is having a grand art exhibit of his work and selling it all off. Adam Sandler’s character and his sister have been struggling with their relationship their entire life with Hoffman’s character, and don’t want his new girlfriend/wife (played by Emma Thompson) to sell off the house and don’t want their father to sell his work. Enter the half brother (played by Ben Stiller) who is basically the person who is arranging all of this stuff to be sold. And Ben Stiller’s character is always the one that Dustin Hoffman’s was proud of, etc. etc. etc.

Like I said, the movie has a strong first half but a very weak second. I explained why it is weak in the spoiler above. But there is a little more too it. The story gets extremely cliched when the spoiler event happens, and so does the dialogue. This “you are the favorite child, you are turning into your father” merry go round has been done before and I was disappointed that the promising dialogue unique first half was followed up with this. It picks up near the very end with the art exhibit and ***spoiler alert*** Sandler’s final confrontation with Dustin Hoffman ***end spoiler*** but it was already too late for me to recommend the film completely. Noah Baumbach enthusiasts are for sure to love this movie though.

There are a couple of other sweet things, I did like Adam Sandler’s relationship with his daughter at the beginning of the film, but then she goes off to college, makes awkward movies and has a weird confrontation with Sandler at the end that really didn’t make much since. So see, this film was like a complete see-saw with me. There are good things and bad things. Sometimes I can still recommend a film with those, and sometimes I can’t. This is one of the rare cases where I just can’t. I’m sorry Noah Baumbach, you haven’t won me over yet, but you are showing promise. At least better than Paul Thomas Anderson….yikes. But not as good as Wes Anderson with the quirky stuff. I have a feeling he could get there though.

HAPPY DEATH DAY is so damn enjoyable, I can completely forgive the movie for having me easily guess who the killer is months ago in the trailers. Yes, it is not that hard to figure out who the killer is and why. But this was a perfect little Friday the 13th treat and a cool, fun Halloween flick. Granted it is just another twist on the Groundhog Day formula, but honestly, I could watch movies with the Groundhog Day formula everyday. It’s a cool premise, living each day over and over until you get it right. You just want to yell at the screen with all the solutions the main character isn’t thinking of how they can escape repeating their day. This is the first one to use the slasher horror formula mixed to this one, and even with the PG-13 rating, the movie hit my dumb sweet spot.

If this movie was Rated R and maybe a tad longer (it is a nice brisk 96 minutes), I think this movie could’ve been a masterpiece, but instead it is just a really really enjoyable multiple watch film that won’t win any awards and will just be watched every Halloween by you personally. The movie especially wouldn’t have worked without newcomer Jessica Rothe. She is fantastic in this and her chemistry with everyone else is exhilaratingly fresh. So is the Andie McDowell to her in this movie played by Israel Broussard. He has some very good scenes with Rothe and even though he is in it a lot, I wish he was in it more.

But man does this PG-13 really prohibit this film from discovering its full potential. I wanted some cool blood splattering kills every time they kill our heroine, but there is not that much blood and there is mostly jump cuts. I did however jump a couple of times due to a few good well timed cheap jump scares. Speaking of heroine, usually when a character has a relive a day over and over again, that character is a despicable son of a bitch. But Jessica Rothe’s Tree Gelbman is honestly not that bad of a person, or at least we don’t see her being that much of a bitch. If they had, it might’ve made her arc more convincing. Thank the stars that Jessica Rothe is so dam likable that I forgave this really quickly.

I don’t want to give much away, but the movie is very enjoyable. Although very predictable, the journey and our lead makes up for everything else. It’s a little bit scary, a little bit freaky, pretty funny, and the time will just roll by. It’s a very sweet Halloween treat that I wouldn’t miss. If you do miss it, at least give it a rental shot when it eventually hits formats for your home. Oh, another thing, I thought the Universal logo for this was pretty clever before the movie started. I liked this so much, I’m sure I will watch it again, and again, and again, and again. Just make sure you turn your brain off at the door.

Man would I love to have seen a long biopic on Thurgood MARSHALL, the first African-American supreme court justice. Having a tight script, with the incredible lead in this film, Chadwick Boseman, cast in it still, that would be one helluva picture. What we get here is really just a court case a little earlier before that where Marshall doesn’t have much of a voice in that trial, just controls things behind the scenes. Which was just a tad disappointing. HOWEVER, the movie is still pretty good for what it was trying to do. It was trying to cater to a mass audience, and mass audience don’t pay too much attention to biopics anymore, but court room case drama’s, still have a mass appeal, so they tried to combine a huge message with a pretty predictable court case. It works, but in the long line of films like this, I’m afraid will be lost in the shuffle.

I can’t hark too bad on this movie, because it is enjoyable even though the court case is 250% predictable. And you can’t blame me for liking a movie where I wasn’t annoyed by Olaf’s (Josh Gad) performance for once, but this film could’ve been so much more. I think Chadwick Boseman is an actor who’s not a force to be reckoned with. I think he is starting to show potential as one of the greats along with Leonardo DiCaprio, Denzel Washington, Sidney Poitier, Gary Oldman, etc. He is fantastic in this. But I keep going back to in my mind what this film could’ve been. I love a good biopic, and all the right pieces could’ve made Marshall something truly special. It’s serviceable, not a bad movie by any means, I’m just a tad disappointed.

Especially because while Thurgood Marshall’s voice is heard behind the scenes and he controls what happens in this court case, you don’t really see him in action as a lawyer all that much, instead Josh Gad, as a lawyer that doesn’t do cases like these, takes Marshall’s words and has to use his voice to defend a black man accused of raping a white woman and then trying to kill her. Why couldn’t we have seen a lengthier court case where we heard Thurgood Marshall doing the defending the entire time? We could still kept in the great messages about racial injustice in here, because the message is loud, clear, and good, but why have a court case where Marshall doesn’t do much? Did we even need Josh Gad’s character (even though he’s good in this?)

There is a reason for Josh Gad’s character, he is Jewish, and I guess his story arc is acceptable, considering that he’s defending a black man in tough times and he is also Jewish himself faces discrimination. It just felt like Josh Gad’s character was in there to be a kind white voice in this picture, when we really didn’t need one. Marshall needs to be front and center, with no side bar (did you like my lawyer joke there?). And the court case is extremely predictable beyond our wildest imagination. I knew what happened before the facts were even put on the table. And when the revelation comes, the film kind of tries to say “gotcha” even though it is more like, “uh, yeah, no you didn’t…at all.”

I just realized I’m harking on this movie too much. It is enjoyable, and a very decent watch if only for the performances. Kate Hudson is better here than she has been in quite a long time, and Dan Stevens plays an excellent sleazy lawyer on the prosecution. What makes the movie is Chadwick Boseman (he’s Black Panther and Jackie Robinson if you didn’t know that already). He is incredible in this and is worth the price of admission alone. But the movie will make you crave for a biopic. If one is made, bring Boseman along for the ride and I’ll gladly join it.