MOVIE REVIEW: THE BLACKENING

 

Seven friends go away for the weekend, only to find themselves trapped in a cabin with a killer who has a vendetta. They must pit their street smarts and knowledge of horror movies against the murderer to stay alive.

Director: Tim Story

Cast: Grace Byers, Jermaine Fowler, Melvin Gregg, X Mayo, Dewayne Perkins, Antoinette Robertson, Sinqua Walls, Jay Pharoah, Yvonne Orji

Release Date: June 16, 2023

Genre: Comedy, Horror, Thriller

Rated R for pervasive language, violence and drug use

Runtime: 1h 36m

The Blackening is a funny and a surprisingly effective skewering of racial stereotypes and clichés from the horror genre.  Tim Story gives his film a playful tone that never goes into full parody even if it does lean dangerously close to it.  He uses beats from Scary Movie, Clue and Saw for the overall structure of the film which gives it a familiar feel especially for horror fans.  The script and director are clearly fans of the genre but they don't rely on self referential Easter eggs to carry the film.  The script is sharply written, providing plenty of solid laughs as most of the jokes land thanks in large part to an excellent cast. The ensemble cast has a natural chemistry together which makes the whole thing work.  Their characters are mostly written as types but the cast is clearly having such a great time playing them that their comedic energy shines  through the screen.  Each member is given plenty of screen time to show off their impressive comedic timing, X Mayo's Shanika is a real screen stealer, especially as they bounce off each other as the situations get more dire and silly at the same time.  The set ups and comedy is all well done even though looking for some surprises or actual scares might be a little disappointed.  The film loses a little steam in its final act with a predictable reveal that leaves you wishing they'd gone for something a bit more surprising.  Even though it stumbles a bit as it heads towards the finish line, The Blackening is the kind of horror comedy that's sure to be a cult classic in the coming years.

B+

MOVIE REVIEW: RIDE ALONG

A motor-mouthed high-school security guard joins his prospective brother-in-law, a decorated police detective, on a shift along the mean streets of Atlanta and learns that life on the force is no picnic in this action comedy from director Tim Story (Fantastic Four, Think Like a Man). Ben (Kevin Hart) longs to marry his gorgeous girlfriend Angela (Tika Sumpter), but before he can propose he must first get the approval of her tough-as-nails brother James (Ice Cube), a top detective in the Atlanta Police Department. John Leguizamo and Laurence Fishburne co-star. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Director: Tim Story

Cast: Ice Cube, Kevin Hart, John Leguizamo, Bruce McGill, Bryan Callen

Release Date: Jan 17, 2014

Rated PG-13 Sequences of violence, sexual content and brief strong language.

Runtime: 1 hr. 39 min

Genres: Action/Adventure, Comedy

Review:

I went into Ride Along willing to give it a fair shot and off the strength of a funny trailer I was slightly hopeful. Personally I like Kevin Hart and Ice Cube has done some funny movies, even if we a few decades removed from them. On the good side, Hart is funny is spots and shares good chemistry with Cube. The biggest problem is that the movie is incredibly lazy in every way possible. The script is full of hackneyed tropes and jokes at every stop with Ice Cube winking at the camera while making some incredibly unfunny meta jokes, unwittingly at his own expensive. Kevin Hart, aka that squirrel on a Red Bull IV, is talented enough to pull some laughs out of a bone dry script. Saying that John Leguizamo and Laurence Fishburne are slumming it doesn’t even begin to cover their appearance in this film. At a little over an hour and a half, it’s the kind of movie that you’ll be seeing none stop on TBS or FX followed by another Cube classic Are We There Yet.

C-