MOVIE REVIEW: IMAGINARY

 

When Jessica moves back into her childhood home with her family, her youngest stepdaughter, Alice, finds a stuffed bear named Chauncey. As Alice's behavior becomes more and more concerning, Jessica intervenes only to realize that Chauncey is much more than the stuffed toy bear she believed him to be.

Director: Jeff Wadlow

Cast: DeWanda Wise, Tom Payne, Taegen Burns, Pyper Braun, Veronica Falcón, Betty Buckley

Release Date: March 8, 2024

Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller

Rated PG-13 for some violent content, drug material and language.

Runtime: 1h 44m

Review:

Imaginary is a predictable, run of the mill horror movie that relies on jump scare to do the heavy lifting even as it toys with campiness before fully embracing it in its final act. Jeff Wadlow's film borrows freely from other, better films like The Shining, Coraline or Pan's Labyrinth which is all fine and well if he'd crafted something engaging.  Sadly, there are only a few well staged scares early on but very little in the way of tension of atmosphere. It doesn't help that the cast of characters are thinly drawn genre clichés that don't make you care about anything that's happening.  DeWanda Wise goes through the motions in the lead role with a sort of wide eye detachment for the better part of the film's runtime.  Pyper Braun is tasked with the central child role and does a decent job all things considered.  Braun is given a healthy amount of screen time and she's subtly funny, especially when some of the situations get more extreme.  Taegen Burns does solid work as the older sister even if she isn't given much to do besides being bratty to her stepmother until she comes around.  Betty Buckley, who plays the requisite neighbor who knows more than she lets on, is really the only person who knows what kind of film she's in.  Buckley's character and performance is campy fun especially as the film veers into its goofier and more inventive final act that doesn't make much sense but has the common sense to be fun at least.  You're ultimately left wondering why the film's first two acts were so serious instead of leaning into the campiness much like last year’s M3GAN.  It’s ultimately too little too late to make Imaginary anything other than another easily forgettable horror film.

D+

MOVIE REVIEW: SPLIT

An outing takes a sinister turn for three teenage friends (Anya Taylor-Joy, Haley Lu Richardson, and Jessica Sula) when they are kidnapped by a ruthless stranger (James McAvoy) and imprisoned in his basement. They soon learn that their captor has multiple-personality disorder, forcing them to plot their escape without ever knowing which of his 23 personas -- young or old, male or female, benign or monstrous -- they will confront on the way out. Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. ~ Violet LeVoit, Rovi

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Cast: James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Betty Buckley, Haley Lu Richardson, Brad William Henke, 

Sebastian Arcelus

Release Date: Jan 20, 2017

Rated PG-13 for Some Language, Disturbing Thematic Content, Disturbing Behavior and Violence

Runtime: 1 hr. 57 min.

Genres: Horror, Suspense/Thriller

Review:

M. Night Shyamalan hasn’t made a good movie in a long long while.  I’ve personally found him to be one of the most frustrating and annoying directors in recent memory.  Typically his films have an interesting premise but he can’t help but show us exactly how clever he thinks he is.  Spilt suffers from similar issues.  Shyamalan is helped greatly by some stellar performances from James McAvoy and Anya Taylor-Joy.  McAvoy is fully committed to the role and its fun watching him switch through personalities with incredible ease.  McAvoy’s role is the center piece but Anya Taylor-Joy is nearly as impressive in a more subtle role.  Taylor-Joy continues to impress after her star making turn in last years The Witch.  She displays some impressive talent that bodes well for her in the future.  Sadly, both performances can’t save a messily made child abuse allegory.  In a better filmmaker’s hand, this could have been a special film that could have really taken advantage of the strong performances.  Instead Shyamalan delivers a heavy handed child abuse parable all the while sexualizing his young stars with some outright creepy shots and plot devices.  Like every M. Night Shyamalan there’s a twist and a pointless cameo by the director.  The twist is entirely inorganic and comes entirely out of left field, its sole purpose is to remind audiences that Shyamalan made decent films a long time ago.

C

Movie Reviews: THE INCREDIBLE HULK & THE HAPPENING

Sunday, June 15, 2008
Movie Reviews: THE INCREDIBLE HULK & THE HAPPENING
IN THEATERS





THE INCREDIBLE HULK

Still stuck with the ability to turn into a raging behemoth, Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) desperately searches for a cure that will rid him of his gamma-irradiated alter ego once and for all. However, he's barely given a chance to stop running from the obsessed General Thunderbolt Ross (William Hurt), who will use the entire might of the U.S. military to find Banner and kill the Hulk. Meanwhile, Banner must also deal with his tortured relationship with Betty Ross (Liv Tyler), as well as contend with a new opponent, another gamma-created monstrosity called the Abomination (Tim Roth).

Cast Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Tim Roth, Tim Blake Nelson, Ty Burrell, William Hurt (more)

Director(s) Louis Leterrier

Writer(s) Edward Norton, Zak Penn

Status In theaters (wide)

Genre(s) Action/Adventure

Release Date June 13, 2008

Running Time 114 minutes

MPAA Rating PG-13 - for sequences of intense action violence, some frightening sci-fi images, and brief suggestive content

Review:

Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk supplies plenty of what most felt was missing from Ang Lee's much maligned Hulk, lots of crazy smashing and carnage. Gone is the Freudian mind trip and it's been replaced with a more straight forward comic book action movie. Personally, I have always thought Ang Lee's Hulk wasn't as horrible as most make it out to be, it's slow but thoughtful and really try to turn the genre into something artful, even with it's faults it was bold. That being said it didn't get the reception that most would have expected. Leterrier's straight forward action flick is pretty much bare bones in terms of story and heavy on the smashing. It knocks out the origin in the opening credits and immediately begins making visual connections to the 70's TV show, something that continues throughout the film. Edward Norton as Banner is good if not great. Norton isn't really given very much to work with as the script is clunky, filled with unnatural dialogue. Norton gives it his best try and makes Banner a brooding reluctant hero who hates his power. He's effective but I can't help but feel that with a better script he could have done so much more with the character. Liv Tyler has the thankless job of being the female lead and she's given even less meat to chew on and it shows. Her character is fairly one dimensional and in the end we know fairly little about her and Banner history. William Hurt gives General Ross a slightly harder edge but it veers terribly close to caricature which isn't helped by the fact that the character lacks depth. Tim Roth's character is the hidden gem here and at times I was more interested in his character than Banner's. Roth does a solid job here and actually brings a lot more to the table than the bigger names. Action wise Leterrier's keeps the carnage coming throughout, huge set pieces filled with Saturday morning comic book goodness. The final battle, which is nearly 20 minutes long, starts to feel a bit like a video game more than an actual movie, this is mainly because the CGI varies from very good to very bad. The mildly redesigned Hulk looks a tad less cartoon-ish equipped with more rippling sinewy muscles this time around. As a whole The Incredible Hulk delivers what you would have expected from this modern day Jekyll and Hyde action flick, lots of bashing mixed with a dash of anguish. Is it great? Not really. Is it fairly enjoyable, sure but its kind of forgettable as well.

C+


THE HAPPENING


When the entire fate of humanity is threatened, Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) takes his family and tries to avoid the impending apocalypse.

Cast Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, Betty Buckley (more)

Director(s) M. Night Shyamalan

Writer(s) M. Night Shyamalan

Status In theaters (wide)

Genre(s) Action/Adventure

Release Date June 13, 2008

Running Time 91 minutes

MPAA Rating R - for violent and disturbing images

Review:

I had given up on M. Night Shyamalan films after The Village, his mock Hitchcock style had just grown old and his twist endings were becoming more and more tired. I skipped Lady in the Water entirely and from everything I've read and heard it was probably for the best. Still it was hard not to be intrigued by The Happening, it looked like it may have something worthwhile, it looked like it might be suspenseful. Sadly it's neither of those things. Shyamalan has been on a fairly steady decline since the oft overrated The Sixth Sense launched his career and now his craft is at such a level of degradation that one has to wonder if his first success was more dumb luck than actual talent. Not since George Lucus have I seen a director suck the life out his actors so completely. Mark Walburg is horribly miscast and has to utter some of the worst dialogue outside of an independent middle school stage production. Zooey Deschanel is completely wasted and is also given lines of lame of dialogue to utter. She's tasked only to occasionally react and move along a subplot that doesn't fit or really matter to the overall story. John Leguizamo is in the film for a quick moment and disappears from the story so quickly it makes you wonder why Shyamalan bothered to cast him in the first place. Slow, feeling hours longer than its actual running time, The Happening plods along like some lost troll on the road to no where. Shyamalan might tell you this film says something about man and his place on the earth and that conversation would probably be more compelling and suspenseful than this waste of celluloid.


D-