A new adaptation of the gothic romance/mystery novel Rebecca is here starring Lily James and Armie Hammer. This film has been on my radar all year long because I absolutely love both James and Hammer and was intrigued to see their cinematic coupling. The story was previously and famously adapted by Alfred Hitchcock who cast Joane Fontaine and Laurence Olivier in the lead roles. It was his only film ever to win best picture. So how does it stack up against what came before? Ironically the film is almost a metaphor for its unnamed lead character herself, always being compared to the high standard of what came before, and always feeling inferior. Lily James plays our unnamed heroine, a woman who gets swept up in a passionate whirlwind romance with wealthy recent widower Maxim de Winter (Armie Hammer.) The two hastily decide to marry in order to prevent their separation and soon James' character becomes the new Mrs. de Winter and Lady over his large estate. The problem is, the presence of Maxim's first wife, Rebecca, is felt all throughout the house. Not only that, but all of the servants make it known to the new Mrs. de Winter how much they preferred Rebecca to her. In fact, they paint Rebecca as an ethereal being that nobody could live up to. As Mrs. de Winter explores the grounds she discovers the house holds a mystery of what precisely became of Rebecca. If there's one thing I can say for this version of Rebecca is that it is a beautiful movie with beautiful people in it. Truly, the cinematography is stunning, the costume design and production design are absolutely fabulous and Hammer & James make a truly beautiful couple. But at the same time, their couple and their characters in this movie don't really match what it's supposed to be in comparison with their novel counterparts, or the version that Hitchcock brought to life. Of course, they can interpret the text however they like...but it changes the nature of the story the way they're portrayed here. Lily James is anything but mousy, and movies can never paint her that way no matter how hard they try (I'm looking at you Yesterday,) so she doesn't really fit the character of someone who could literally never match up to someone so exquisite because well...James is exquisite. And her relationship with Maxim is supposed to be so much more manipulative and a lot less...well whatever it is shown as here. In the other iterations of this story their romance wasn't actually fueled by passion, but more that he wanted someone meek and malleable. So basically... what the story should be gets lost in translation here. What remains? Well it's not Rebecca, but it's sure pretty to look at. RATING: 6.5/10

Major new releases are few and far between these days, but HBO Max is changing all that by distributing Robert Zemeckis' latest film, a new adaptation of the Roald Dahl classic The Witches. Many 90's kids feel a lot of nostalgia for the Anjelica Huston version that came out in 1990 and were skeptical that another iteration was necessary. It's a simple tale already well told, and Zemeckis has been much more miss than hit in the last twenty or so years. Still, he was able to lure Oscar winners Anne Hathaway and Octavia Spencer to the project so there had to be something noteworthy about it right? The Witches follow a boy (Jahzir Bruno) and his Grandma (Octavia Spencer) as they just so happen to stay in the same hotel as a group of witches who have gathered to hold a convention. The boy stumbles onto this meeting and soon discovers that the witches have a plan to turn every child in America into a mouse. The boy and his Grandma must team up to stop these witches before its too late. The first film is a really straightforward movie. This version takes every single thing that happened in the other movie and drags each sequence out to feel nearly twice as long. Every situation must have added manufactured suspense. The look of the film is cheery and pastel, and the soundtrack full of a lot of great Motown hits is fantastic. The film seems to want to say something by changing the setting to the southern United States in the 1960s, but really doesn't actually say anything. The usually reliable Octavia Spencer definitely gives off the sense here that she's going through the motions.The only one actually having fun is definitely Hathaway, though she's not helped much by the design of her character, The Grand High Witch's true form. The CGI is actually quite dreadful. Some of the worst I've seen in years (well...aside from Cats.) Not only does Hathaway just look...weird, so too do the mice. I definitely was missing the fun animatronic mice of the first movie. The Witches 2020 tries so hard to be more of everything, but somehow manages to be less in every way. As hard as Anne Hathaway and her charisma try (as well as her horrendously phony Euro accent) she just can't save this movie. RATING: 5/10

Other reviews haven't been too kind to Ron Howard's deep dive into the generational story of a family of hillbillies, aptly titled Hillbilly Elegy, but when I saw the promotional images of Glenn Close and Amy Adams in character I knew I had to check this one out either way. Close and Adams are two of the most talented actresses on the planet, so I was very intrigued to see their portrayals of characters who in reality couldn't be more different than either of them. As expected the two completely blew me away with their performances as they disappeared in these roles, trying to humanize some really terrible people. Maybe it was the low expectations, or maybe it was just me loving the performances, but I actually really enjoyed the film. Maybe enjoyed is the wrong word, but it was like watching a really entertaining disaster, and in times like these, watching someone else's problems was most welcome. The film follows JD (Gabriel Basso,) a bright young Yale student who comes from very humble beginnings. His mother Bev (Amy Adams) had him and his sister as a teenager and never was really able to get her life together ever since. Always jumping from man to man, never able to hold a steady job, and succumbing to drug addiction, Bev brings down anyone in her path. JD reflects on his past and his upbringing while participating in interviews for school that will shape his entire future. He's forced to confront his demons and unpack the baggage he's hiding away when his sister begs him to come back home and help their mother once again. Again, as I've already mentioned, the performances by Adams and Glenn Close who plays Bev's mother and JD's grandmother, "Mamaw," are absolutely incredible. The story is a simple one and while perhaps predictable, the issues and the scars feel real... which makes sense since it's based on somebody's real life. I'm personally not really sure where all the hate stems from on this one, because I don't feel like the movie made these people particularly likable; no one is calling them heroes. These are definitely people who inflicted trauma on each subsequent generation, and the feelings aren't overly sentimental...they're complicated. RATING: 7/10

David Fincher is back with his first feature film since 2014's Gone Girl. Considering his filmography (well apart from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button anyway...), any time he makes a movie it's always sure to be near the top of my most anticipated list. His examination of 1930's Hollywood in Mank was no exception. Mank is all about old Hollywood screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) and the writing of his magnum opus, Citizen Kane. "Mank," as everyone calls him, is a washed up alcoholic who gets hired by a rising talent named Orson Welles. Bedridden with a broken leg, he's got two months to finish the script, so he brings in a young assistant to dictate his words (Lily Collins.) He bases Kane on a famous newspaper tycoon named William Randall Hurst (Charles Dance) with whom he had a cordial relationship with. Mank also had a close friendship with Hurst's mistress, actress Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried) and the film is mostly a series of flashbacks of his interactions with the pair that inspire the characters and story of Citizen Kane. Mank is an old school Hollywood movie through and through. Fincher gets the look and feel of classic films from the 30's and 40's down pat. The editing and general storytelling master the techniques used of the time, making the film feel totally authentic (apart from some modern touches here and there such as the profanity.) In fact, it's almost crazy to think that this is the same director behind such modern fast paced films like The Social Network, Gone Girl and Se7en. Mank demands your full attention and its pacing requires a lot more patience. The film is very dialogue heavy delving deeply into politics from almost 100 years ago which makes it not a seamless fit for modern sensibilities that aren't used to classic cinema or the history surrounding it. As such, it isn't the most accessible film to general audiences. Gary Oldman turns in a really great performance as usual, but the real surprise here is Amanda Seyfried who gets absolutely lost in the role of Marion Davies. She undoubtedly gives the best performance of her career here and absolutely shines. RATING: 8/10

If last time Venom (2018) benefitted from my low expectations because reviews were going off on how TERRIBLE this film would be, this time Venom: Let There Be Carnage is suffering from the reverse effect. THIS time, everyone else had low expectations and were delighted, then turned around to rave about how surprisingly good the film is...thus overhyping the film. I walked out thinking "where did all that good buzz come from??" The main thing to say about Venom: Let There Be Carnage is that whatever the intended first cut of this film was, it has since been edited into oblivion by the studio. This movie moves at an unnatural pace; a breakneck speed that will never let you catch your breath. It's like taking a tour of someone's home and being pushed from room to room before you have a chance to actually look around and get a feel for the place. Any chance for characters to take a breath and reflect on the events happening around them is eliminated. The plot must constantly be moving along. Honestly, it would be exhausting if it all wasn't over so quickly. Aside from that, the whole thing feels cartoonish...but at least Tom Hardy and Woody Harrelson are having fun. I just wish the audience was allowed to have that same fun. RATING: 5/10

After a year delay due to the pandemic, today we finally get to see the sequel to 2018's Halloween (itself a sequel to the original Halloween from 1978), Halloween Kills. Yeah... I know, it's confusing. Especially when this series has six different timelines of canon. Halloween Kills picks up right where Halloween 2018 left off. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), along with her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) ride away from her house she left in flames. The house she designed as a cage to trap her longtime foe Michael Meyers and truly finish him this time. So she thinks. Unfortunately for Laurie, a sequel needs to happen so Michael will somehow escape yet again with his life and go on yet another killing spree. This time, Laurie spends much of her screentime away from the action, recovering in the hospital from her wounds, while a mob of angry townspeople decide to take matters into their own hands and hunt Michael down on their own. Halloween Kills, unfortunately, does not live up to the highs of its predecessor, a film that felt like a nice refreshing return to form for the series. Instead, it's kind of a hot mess with quite a few head-scratching moments (I'm looking at you subplot with the other mental patient in the hospital...) While I get the defense that this film is just a slasher film, and what slasher film is exactly high brow, I still just can't help but wish this movie was better. Yeah there are fun kills, but with Laurie stuck in the hospital and the spotlight off her (and on weird townspeople to boot...) there's just no one to root for here. Also knowing that it's the middle part in a trilogy totally removes the stakes, and what good is a horror movie when there's no tension? RATING: 5/10

Ryan Reynolds is one of those actors who as of late, mostly plays the same character in everything he's in. Usually cocky and sarcastic, his characters are varying versions of the persona he presents in real life. Sometimes that works and sometimes it gets old. Consequently, I find it's not too often that I get excited about a project he's involved in. This was very much my feeling prior to viewing Free Guy. In Free Guy, Ryan Reynolds plays Guy, an ordinary guy who over a series of events, discovers that he's actually an NPC in a video game (otherwise known as a non-player character for the people like me who aren't familiar with gamer lingo). While this naturally leads to an existential crisis, soon he learns he must team up with the real woman of his dreams (Jodie Comer) before the world as he knows it is destroyed. This is because meanwhile in the actual real world, the two software engineers who created the coding for the game (Comer along with Joe Keery) are told by the boss of the company that bought them out (Taika Waititi) that after a sequel for the game comes out he will completely erase everything they created. Free Guy plays a LOT like a live-action version of The Lego Movie, down to the films' hopefully naive protagonists and honestly, it's not a bad thing at all. It's really nice to see Ryan Reynolds playing against his usual type here and he's quite fun in this movie. Jodie Comer is also terrific as Millie, both inside and outside of the game. Together they work together really well and make a nice team. I only really had two problems with the movie. First, it definitely didn't need to be two hours long. If this had been trimmed down by a half hour the movie's pace never would have lagged. Second, a last-minute reveal that makes for an incredibly cute and sweet ending needed a lot more setup throughout the movie to have really felt earned. Overall though I had a lot of fun with Free Guy and I appreciated that for a big summer movie, it felt like something different than just another superhero blockbuster. RATING: 7/10

2016's Don't Breathe was one of my favorite horror films of the last decade. When I heard a sequel was in the works it didn't totally surprise me since the film leaves it open for one, but I was skeptical that anything could come close to reaching the same quality a second time around. Then I heard that star Jane Levy would not be returning and instead would focus on Stephen Lang's villainous "The Blind Man" character, this time turning him into the protagonist anti-hero. Then I became even more skeptical. Don't Breathe 2 picks up a couple of years after the events of Don't Breathe where the Blind Man has made himself a quiet new life and now has a daughter whose past he's keeping a secret. But, after crossing paths with the wrong people, he finds his home invaded once more and now he must exact his revenge. Here's the thing. You can't make a villain an irredeemable monster who is a rapist and kidnapper in one movie and hope the audience will cheer him on in a sequel. The filmmakers' remedy for this is by bringing in villains this time that are almost comically ridiculous amounts of evil so that you can't wait for them to get their comeuppance. To a degree, this does actually work, due in large part to how great the action setpieces are (though none reach the heights of the original as expected). Still, this film would have worked MUCH better as a prequel to show how The Blind Man became the way he is rather than trying to show another side of him here. RANKING: 5/10

Flashback to 2016 when Warner Brothers and DC were trying desperately to figure out a way to compete with Marvel Studios. In March their first effort toward an expanded film universe was released with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice to scathing reviews. The next film slated for release in their new shared universe was Suicide Squad about a group of DC villains forced into working for the government on a secret mission. The trailer for Suicide Squad was very well received, but after Batman v Superman's poor reception, executives lost trust in the creative vision for this film universe and they panicked. With months to go until the film's release, Warner did some major recutting to the film in hopes to cater to audiences with more Marvel tastes. The result was a disaster. Surprisingly though, the studio didn't throw out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak, and they did recognize that there were parts of this movie that people liked--namely Margot Robbie's performance as Harley Quinn. So WB moved forward with a Harley Quinn solo spinoff (while also functioning as another team-up film introducing new superheroes as well). But what to do with Suicide Squad? The answer for the executives waws simple....time for a rebootquel (that is to say, a reboot sequel--a film that vaguely acts like the first film exists, but mostly does its own new thing). If there's one thing WB always wanted Suicide Squad to resemble it was Guardians of the Galaxy. So given the chance when James Gunn was suddenly free from Disney after being canceled for some old Twitter jokes, WB swooped right in and gave him complete artistic license to do what he wanted with the almost identically titled follow-up The Suicide Squad. His total creative freedom happens to be the best and worst thing about The Suicide Squad if that's even possible. Gunn once again brings back Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn, along with Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag, Viola Davis' Amanda Waller, and Jai Courtney's Boomerang. The rest of the characters from Suicide Squad were scrapped. Instead of Will Smith's Deadshot, we have Idris Elba's Bloodsport. Gone without a trace is Jared Leto's Joker. But rounding out the rest of the new squad is John Cena as Peacemaker, Sylvester Stallone as King Shark, David Dastmalchian as Polka-dot Man, and Daniela Melchior as Ratcatcher II. These new anti-heroes seem as purposefully outlandish as possible, which is definitely feels quirky and offbeat for a comic book movie. But that's what James Gunn seems to be going for--covering familiar bases but this time in an unexpectedly oddball way. You really get the sense that he really wants this to be a group of misfits out for both themselves and to save the world. There's definitely a lot of fun to be had here. Once again Margot Robbie is having such a great time with the role of Harley and her scenes are such a blast to watch (even if a large portion feel somewhat disconnected from the rest of the film). Idris Elba and John Cena's back and forth competition is certainly amusing to behold. Joel Kinnamon got a lot more to do here and his presence was very welcome. The other members of the team got laughs as well, but at the same time, their schtick felt a little bit more gimmicky and got old for me. Plus they kind of felt like extra baggage, not an organic part of the ensemble. All in all, I'm not entirely sure where I stand on this film. Entertaining? Yes. Necessary? Probably not. A little too eccentric for its own good, but also really refreshing because it is. Nice to see something outside of the usual formula. RATING: 7/10

Nearly twenty years ago, in 2003, Disney struck unexpectedly struck gold with Pirates of the Caribbean, an action-adventure film based on one of Disneyland's first rides. When the project was first announced, many scoffed at the idea that a successful movie (let alone a franchise), could originate from an amusement park ride. But with a standout performance by Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow, a bombastic score and an overall swashbuckling adventure, Pirates of the Caribbean was an enormous hit. The live-action department of Disney has been chasing that gold standard ever since attempting to recreate the formula with duds like The Haunted Mansion and Tomorrowland. It seemed that Disney seemed to give up hope on the idea that there could be another Pirates of the Caribbean type ride turned movie, but they decided to give it one more try with Jungle Cruise. Jungle Cruise teams two of the most likable people in Hollywood, Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt for an adventure with quite a few similarities to Pirates of the Caribbean. Actually, it shares some similarities to some other beloved adventure series as well--namely Indiana Jones and The Mummy. Blunt stars as Lily, a botanist who, along with her brother (Jack Whitehall) heads to South America in hopes of discovering a legendary flower along the Amazon River that can cure the body of any sickness. Once there, she enlists the help of a cocky riverboat captain named Frank Wolff. Problem is, she stole the map from German Prince Joachim (Jesse Plemons as the mustache-twirling Nazi villain) who is in constant pursuit to get it back and retrieve the flower for his own evil purposes. Even while being somewhat derivative of some much better movies, I found myself enjoying Jungle Cruise...until I didn't. The biggest problem here is that the movie is 2 hours and 7 minutes long and it has absolutely no reason to be. The pacing of this just drags the movie to a halt and it just can't overcome its bloatedness. The other things that didn't work for me were a silly reveal about Dwayne Johnson's character that ultimately feels pretty pointless and just the overall feeling that as likable as both leads are I really didn't buy any romance between them (which itself felt tacked on in the last act). Jungle Cruise is just a bit of unoriginal fun until it turns more into a slog. Had a few sequences been trimmed down, or perhaps others eliminated entirely, this would have felt so much breezier and ended up with more of a bang than a fizzle. No matter what its charismatic leads do, they can't turn this into Pirate's gold. RATING: 5/10