The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures
Directed by Derek Drymon
When the first SpongeBob movie came out, my grandma had to take me to see it because I was way too young to drive myself. That is how old this franchise is, which is an impressive feat in its own right, but with a quarter-century of episodes, spin-offs, streaming originals, and now four movies under its belt, well, let’s just say that it could easily start to resemble another series with yellow characters that hit its peak some time ago. Will this latest SpongeBob adventure be a delight for fans both old and new, or are we just running out the clock until Tom Kenny gets tired of doing that iconic laugh? Let’s find out!!
SpongeBob SquarePants (Tom Kenny), Bikini Bottom’s premiere fry cook and most eligible bachelor, is ready to become a proper Sponge-Man instead of a mere SpongeBob, but after hearing tall tales from his idol and boss Mr. Krabs (Clancy Brown), he doesn’t feel confident that he has what it takes. Fortunately for him, The Flying Dutchman (Mark Hamill) hears his laments and offers him the opportunity of a lifetime! Sail with him to the mysterious Underworld and face the challenges that await, with the promise of a Swashbuckler certificate at the end if he can prove himself. With his best buddy Patrick (Bill Fagerbakke) at his side, he boards the ship, and they head to the mysterious lands below the deepest depths of the sea, but Mr. Krabs knows the Dutchman’s tricks and chases after him with Squidward (Rodger Bumpass) and Gary in tow. What truly waits for SpongeBob at the end of this adventure with The Flying Dutchman, and are the consequences as dire as Mr. Krabs fears? Can the friendship between SpongeBob and Patrick be enough to withstand whatever challenges they will face, or will the road to manhood finally be what tears these two apart? Seriously, are we just never gonna get a Squidward movie? Sandy got a movie, but not Squidward!?
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery and all the images you see in this review are owned by Netflix
Directed by Rian Johnson
The thing about the Knives Out series is that you never seem to get what you wanted going into it, and yet it still manages to come around to being a great movie. The first one revealed its mystery fairly early on but managed to have enough twists and turns to keep you guessing until the end, and while its sequel was a bit messier with an oddly underwhelming denouement for its own mystery, it’s a well-made Whodunit that worked even better for me on a second viewing. Rian Johnson is definitely doing something interesting with these Benoit Blanc mysteries, but can this latest entry in the series be yet another masterful take on the classic genre, or have the gimmicks gotten staler than the corpses Blanc is sent to investigate? Let’s find out!!
In a sleepy rural town somewhere in upstate New York, a young priest has been transferred in after an altercation with a deacon and is now under the watchful eye of Monsignor Wicks (Josh Brolin); an ornery man with a childish sense of humor and a teenage view on the world. His fire and brimstone sermons are a hit with his core fan base which includes the local church lady Martha (Glenn Close), the town doctor (Jeremy Renner), a conspiracy writer (Andrew Scott), a disabled violinist looking for a cure (Cailee Spaeny), and a mother and son who don’t get along (Kerry Washington and Daryl McCormack), but to the newly arrived Father Jed (Josh O’Connor), they seem to be alienating these people rather than helping the community. Still, at least it leaves the suspect count low when the Monsignor dies during the Good Friday service and Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is called in to investigate. All suspicions seem to land on poor Father Jed as he’s the only one who was not a fan of the Monsignor, and as evidence mounts against him, it’s up to Blanc to cut through the hysteria and histrionics to find the truth. Who is truly responsible for the death of Monsignor Wicks, and will the investigation uncover unsavory truths about him and this community? Can Blanc and Jed get along despite coming from such vastly different worlds, and what will this case reveal within both of them that neither wishes to face head on? Maybe the secret Jed wishes to hide is that he’s really good at playing Bad Cop when they start interviewing suspects.
We’re barreling towards the end of the year, and it seems to have come particularly quick this time around, so I’ll be trying to knock out a bunch of reviews before the end of year roundups, which means some odd pairings in my double-features as you can obviously tell from this one. Then again, both of them are based on books, so I guess we can go with that as a connecting theme? Yeah, that works. So then! Looking at recent blockbusters from critically acclaimed directors that couldn’t be further apart from one another, do they show the best of their respective talents, or are they phoning it in for easy paychecks? Let’s find out!!
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The Running Man
The Running Man is owned by Paramount Pictures
Directed by Edgar Wright
In a dystopian future where politics is entertainment and entertainment is the only game in town, Ben Richards (Glen Powell) is desperate to get his family out of the poorest area in the country and will go to any lengths to do so; including a reality TV show where every day citizens are obliged to kill the titular Running Man within thirty days as the doomed sad-sack slowly accrues money for how long he can go without getting popped in the head. With an angry populace looking to take their frustrations out on whomever the TV says to, can Ben hope to survive long enough to save his family from the such a cruel world, or has the system ensured that he never had a chance to begin with?
The Running Man is one of those movies I can say with the utmost of confidence that I have seen before. Anything beyond that, well, I know Schwarzenegger is in it, but anytime I try to think of a scene from the movie, I realize I’m just remembering Total Recall, so no luck there. Still, I guess that makes it better fodder than most for a modern remake as I doubt any diehard fans of the original will be rending their garments in futile rage over every single change to the original, and the premise is definitely one that can be updated and adapted for any era; especially since it was already a modern take on The Most Dangerous Game. Now I don’t know if Edgar Wright had a burning desire to throw his name behind yet another of the hundred-billion remakes of eighties’ movies that are out there, but it’s clear he was given quite a bit of latitude to tell the story his way, and it was ultimately for the better even if audiences, once again, didn’t show up to one of his films. It’s certainly not as good as his original works, or even his adaptation of Scott Pilgrim, but a lesser filmmaker would have simply pumped up the action, dulled the social commentary, or both. In the hands of a skilled director, albeit one who really seems to be doing this for the paycheck, it manages to have a genuine spark of creativity with its well-executed premise and another killer performances from Glenn Powell. Making this movie a travelogue instead of a battleground was a masterstroke, and the sheer scope of the movie is darn near breathtaking; not because it has CGI vistas and otherworldly set pieces, but because it feels like it takes place in a big world that still has a connection with what we see in our own lives. It’s what the best sci-fi does; fits a speculative premise into something recognizably real and seeing how the premise twists our understanding of everything. When the action does kick in, it’s put together with interesting ideas rather than overblown execution, and while the budget feels a little high for what we get on screen, it ends up feeling as big as it needs to which allows the moments of explosive violence to actually have meaning and not just bleed into each other until it’s all just unengaging white noise. Where the film falters is in its tone, as it never quite finds the balance between its goofy social commentary and the more serious character moments. Some scenes are undercut by the comedy while other scenes are hard to take as seriously as they want us to, and this isn’t helped by some clunky character writing that leaves the supporting cast feeling rather flat. Thankfully, Glenn Powell picks up the slack with a great performance. He understands the fine line the movie is trying to balance on better than anyone else in front of, or even behind the camera, and it’s clear that this guy has a sharp eye for good material; even in otherwise conventional Hollywood Pablum. I suppose the best endorsement this movie could hope for is that it exceeded whatever expectations there were for a Running Man remake, which is, simultaneously, the least we should expect from an Edgar Wright movie.
Dust Bunny and all the images you see in this review are owned by Lionsgate & Roadside Attractions
Directed by Bryan Fuller
It really isn’t that hard to sell me on a movie; in fact, I’m pretty easy to impress when you get right down to it. An interesting premise, a cast of good actors, and some sort of creative hook is all it takes to catch my attention, and few films this year grabbed me by the collar like this one. Heck, I didn’t even see a trailer for it, just one screenshot and a brief plot description, and yet that was all it took to get my butt into the theater for Bryan Fuller’s directorial debut! Does the movie live up to the sales pitch that so thoroughly drew me in, or are the coolest ideas all for naught if the filmmaker doesn’t know how to make the most of them? Let’s find out!!
As children, we all have to go through difficult life experiences as just another part of growing up. Getting bullied at school, learning to ride a bike without the training wheels, or in the case of Aurora (Sophie Sloan), dealing with the fact that your family was eaten by a monster under your bed. Okay, maybe it’s not the most relatable scenario to work through, but fortunately for Sophie, she just so happens to live across the hall from a hitman (Mads Mikkelsen) who’s very good at his job and might just have what it takes to stop this creature once and for all. It’s an uphill pitch for the hitman, to be sure, but when his own demons, albeit the less literal kind, start to bleed over into Aurora’s situation, he has no choice but to keep her safe from whatever monster is coming from under the floorboards or is knocking on her front door. Can Aurora be free from this monster once and for all with the help of her hitman buddy? What should a hitman do when confronted with such a fantastical story, and can someone with so much blood on his hands hope to protect a girl from those that wish her harm? I mean, given what he’s had to do his entire life, who’s to say which one of them has truly lost touch with reality?
Wicked: For Good and all the images you see in this review are owned by Universal Pictures
Directed by Jon M Chu
When I reviewed the first one, I told myself I’d try to either see the stage production or, more likely, find time to read the book. Sadly, neither of these came to pass, and I was going into this as uninformed as I had been for the first one. Well, there was one thing different, and that’s the fact that I did see the first one and that I enjoyed it quite a bit. It’s certainly a high bar to set for a sequel, and as far as I was concerned, it already had a perfectly good conclusion to the story that didn’t require further elaboration. Still, the show must go on, and the intermission has come to an end long after everyone has had a chance to go to the bathroom. Will this be a brilliant culmination of everything that the first move set into motion, or did the story peak with Elphaba evolving into her final form? Let’s find out!!
The Land of Oz is in turmoil as the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) and his magical spin doctor Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) are pushing forth their plans to consolidate power by scapegoating the magical creatures of Oz, which includes literal goats, and the only one opposing them is the newly branded Wicked Witch of the West; the extremely powerful Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) who halts their progress at every turn. Looking to bring the kingdom back together, the similarly branded Glinda the Good Witch (Ariana Grande) tries to find a way to bring Elphaba back to her side and broker peace between her and the Wizard, while keeping her sweet new title as the top witch in Oz. Such power, of course, is the stuff of dreams for someone like Glinda, but when those who gave it to her continue to push Elphaba further and further into a righteous crusade, it only becomes a matter of time before she has to decide what’s truly important to her and how much she’s willing to give up to protect it. Will Glinda prove a capable negotiator and find a way to bring peace to the land? Will Elphaba’s journey lead to Oz’s liberation from the wizard? Is their bond strong enough to overcome the distance between them, or is this a conflict that will only be settled in the ring!?
The Reviewers Unite 