Tag: Nikki Amuka-Bird

Cinema Dispatch: Knock at the Cabin

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Knock at the Cabin and all the images you see in this review are owned by Universal Pictures

Directed by M Night Shyamalan

M Night has had one of the more interesting career revivals as his latest film are not quite reaching the peak of his earlier work, but they’ve been solid features that have made a decent amount of money, so he’s gained much of his prestige back after being thought of as a joke for over a decade. Is his latest mysterious picture even more evidence that the king of twists is clawing his way back on top, or will it turn out that the hope he inspired in us was his greatest twist of all? Let’s find out!!

Eric and Andrew (Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge) are just trying to have a pleasant holiday with their daughter Wen (Kristen Cui), but things just can’t seem to go right! They have no cell service in their cabin, DoorDash isn’t willing to deliver this far out into the woods, and if that wasn’t bad enough, four religious fanatics with makeshift weapons and color-coordinated outfits have broken into their vacation home and tied them to a couple of chairs! The leader of the group is Leonard (Dave Bautista) who informs this unlucky family that the apocalypse is coming and there’s only one very arbitrary way to avoid it that no one here is going to like. The other three intruders, Sabrina, Adriane, and Redmond (Nikki Amuka-Bird, Abby Quinn, and Rupert Grint) plead their case as best as they can, but it’s certainly a hard sell and time is running out as the world seems to start crumbling around them. Will Eric, Andrew, and Wen be able to escape from their tormentors before they do something even more drastic? Is this just a simple case of mass hysteria as the four intruders see fate where there’s only coincidence, or is there more to the story than can be rationally understood? Seriously, what’s with the matching shirts? It’s not exactly something you’d do if you DIDN’T want to come off as complete weirdos!

“I understand that a situation like this can be very confusing. To answer your first question; no, we are not The Wiggles. I can maybe sing one of their songs if it would be of any comfort to you and your family, but I can’t promise it will be up to their standards.”
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Cinema Dispatch: Old

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Old and all the images you see in this review are owned by Universal Pictures

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

M Night Shyamalan is far from my favorite filmmaker, but I’m always interested to see whatever it is he’s made whenever his name flashes by on a trailer with this film being no exception!  The conceit seemed decent enough in a Twilight Zone or Outer Limits sort of way which is definitely in his wheelhouse, but there was A LOT going on here that made this look both laughable and disturbing.  I guess that’s why we all keep giving him more and more chances as no matter how bad he burns us with movies like The Happening, Last Airbender, and After Earth, there’s always something to his thrillers that makes them unique among everything else that makes it to theaters.  Does he manage to knock it out of the park once again with this ghastly tale of time gone haywire, or will this tank so bad that he’ll have to make another low budget found footage movie as penance?  Let’s find out!!

A family of four with parents Guy and Prisca (Gael Garcia Bernal and Vicky Krieps) as well as the young kids Trent and Maddox (Emun Elliott and Embeth Davidtz) are vacationing at a resort THAT THEY JUST SO HAPPENED TO FIND ON THE INTERNET where they cater to your every need in the most beautiful tropical paradise you’ve ever seen!  Not only that, they have a secret beach that is PERFECT for spending a day at, so the four of them head out there along with another family of four (Rufus Sewell, Abbey Lee, Kathleen Chalfant, and Kyle Bailey) as well as a nice couple (Ken Leung and Nikki Amuka-Bird) to enjoy the day swimming relaxing!  Things go sideways fairly soon however as Trent finds a dead body which some mysterious guy who was already there (Aaron Pierre) seems to recognize, and not long after that the oldest among them start to get sick.  They try to leave but something is causing them to black out as soon as they try to step through the cavern that led them here, and to make matters worse the three kids all start to age rapidly.  Trent and Maddox (now played by Alex Wolff and Thomasin McKenzie) and reaching adulthood within hours and everyone who has a medical condition is getting worse and worse as the seemingly fast passage of time is leaving their conditions untreated to rampage through their bodies.  With only hours to go before the adults grow old enough to die from age alone, can they find a way to escape this beach before losing all the time they have left?  What possible reason could there be for the beach being this way, and why were they put there in the first place?  If they get out of this alive, do the kids get like twenty birthday presents in a day?

“I want a car.”     “CAN WE TALK ABOUT THIS LATER!?”
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