Dallas Fisher

    Tag: film

    • Freakier Friday

      Freakier Friday

      Welcome back to the world of the most iconic body swap franchise. Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan’s off the charts chemistry is immediately felt and it’s like they never stopped working together. It’s been 20-plus years for the long awaited followup, and we’ve added a few more family members into the swapping chaos. Some things are handled with a little more creativity than others, but the humor is still highly prevalent.

      Julia Butters has the chance to become a comedy staple after her performance in this movie. She’s absolutely hilarious and the rest of the over dramatized high school aspect really anchors that down. Whether it was on purpose or not, there’s a lot of Mean Girls vibes mixed up in the rebellious nature of this entry. I won’t specifically talk on who or how many swaps happen, but I will say there’s a few actors that were better than the others at being more genuine. I wish certain family members were involved instead of being completely written out. Plus, one important aspect is completely changed to the point that it ruins any ounce of credibility.

      It’s difficult to touch on too much with this movie, because of how much it is a rehash of the 2002 film. I’m not even saying that’s a bad thing, because Lohan and JLC being back together is such a delight in these roles. Just seeing them back in the stylish outfits, brings a lot of fun to the screen. Everyone feels more grown up and even the direction is much more mature.I will say there is a lack of urgency within the story itself that detracted a little from the fun in the middle, because it wanted to give everyone the screen time they deserved.

      The effort, emotions, and funny gags are all there, but it might be a little too crowded.

      6.6/10

    • The Pickup

      Look at Eddie and Pete’s expressions in the photo above, that is what I looked like watching the entirety of this movie.

      Knowing this is from the guy (Tim Story) that directed Ride Along 2, I shouldn’t have had super high expectations, but I was still underwhelmed. A veteran armored truck worker (Murphy) teams up with an immature rookie (Davidson) and things go a little off routine. This is a heist movie and a comedy, but I’ll get to the latter later.. If you compare this to other heist movies, you won’t have anything new to take away. The action is mainly involving a long Fury Road-like car chase that is shot like it was meant for a canceled network TV show. So, if you like to watch poorly shot car wrecks, you’ll be into this movie.

      I’ve always kind of liked Pete Davidson, his demeanor and humor have always been appealing in a cynical and endearing way. Those strengths are mostly played here, except when they aren’t. When you have the comedic genius of Eddie Murphy to go head to head with, it’s hard to stay in the fight. Murphy on the other hand, is still at the top of his game. Everything he said is perfectly delivered and it feels like it was written specifically for him. Both of them together was a bit of a generational mismatch.

      The antagonist group led by Keke Palmer was quite the group of generic bad guys. All the effort was put into the duo so that this aspect fell completely flat. Keke as a voice has a strong presence, but as a character with an unsure approach she isn’t fully understandable. This movie struggled to decide which side of a few genres it wanted to fall on, and ultimately fails at most of them.

      I grew very tired of what this was trying to do very quickly, that I know I could have slept through the second act and not missed a beat. It’s not as clever as it thinks it is, and its setting even adds to it feeling like Ocean’s 3, because that’s how many brain cells you need to enjoy it. I’m so glad Eddie Murphy is back on our screens making us laugh, but I wish there was a little more around him to make it substantial.

      4/10

    • She Rides Shotgun

      2025 finally has its small time, gritty crime thriller.

      Taron Egerton and Ana Sophia Heger play a father-daughter role that has been missing after Leave No Trace. She Rides Shotgun jumps right into the aftermath of a double murder, where Nathan (Egerton) is the culprit from many respects, and he brings his daughter (Heger) along with him. In a movie where everyone is out to get you, you know situations are going to get hairy. 

      The heightened intensity is felt in its most important moments, and it perfectly lays the crumbs without giving too much away. Weaving in and out of the main story with the detective aspect was almost unnecessary though because of its addition of too many characters and cheesy code names. Deeper corruption is always welcome in a story like this. The violence is handled wonderfully, but might not feel the most cinematic.

      What will be talked about from this movie are the performances. Everyone will tell you how fantastic Heger is, which she is, and she’s the first child actor of the year to not be utterly annoying. Her performance doesn’t outshine the film but instead, shares the load and talent of everyone around her. Egerton really transforms himself into a role I never thought I would see him in, he’s spectacularly intense, yet pleasantly soft. Not to be forgotten though, John Carroll Lynch. The character actor who has shown a darker side before, but nothing like this. His commitment and harshness is what really stuck out in a movie with two other solid roles. If only he was given more screentime. 

      The dynamic of the father-daughter relationship may feel like a replay but the duo holds itself together. In quiet moments you can even feel a real life connection to this, hopefully non-fictional story. You might as well be watching this through a child’s POV with how lost you felt throughout and with the musical choices. I really loved the inclusion of what felt like a song played in its entirety, it was like the scene was filmed in one shot but in post. I was not a fan of the other music that at times, felt like i was watching the X-files. 

      Thrilled to say this treats its characters and situations like real life. Sad to say it pulls a lot from multiple Ryan Gosling movies without doing too much to feel original. The struggle brought me empathy for the characters as it struggled to satisfy me in the end. Strong performances, lapse of judgement from the writing, and violently bad wigs had me feeling like this would have worked better as a streaming film. 

      5.9/10

    • Oh, Hi!

      Oh, Hi!

      Sophie Brook’s new film is a smart romantic comedy that will seep into your brain and keep you guessing throughout.

      Iris (Molly Gordon) and Isaac (Logan Lerman) have a refreshing chemistry that kicks you right into gear with their relationship. Starting off as a weekend getaway movie, you can only speculate that this will turn into something more sinister. Not only does the speculation last the entire runtime, it lasts the ENTIRE runtime… That might be my only major complaint about the movie, well, and Lerman’s restrained performance. The speculation is tons of fun but can be super disappointing when it doesn’t fully lead to the climax you were hoping for. But, if you look at this movie from a different point of view, it was always about the ride.

      Gordon in this movie is scary good, and her performance is one of the best of the year. She’s unhinged in the best ways which makes it feel beyond realistic. There’s a look in her eyes where she knows she’s stolen the show from the inside and out. Playing off of what Lerman has to do really showcases her obsessive strengths. Special shootouts to David Cross and John Reynolds for making an impact in their own ways. 

      This being a romantic comedy with a “twist” aspect put it in the discussion with movies like Barbarian and Fresh. I was thoroughly impressed with the way it danced around the complications of relationships and their opposing perspectives. It doesn’t waste time showing how they feel about each other with each changing moment. The unknown keeps it interesting, and you notice fine details about characters and can really feel the innocence in the air.

      Oh, Hi! is edited and shot with professionalism; it’s steamy and hilarious (as long as you don’t have PTSD about your exes). It’s an attractive movie with the best soundtrack of the year. A perfect date night film for anyone at any point in their relationship.

      7/10

    • Jurassic World: Rebirth

      Coming off the stink that was Jurassic World: Dominion, I wasn’t excited about the 7th film in this franchise. Adding Scarlett Johannson, Mahershala Ali, and Johnathan Bailey to the mix did help drag me back into the theater for this one though.

      There’s a lot of emotion behind the trio’s motivations which helped elevate the stakes to an enjoyable level, at least for the humans. Even if these three characters were the best part about the movie, I still wish they were given a little more to do. Scarlett plays a mercenary that barely gets to show off any of her skills, which I’m sure has nothing to do with this being PG-13. Mahershala is beyond likable with his persistent charm and wise words, and Jonathan Bailey continues to grow on me as a loveable weirdo.

      Now, if they gave Scar-Jo, Ali, and Bailey a little more screen time instead of taking away their importance every fifteen minutes, we might have been in for a better ride. The “adding a family side story just for the sake of having kids in the movie” was a poor choice, and they ultimately felt like deadweight. Any time this family was on screen, I felt like I was watching a Spy Kids sequel (not a good thing). The things that happen to the family could have been transferred in a slightly different way to the A plot, and this movie would have moved along at the same pace.. Overall, it was congested to the point of being annoying.

      Can we talk about dinosaurs yet?? Let’s do it. When this franchise takes the time to focus on the dinos, it does some things right. For this installment it does continue the trend of adding bigger and mutated ones- that I don’t love. When it utilizes the “real” dinosaurs and their already massive scale- that I do love! There are sequences of real fear that expand to all corners of the Earth’s elements, which brought me back to the original wonder of the past. Gareth Edwards’ (director) hands can really be felt in the mix here. He knows how to make realistic and made up monsters come to life on screen almost too well as he can’t help but make them feel a little too much like Godzilla foe.

      Once again, we were shown that it’s almost impossible to recreate the magic of what Spielberg did for us in 1993. With laughable product placement, all the other comedy in this movie was out of touch and out of place. The music was more of an homage and at times threw me off balance from what was on screen. The Jurassic franchise loves to tease in many aspects, and here it wanted to tease us by making us feel like the bad people for not liking the most recent installments.

      But hey, at least there weren’t any locusts!

      5.2/10

    • M3GAN 2.0

      The bitch is back, but maybe she should have stayed dead. 

      A self aware sequel to the 2023 “hit” that attempts to bring us to the likes of T2 but fails by making things overly complicated. This franchise has a campiness that tends to work best when it follows the Evil Dead route, but instead we added almost a full other movie within itself. 

      I’ll start out with the things I loved, or at least enjoyed. Allison Williams is so likeable that it’s easy to look past the fact she’s kind of stale and not given a lot to do in the original or the first half of this movie. The action is pretty well done but would have benifited from a rated-R bump. The movie made me laugh, well Jemaine Clement did. Also, Megan as a character is so sassy that I couldn’t help but be entertained. And, that’s about it. 

      Why did they remove the horror aspect from this completely?? I get leaning into the comedy a little more, but this removes it so much that you forget what this was originally about (besides the fact they mention the plot of the first quite a few times). If you want to be a cross genre, that’s fine, but you can’t poorly execute half a dozen of them and expect it to fully work. 

      If you looked up the word panic in the dictionary, I think you’d find 80% of this movie playing on a loop. It’s mainly the characters planning and talking about what they’re going to do, and by the time we get to see those things play out, I don’t care anymore. There’s seriously so much talking to the point where it feels like most characters are trying so hard to be someone else. The family melodrama aspects couldn’t have been less interesting or important to the story. 

      As far as pacing goes, 2.0 almost makes a full arc that ends in a climatic setting. That setting is sadly only half way into the film. To no one’s surprise, there’s misdirectics that were there for the sake of having them and added no real stakes to the story. If the first half wasn’t spent in brash situations, we could have had time to focus on a little more of Megan and Co.

      M3GAN 2.0 feels unoriginal while also trying so much that it felt lost. You’ll have the smallest amount of fun if you buy in, but for me I couldn’t get past the message of the movie putting itself down. 

      2.6/10


    • 28 Years Later

      The world has waited a long time to see what has changed in the world of 28-Time Frame-Later, but was it worth the wait?

      Split into two halves, it’s almost like Garland and Boyle directed one each. Without a cohesive vision, I think it’s fair to say their chemistry has finally worn off. I know this world has never fully been about the “zombies,” but the human connection could have been more crisp. Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Jodie Comer are parents to a young boy, Spike (Alfie Williams). Spike slowly became the focus of the film and will determine your involvement in its enjoyment.

      To kick off the movie we get a father-son dynamic that worked for me. It builds a bond and helps develop care for the two we spend a solid chunk of time with. The tone and music slip right into the world we are familiar with and wanted. Introduced to the infected, we get something fresh, bloody, and nasty. Arrows rip through them like a replay in an NFL game and each one becomes more of a trophy.

      Characters have very little playing time as it was seemingly not in the contracts to have more than two of them on screen at a time. Comer is the latest example of a female character to be bed stricken for a majority of their film. She does good enough with the situation given and surprisingly leads to the most interesting and beautiful part of the whole thing. The pieces that unfold to get her to that place were unnecessary rough though. 

      Visually stunning set pieces grace the screen in a movie that could have benefitted more by moving to even more of a grand scale. Going backwards was beneficial for minute reasons. There’s so much promise to this world that is missing one strong character to grab onto and it didn’t necessarily need more infected or humans being shown as the bad guys, but it needed some conflict outside of what we got.

      Knowing there’s a sequel to this sequel makes sense for the story we get, but it leads to a product that’s incomplete and really kills the excitement. 28 Years Later has killer music, strong performances, but feels like it’s trying to hide something more from the audience as it’s process is scattered and unevolved.

      Saving the last bit to really dig in how truly awful the ending was. I understand what it was coming back around to and what it was spelling out in a more grounded sense, but oh my is it executed poorly. The jarring nature of its presence is unwelcome and proves how weak the writing was.

      5.4/10

    • F1: The Movie

      An F1 movie produced by Lewis Hamilton, Jerry Bruckheimer, Joseph Kosinski, and Brad Pitt should have the combined strength to make an all-time race movie, but does it?

      Kosinski follows up the success of Top Gun: Maverick with another A-list actor putting his life on the line in a high speed manner. Whether you like it or not, Brad Pitt is the dictionary’s definition of charismatic. This time he brings his cheeky and “soft” spoken side into the mix which is just what this movie needed. He might not go to the full levels of what Tom Cruise did in Maverick, but it can’t be understated how important he is to the screen here.

      The entire F1: The Movie crew spent an entire Formula One season traveling the world with the real-life drivers to make this as authentic as possible. From one perspective, it does exactly what it set out to do; the racing mainly feels like racing you’d see on your TV. With shots of racers close up and shots only lasting a few seconds at a time, it can make it difficult to feel the full tension of where characters are within the race. What it does really well is the behind the scenes stuff. It shows a side of F1 that I never knew about, the technology. As a person who’s never watched a second of any race, they make it look like these cars and garages are from the far future.

      The conflict that begins and ends off the track is the most interesting part of the whole movie because everything on the track felt fabricated by Hollywood. I’m also not sure how fans of the racing itself will feel about the way they handled some of the actual racing. Some of it comes across as disingenuous and almost a mockery. I’m curious if showing more of the real F1 people and having them interact or if making this more fictional would have been a better idea. Because being right down the middle almost took me out of it completely.

      Do you know what brought me right back into everything? The people. By people, I mean the actors/characters they played. Sonny Hayes (cool name)(Pitt) fit this role about as perfectly as he could have. It will never cease to amaze me with how good he still looks. Javier Bardem as the rich guy owner plays up every scene he’s in, but also has the range to make things more serious. The seriousness didn’t stop there with Damson Idris, our rookie on the track and in my movie eyes, brought a real depth to his acting and within his role.

      Kerry Condon, though. She steals the show every which way. She might have been the only character that felt like a real human. This movie didn’t make her into a typical Bruckheimer character, but actually gave her more to do than almost everyone else. She was subtle, hilarious, relatable and gave a downright great performance.

      F1: The Movie is visually an entertaining spectacle if you don’t look too close. The opening scene will bring your heart right into the speed of it, and if you believe in what you’re seeing, it’ll never let go.

      I almost forgot to mention Hans Zimmer! Talk about a perfect score for a racing movie.

      It’s a good movie that I didn’t fully trust as a racing movie.

      7/10

    • Materialists

      Celine Song follows up her 2022 feature, Past Lives, with another three piece of on screen lovers. This time we have Dakota Johnson as a matchmaker (made up job?) caught between the choices of her past (Chris Evans) and her future (Pedro Pascal).

      At the heart of this movie, we have a pretty standard love triangle that doesn’t handle everything in the standard ways. Instead of attempting to make our characters relatable with over the top comedy, we get real life situations. Where the typical romantic aspects might not even be the things that are pulling on your heart strings. It’s a much deeper film about being human. Defiant contrasts bring a light and darkness throughout, whether it’s the characters or the subtly obvious NYC backdrop.

      Johnson in the lead role is soft spoken, yet firm, and gets the most to do in many ways. It barely feels like she’s acting with the press tour clips I’ve been seeing, and that’s perfect. She’s perfect. Speaking of perfect, Pedro Pascal. Even though Pedro has been super saturated lately, it doesn’t mean I didn’t love every second of him on screen. Evans goes back to a role from his pre Captain America days and he and Pascal are a great, but separate, duo. I will say all of the characters work super well on their own, to a slight disadvantage to the overall story.

      Materialists goes down unexpected, but welcome, paths. Diving into what feels like the real life effects of Tinder or Bumble, made for a spin on the genre as a whole. The film has a way of making things just serious enough for adults while being not too artificial in the story telling. It’s engaging even when characters are just driving around.

      A movie about choices and second chances. Celine Song might not 100% convince me of her romances, but a film filled with flirty dialogue spoken by hot actors is a certain romantic’s dream.

      7.8/10

    • Karate Kids: Legends

      The amount you enjoy this movie will probably rely on how deep you are into the lore of this world, and I’ve only seen the original film. 

      Karate Kid: Legends does one thing very well, and that’s combine the characters from all of its sources and make them interact in charming ways. Whether or not you think they get the time or purpose they deserve, could be wavering. Li Fong ,played by Ben Wang, is our new pupil at the front of this movie and his relationships with the rest of the cast is a real highlight. Jackie Chan is delightful back in a mentor role and everyone else is serviceable, except maybe the Disneyfied bullies. 

      Thrown into the world of NYC, it adds an interesting backdrop that at times makes this feel like an origin story for Spiderman. That might be the beginning of the semi-problems with the story as it constantly feels like two separate movies while also being a carbon copy of Warrior mixed with Tokyo Drift. There’s nothing really new within the story so it has this generic film stuck to the screen at all times. Knowing exactly where this story is going makes it a struggle to have any emotional connection to anyone beyond the surface level. 

      Could I go on and on and say it’s totally confusing, anti-dramatic, and most of the fighting is the worst part in a movie about fighting?Sure. But, I’ll move on to a few more things I enjoyed. 

      It’s pretty funny! Wang and Sadie Stanley (Mila) have great chemistry and are the stand out of the many many story points. There’s a twist on the training montage that’s smartly crafted into the plot. I’ll say again, seeing Jackie Chan back in a movie was just a lot of fun and him playing off of Ralph Macchio will satisfy so many generations of movie fans. There’s also some great uses of on screen captions and a short recap flashback that actually works (looking at you The Final Reckoning). 

      You’ll get exactly what you expect out of a safe movie like this, which can be fine for most audiences. The newest Karate Kid fits right into the world it has created, that I find just a little too cheesy. 

      6.1/10