Tag Archives: Comedy

A Face in the Crowd Review

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It’s time to look at a fairly old political film. It’s a good time to do so as it went back to theaters to “celebrate” the arrival of our new President. It’s a pretty fun film that overstays its welcome a little bit by the end. It went in a different direction than I would have expected, but nonetheless it’s not all that bad. I dare say that it is a little mean spirited though so get ready for everyone to get their just desserts.

Larry was doing time in a prison cell when a reporter showed up. Her name is Marcia and she had a neat radio show where she gets people to sing. Larry agrees to do it in exchange for his freedom and the cops are cool with that. He sings some tunes and Marcia realizes that he is destined for greatness. Larry already knew that, but it was nice to see it confirmed. He rose up from small time radio host to a celebrity so influential that even the President answered to him. Life was going well, but unfortunately, the power corrupted him. Larry began to go after everything money could buy and no longer identified with the average joes of the world. He began to destroy everything so Marcia and the others realized that it was time to put him down for good.

So, the film started out pretty reasonably. It was nice to see Larry slowly grow more and more popular while keeping his ideals in tact. He wouldn’t accept sponsors and liked to do things his way. Little did we know that it wasn’t because he was super noble or anything like that. No, it was just because he likes being his own boss and didn’t want to have to follow someone else’s rules. To an extent, Larry is likable. He’s a very charismatic guy and his yell/laugh hybrid is pretty iconic. He’s definitely a take charge kind of guy and he never would have been such a success if not for his personality. He did earn his spot at the top in this film, which is why it’s a shame that he fell so far. He began to go after every girl like James Bond while still acting as if Marcia was actually important to him. He also became as two faced as the politicians that he had always strove to be against.

He said one thing on TV and then another once the cameras were off. It was definitely a pretty drastic change and you can’t blame anyone but himself for how his career ended. I mean, you have to not be very smart to go on such a rant the instant that the cameras were off. That’s really just asking for trouble. While Larry started out as good character, he wasn’t likable by the end and I suppose that was the point. I can’t say that I cared for Marcia either. She started out as a tough reporter, but by the end she was being used as much as all of the other characters. At least she did make sure to walk away with the money before sabotaging Larry though. That was a smart move, but it didn’t make her any more likable either.

There was a reporter who spent a large part of the film trying to get Marcia to realize that Larry was a bad apple, but it was futile for the most part. He was meant to be a pretty likable character who kept it real and just stuck to the facts, but it felt like he was just talking nonsense half the time. He was trying to be very deep and eloquent with what he was saying, but it just backfired and he didn’t get a good line until the very end of the film. It was a little too late by then.

I thought that the ending was handled well. For a second there, I actually thought they were going to make it really dark and have Larry off himself in the end. While it is left to your interpretation, I like to think that he did not. He was crushed pretty badly, but he definitely seemed like the kind of guy who would keep on trying and that makes the ending a little less intense. If it had flat out had him die in the end, that would have hurt the film quite a bit.

I suppose the film was trying to make a point about how people flock to magnetic personalities even if the individual isn’t all that good. They can be mind controlled via group think, but at the same time, this moral came at the expense of Larry’s character. It’s not as if he was a saint in the beginning. The guy did start off in jail after all. However, he was a likable enough guy and he always made sure to just do whatever he wanted. He just let the job control him in the end and I would have liked the film to have taken a different path, but it’s not as if the film did a bad job with it.

I’d just say that the film wasn’t all that fun during the second half. It became more about Larry betraying Marcia over and over again until she finally betrayed him. The film got to be very somber with every character constantly heading to the bar to collect themselves. It was very dramatic and in stark contrast to the very lighthearted, comedic beginning. You could barely even believe that this was the same film. It was a pretty long movie so it was able to have these two “acts” while ensuring that both got a lot of screen time. I certainly preferred the first half.

Overall, A Face in the Crowd is a decent political movie. I prefer to see more of the actual politics since Larry is more of a middle man, but it was a nice little look at the whole thing. Politicians do get advice from a bunch of people so they can hopefully get elected and make connections along the way. We rarely see this aspect of the whole thing. I would have liked for Larry to have stayed as more of a protagonist and it would have made for a much more enjoyable film, but it just wasn’t in the cards. If you want to see a film that also serves as a warning about not forgetting your roots and losing your identity, then this could be a good film to check out. If you’re already confident that this is not a problem, go watch DBZ: Broly The Legendary Super Saiyan since you can turn your mind off and just enjoy the fights.

Overall 5/10

When Harry Met Sally Review

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This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would likely be far more negative.

It’s time to look at a romance film from not so long ago that has two characters over complicate the topic of whether a man and a woman can be friends. The answer is as obvious as it is simple, yes. Still, it gets to be a little harder when you’re the two main characters of a mainstream Hollywood type film and both constantly run through relationship after relationship. Maybe it is then inevitable that the friend zone will start to crack.

The film starts off with Sally and Harry going on a road trip over to New York City. It was convenient for them to share the car and I’m assuming that they both paid half of the gas cost. That’s when Harry brings up the topic that they could never be friends while Sally disagrees. Eventually, she realizes that she won’t be able to convince him otherwise and they part ways upon reaching NY. 5 years later they run into each other at an airport and then continue to see each other briefly after 5 years. Finally, they both run into each other again and decide to hang out. As they are both in relationships, Harry declares that maybe they can be friends again, but only time can tell if he is right.

As the film is all about trying to answer this question seriously, it’s time to bring my insight to the table. It’s actually sad that the film spends so long trying to answer this question only to bring back the incorrect response. Spoiler alert, Sally and Harry get together. Men and Women can absolutely be friends. Unlike what Harry would have you believe, you don’t immediately look at someone and wonder how you can be more than friends. That’s just Hollywood. For myself, I’ve had more female friends than male ones. Now, we can discuss the differences between friends, acquaintances, and co-workers, but getting into all of that will just take a while. Needless to say, the difference isn’t extremely large. Friends are people you’d spend time with outside of work whereas the other two categories have meetings that are exclusive to the location you’re at.

I like to think that I get along with just about everyone. Outside, I tend to attract either the elitist “PC Master Race” crowd from guys or the more business stuffy ones who have no hobbies. I still find topics to talk about though and everyone has a hobby if you dig deep enough. However, I end up talking more with girls because they are the ones who actually end up being big anime or video game fans. With guys I talk about politics and life a lot which is fine, but I certainly prefer to talk about my hobbies. Also, I just don’t have as many opportunities to talk to guys because in my classes it’s usually 80% girls to 20% guys and at work at one point, all of my floor’s co-workers were girls. We finally got some more guys, but for a very long time there were none. I don’t think there’s anything complicated about the whole thing, you can be friends with anyone and that’s why this film’s premise is pretty laughable, but I tried not to hold it against the film too much…

Unlike Hannah and Her Sisters, I can at least say that this film was pretty amusing. It had a far more upbeat nature and didn’t dwell on any really dark plots. It’s not meant to be the kind of film that gets you thinking or wanting to subtly get out of the theater. It’s supposed to give you a few laughs as you go through the adventure. It’s entertaining enough to mask its flaws during the watch. This isn’t a good movie in the end, but as far as romance comedies go, it certainly could have been worse.

Unfortunately, I did not like Harry or Sally. Harry is your standard Captain Kirk esque character who moves on from one person to another very quickly. He is constantly in an affair, but they usually don’t last a week. He actually made it all the way to marriage once, but then he was still dumped. After all of these rebounds didn’t work, Harry finally remembers good ole Sally. Meanwhile, Sally has also gone through a bunch of different guys and has a hard time getting over her multiple ex’s. I don’t get why the two of them have such an issue with that though, you’d think that they wouldn’t really care much after they were broken up. Certainly not enough to have a panic attack in the middle of the night right? Well, I guess they just weren’t ready for the romance game.

As mentioned earlier, I didn’t care much for the ending since it was basically trying to prove that Harry was right all along. That’s the last thing that I wanted to be proven since Sally certainly had the right idea all along. They could and should have been friends rather than just having a one off affair for no reason. Based on who they are, it’s hard to imagine the ending sticking either and she’ll have to look at everything that he says carefully since he was a very iffy person from the get go.

Harry and Sally each have a best friend who they use to communicate with each other behind the other person’s back or just for life advice in general. Naturally, those two get together since nobody can not get together by the end of a film. It was just another sad coincidence for the main characters, but either way I’ve always found blind dates to be rather dubious. It just seems rather desperate if you ask me and if you’re meeting for the first time as a date, then it’s hard for that to be a proper relationship since it seems like both parties don’t care much to learn about each other. They’re just launching right into the date.

Overall, When Harry Met Sally is a very cynical kind of film where you learn to doubt what everyone says at face value and always look for hidden agendas. It’s not a very fun way to live and if you followed Harry’s advice, your life would be pretty miserable. Even if you don’t automatically believe what people say, there’s not much reason to think on it. Just move on from one conversation to the next and it won’t matter too much whether it was true or not. The film isn’t quite as deep and wise as it leads you to believe, but it can be fun to see the heroes over complicate every single issue and act as self proclaimed experts. At the very least, you should have an enjoyable enough time watching the film if you sidestep some of the dicey conversations and just focus on the comedy. If you’re looking for a film with valuable life lessons, check out Magi Madoka Rebellion. It’ll help you debate with yourself whether it is right to save someone without their consent at the expense of other people or to strive for the greater good, but lose your best friend. These are the tough questions that require a long explanation as opposed to this film’s premise which you can answer correctly with one word.

Overall 3/10

Weird Woman Review

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It’s time for a fun retro film with Lon Chaney. I have to admit that he is to the 40’s-50’s what Tom Cruise is to the 2000s. He’s easily the best retro actors and his films have definitely been pretty fun. This one is no exception and while everything about the film from the posters to the premise is misleading, it makes for a nice ride. The film is only about an hour so it has to make haste, but it develops soundly. There is time for some nice monologues and nothing ever feels too rushed.

Norman is a respected professor who’s been doing rather well for himself. He visits a tribe in order to gather some intel for his book about Facts vs Myths and Superstition. There he meets a girl named Paula who knows English because her father was a professor. Norman is a little too eager to finally meet someone who can understand him and goes past the sacred line of no return. Paula saves him along with her guardian with the voodoo practices. The two heroes head home and are immediately married, much to the scorn of Ilona. She had previously been with Norman and wasn’t really given a heads up on this. Norman lets her know that they never loved each other though so that makes it okay. She decides to get revenge by getting everyone to dislike Norman so they can all murder each other, but this may not be as easy as it sounds. Paula has a lot of protective magics from her tribe to block all such attempts, but Norman destroys them so that she can put the superstitions away. Has he just doomed them all?

It’s a pretty fun film from start to finish. Norman does a lot of inner monologue about what is happening. While he may over analyze everything and ultimately confuse himself, it’s fun to see the step by step logic to what he is doing. Eventually, he begins to think so much that he starts to lose confidence in facts and believes in myths a little more. This begins to be his undoing, but Norman won’t lose so easily. He’s a solid main character and he even takes care of the gun wielding student who ambushes him at the gym. His one character flaw is from the intro of the film and it’ll depend on how you interpret it. Based on how Ilona was talking to him, it sounded like they were still together when he returned before letting them all know that he was actually married. If so, then that does make Norman pretty inconsiderate, but there is the chance that they had already broken up and Ilona was just making life hard on him. It’s hard to say one way or the other since Ilona is pretty desperate and crazy by the end.

Paula is a nice enough person. She never actively curses people and just puts in clauses. If someone tries to hurt Norman, then the person will die, but she sets it up in a way where the mystical trap won’t activate unless someone does act with malicious intent. That’s awfully considerate of her right? Lying to Norman about this was a little iffy though. She does begin to crack once she loses her protective armaments though. I would have liked for her to have been a little more confident and aggressive. Perhaps that will be the case if the film ever got a remake or a reboot.

Ilona is the main villain and at the very least, you have to admit that she planned things out rather well. She blackmails one of the professors, encourages a young student to work for Norman so her boyfriend would get jealous, eggs on that very student, spreads a lot of rumors about Norman, and finally terrorizes Paula by playing a death chant over the phone. Ilona really covers all of the bases and because she very subtlety eggs everyone on, nobody ever thinks to blame her. Only one of the Deans seems to know that something is going on, but she can’t even begin to suspect the complete depth of the plan. It’s simply too ingenious and radical for someone to guess at a moment’s notice. Ilona’s motives may have been rather petty, but she was a nice villain.

The supporting characters were a little less charismatic. The female student (Who seems just like Simmons from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to the point where I think the latter got inspiration) is pretty over dramatic and too extreme about trying to get Norman to betray his wife. Her boyfriend was just as drastic as he quickly grabs his gun (Doesn’t everyone have one?) and immediately goes to destroy Norman. This doesn’t go too well though since Norman is surprisingly tough. You rarely get to see him fight so that was certainly pretty fun. There’s also the wife of the professor who was being black mailed and she certainly gets pretty heated about the whole thing. Her rage is probably the most justified even if it is reaching a little to blame Norman for what happened. Even with the false intel that was being supplied to her, you can’t really blame someone else when the guy just decided to take the easy way out. You can’t just give up on life and leave everyone else to pick up the pieces.

The misleading part is really about how the Weird Woman was portrayed as some very powerful mystical person with malicious intent. Sure, Paula may have had some special powers, but she was never mysterious in the slightest apart from the very beginning of the film. The film actually had a large chunk of time where Paula didn’t even appear. There’s not a lot of suspense and danger like you would assume from the poster although there is a decent level of tension. While there aren’t many supernatural elements here, the stakes are still real since the body count starts to rise. I’ll take this over a classic horror film any day.

The final plan that the heroes put into place is thought out reasonably well although it does ride on the assumption that someone would take the threat seriously. I think most villains wouldn’t take a threat too seriously after they’ve been the ones dishing it out and Ilona just seemed to be too confident to actually buy into any of this. At least she didn’t escape though and attempted to make a break for it in the end. I won’t say how it goes, but you do have to admire her can do attitude and refusal to give up.

Overall, Weird Woman was a fun film. As someone noted, the tribal dance and chant even seemed to be inspired from the Mothra films. The main characters are all either likable or make for good villains. The cast can easily hold this film up and keep it interesting. The writing is very solid and there’s really no big negatives to speak of. The short length helps to keep it from getting a really high score like an 8, but considering this isn’t an action film, a 7 is certainly solid. It’s just a fun way to pass the time by and ultimately you just want a film to be fun. It’s hard to say if this one beats Calling Doctor Death since they are really close, but I might give this one the slight edge. It also certainly beats the Frozen Ghost even if there wasn’t a Dog here. That film was a lot more emotional. This one never tried to be too sad and it’s just popcorn fun. It also reminds you to choose your friends carefully as just about everyone in this film is (not so) secretly a gossip so word travels fast. Norman’s good reputation did help him out quite a lot in the end though as it bought him some time to get to the truth. I definitely recommend it so you can see how well written films like this one are just a lot of fun. I wish we still got films like this, but unfortunately, they are all but extinct from Hollywood now.

Overall 7/10

The Curse of the Cat People Review

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It looks like I’m finally ready for the sequel to that last film about the Cat People. Don’t mix it up with the Black Cat film that I recently saw though. While this film isn’t as exciting as the Cat People and there is certainly less action/horror, the film makes less slip ups and actually ends up being the better movie. Don’t go in expecting anything other than a slice of life story about a girl and her imaginary friend though. You could be disappointed otherwise.

After getting entangled in affair and letting his wife know that he no longer loved her, Oliver went on to marry Alice. Alice didn’t mind the shady circumstances of this, but grows concerned as Oliver continues to see his old wife in their daughter Amy. Amy claims to have been visited by the dead ex wife several times and Oliver always flies off the handle at this. He can’t seem to get over the past and it’s making things tough for Amy. As Amy drifts off further and further into dream world, Alice needs to figure out a way to make things right. Can she do it?

In case you don’t realize this, I did not like Oliver. For starters, he was a real piece of work in the first film. He went to great lengths to get Irena to forget about the Cat People and to live as a normal person and the ditched her as soon as she had conquered her fears. He even had an affair while he was still married so Irena ultimately murdered someone, but got murdered after that. Despite all of the obvious evidence, Oliver doesn’t believe that Irena could actually turn into a cat and while he can’t get over her himself, he wants Amy to do so. Oliver is rather unfair the whole time and even blames her when the other kids won’t hang out with her. It’s hardly Amy’s fault if the rest of the kids aren’t being nice. He also gives her an ultimatum that she has to lie to his face or get punished. Naturally, Amy makes the right call and tells the truth, but Oliver punishes her anyway. He’s constantly losing his mind over everything and even keeping a picture of Irena after claiming that he would burn them all was rather fishy. It makes sense that Alice wouldn’t react much since she is the one who broke up his last marriage, but it should be a sign to her that Oliver can’t really be trusted.

I don’t like Alice on principle, but she is certainly a lot more reasonable. She is willing to be patient with Amy and never throws things out of proportion. It’s not as if the imaginary friend phase would last all that long anyhow right? Amy’s also a nice enough kid. She does have a problem staying focused as she’ll just forget what she was thinking and go around to play. It’s not her fault if she’s a little scatter brained though and she does consistently try to do the right thing. The circumstances are just always against her. There was really no better ways for Amy to act as she made the right call each time so I was definitely on her side. The family’s butler was rather annoying though and kept adding fuel to the flame. He would let Oliver know that Amy was playing by herself and even when told to escort Amy to a seedy part of town, he couldn’t be bothered since he was cleaning. He gets scared of an old lady and while he is supposed to be the nice character of the film, he just seemed inconsistent. The biggest strike against him was still letting Amy go to the house by herself, that was just inconsiderate.

There was a subplot that felt completely unnecessary to the film, but I suppose it gave us the only element of danger. There was an old lady and her daughter who lived in an abandoned old house in a seedy part of the neighborhood. The old lady believes that her daughter is dead for some reason and is always talking about how her current daughter is an impostor. Unfortunately, the stress of constantly lying to herself every day eventually got to her and she had a fatal heart attack. Her daughter kept trying to convince the Mom that she was real, but it was to no avail. They had the same conversation maybe 4-5 times and afterwards the daughter decided that she’d murder a little kid to get the Mom to notice her. That’s when Amy walks in of course and it gets pretty tense. The camera moves around a bit and we get to see the daughter glare at Amy for a while. Luckily the power of friendship ultimately prevailed and you were left to question once again why the plot was actually there? The tense scenes were handled well I suppose, but the drama with the old lady forgetting her daughter just came out of nowhere. I also didn’t get what the film was going for with her theatrics, maybe it was just proving that she was totally insane? The other unnecessary moment in the film was when a butterfly dies when one of the other kids catches it. This is why I don’t trust kids around animals and while it was meant to show how mean kids can be, it wasn’t needed. As expected, Oliver was on the kid’s side and said that Amy shouldn’t care about butterflies. It goes to show you why he’s not a very good role model and why he is off his rocker the whole time. The guy’s moral priorities are all out of whack.

The main disappointing thing about the film though was that the ghost of Irena wasn’t actually real. That part was underwhelming since I was fully expecting her to be real the whole time. I was anticipating a big fight at the end where she would defeat the Daughter and save Amy instead of just showing up for words of encouragement. She was definitely a good friend for Amy to have and even received a Christmas gift, but the film heavily implies that she really was fake. You could make a case for her being real since Amy even gave her a present and it vanished, but she could have just as easily hid it in the tree. My personal stance is that Irena was made up and Oliver just pretended to see her as part of his agreement to play along with Amy from now on. Better late than never right? It just would have given the film so much more tension and intensity if Irena had really showed up. I was expecting a very different portrayal and appearance from her, but her personality was accurate at least. She never really wanted to hurt anyone and was a very nice character in the first film. It’s good to see that dying didn’t really change any of that.

Overall, The Curse of the Cat People is a very misleading title to what is actually a decent film. There are no curses and there are no Cat People in this film. The movie tries to be intense as Alice says things like “Irena has cursed us!” but there is no real reason for her to feel like that. Oliver hasn’t gotten over her, but that’s because he’s a bad character and it’s certainly no her fault. Maybe it’s just Alice’s guilty conscience reminding her that she indirectly murdered Irena in the last film. In that sense, it’s odd to see her and Oliver get a happy ending since they were basically the villains in the last film. I can’t root for them and it is annoying to see them as the leads, but if you ignore the first film then at least Alice is reasonable enough. Amy was good at any rate and it’s a nice calm film. I don’t really mind slice of life flicks as long as they’re written well and there was nothing wrong with this one. I’d recommend checking it out and the film is fairly short so it’s not as if it’ll drag on or anything. If it ever gets a third film though, I expect to see action of some sort.

Overall 6/10

A Christmas Story Review

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It’s time for a classic Christmas film. Despite it being so classic, I can’t say that I was really familiar with this movie before watching it or that it left much of an impression afterwards. While not quite as interesting as other slice of life comedies of its nature, A Christmas Story doesn’t make too many mistakes. It just hasn’t aged particularly well, but its use of the narrator voice is quite good and I’d like for more films to do it. It could definitely make the kid characters a lot more interesting and while it wouldn’t completely fix my issue with them, it would help quite a lot.

For Christmas Ralph wants a BB gun toy. Unfortunately, his parents do not approve because it is easy to injure yourself with such a dangerous toy so they continually point out that he should just get something plain instead. Ralph decides that he’ll have to convince them somehow, but he must proceed carefully. Luckily, his adult self is here to show us his thought process and maybe this will be enough to get him to claim victory. Hopefully because he is completely sunk otherwise!

I can’t say that I like Ralph, but I do like his adult voice that is used whenever he is thinking. It makes him sound like a good character and it makes him more interesting as well. Unfortunately, the actual Ralph is basically just your average kid and not even a very nice one. He ditches his friends whenever the going gets tough. If a bully shows up, he’ll let his friend take the fall. If one of his friends is stuck to a lamp pole, he’ll pretend not to know about it. That’s just the kind of guy Ralph is and he’s also a chronic liar to boot. He doesn’t have a lot of good qualities and while he is supposed to be endearing, I can’t say that this ever worked.

His parents were a lot more reasonable although they had their flaws too. The Dad enjoyed the sketchy lamp a little too much and I can see why the Mother quickly decided to break it. His attitude towards the neighborhood dogs was also a little iffy and the most dicey part of the film was when he closed the door on one of their ears. It’s meant to be funny, but if you’ve been following my reviews then you’ll realize that it was anything but funny. The Mother opposed the gun plan and I can certainly agree with her on that. Giving Ralph the soap treatment for repeating a bad word was also a good thing.

It was nice to see Santa and his elves appear as well. They were pretty realistic interpretations of what to expect if you ever went to a mall to meet up with Santa Claus. They are paid by the hour so naturally they wouldn’t want anyone to take up to much time and once it’s 5, they’re ready to head out. Even then they gave Ralph some nice advice so that was awfully considerate of them. Ralph should have heeded the warning since he ended up injuring himself as soon as he got the gun. Not a very smart play eh? There was also a sub plot where the bullies would corner the heroes every day and force them to give up some money. I have to admit that this plot did grow old rather quickly. Seeing it once or twice was enough and the kids probably should have done something about it. Ralph did end up beating one of them up in one of the more cheesy scenes and I guess that ended the plot at least.

One of the better moments of the film was when the Ovaltine conspiracy happened. Ralph had to buy a lot of Ovaltine containers to win the decoder so he could figure out the messages on the radio. It turns out that the message was to “Buy more Ovaltine” which was a nice slap in the face to consumers. It wasn’t even subtle as to get the decoder you had to buy a lot of Ovaltine and now this was saying that you had to buy some more. I don’t imagine that the company had a lot of happy customers, but I suppose that it doesn’t matter too much when they’ve already bought the decoder. It’s a rather slick move, but that’s why it’s so genius.

The film actually has a pretty small cast when you think about it. Aside from the parents, Ralph is really the only notable characters. Yes, there are classmates, the bullies, and Ralph’s kid brother, but they don’t do much. That may be part of the point since Ralph is the main character and he’s telling the story. I can’t say that it matters much either way, but since Ralph wasn’t really a good character, it may have been helpful to have another main lead to help hold the film. There’s no guarantee that the other character would have been much better, but it certainly would have helped the odds. It also may have just come out at the wrong time. If this film was a little older than the writing would have given it a boost and the setting would be all different. If it was newer than they probably would have tried to make it more exciting. This could be a case of wrong place, wrong time.

Overall, A Christmas Story may not do a whole lot of things wrong, but its biggest crime is probably just the fact that it can be boring. The film tries way too hard to be normal and to be an example of an every day Christmas for the every day family. It doesn’t have any animal violence, the writing’s not terrible, and it’s not edgy. The problem is just that it doesn’t do a whole lot of good either. The family tries so hard to be realistic that it really isn’t and the characters don’t have a lot of personality. I think the main problem that the film faces all comes down to Ralph as the main character. Lets face it, it’s hard to have a kid as the main character and still manage to be an interesting film. It’s simply very rare and not even the cool voice could do it. If you’re looking for something peaceful to watch then this film could work well for you, but you’re better off watching another Christmas film like Jingle All The Way or Christmas with the Kranks. They’ll give you more laughs and just have more personality in general. I fear that this film has simply not aged well.

Overall 4/10

The Frozen Ghost Review

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It’s time to look at a retro Lon Chaney film. I’ve seen quite a few of his films and still have a bunch of others to see someday. This one is a classic tale of hypnosis and whether it is real or not. There are certainly quite a few antagonists in this film and their plans are so risky that they can even prove fatal. It’s a pretty interesting film, even if it can get a tad convoluted at times.

Alex is a skilled master of mental abilities and has been working in this trade for a long time. One day a drunk individual shows up declaring that Alex is a fraud. Alex decides to prove him wrong by hypnotizing the guy, but then he also ends up wishing that the drunk would die. The drunk does abruptly die and Alex is thrown into a state of shock. It can’t be proven that he did it of course and everyone tells him that it was a coincidence, but Alex doesn’t think so. He moves into a wax museum to try and get past this and even breaks up with his fiancee Maura. Unfortunately, he has just entered the Lion’s Den as George, Rudi, and Valerie all want him dead. Nina is the only person in the Wax Museum who doesn’t have any ill will towards him, but it’s rather easy to be fooled when everyone around you is giving you false intel. How will Alex get out of this situation without using his mental abilities to fatally end this?

Alex is a good character as always although he can maybe be a little too low in confidence. He immediately blames himself quite a bit and goes into mourning so fiercely that he just tries to make life as tough for himself as possible. It’s not really necessary and pushing Maura away was also a little too extreme. Dishing out his own punishments was definitely not a great call on his part. Alex did have a good plan at the end though and at least he didn’t totally lose himself in what was happening. Maura was a good heroine and she never stopped trying to help Alex. She was able to persevere and was definitely a trust worthy ally that Alex could depend on. He was lucky to have her around.

Nina was rather naive and didn’t handle any situation too well, but it can’t all be blamed on her. As I mentioned earlier, it’s hard to really get what is happening when there is nobody around to give you even a semi-accurate account of what has transpired. She wasn’t a villain at least so that was someone else that Alex could trust or at least not fear. George and the other villains were rather petty and did all they could to smear Alex’s name and erase whatever confidence he had left. They were decent in their roles, but not nearly as interesting as Ilona from another film that I have a review coming out for soon and other such antagonists.

I did like Inspector Brant and while he kept on doubting Alex and not believing in mind powers, I can’t really blame him for that. At least he was doing his job well and quickly hustled to take down the villains. He even swallowed his pride and asked Alex for help at the end with a particularly difficult case. In a rare moment of selfishness, Alex declined as he claimed that he didn’t have any powers just to mess with Brant. I thought that was a little mean of Alex and his decision could have some real consequences. He could have saved a person or even many depending on what kind of crime he may have been able to stop. The fact of the matter is that he let his personal grudge with Brant interfere with his job to help society. Even if it wasn’t a grudge and Alex just wanted to have some fun, it was certainly at the wrong time and I can only hope that Brant was able to solve the case by himself.

You can draw a lot of similarities between this film and Calling Doctor Death. There was a lot of betrayal and hypnosis going around between the main cast. The climaxes may have been a little different, but overall it felt like two alternate routes to what was essentially the same main plot. This film had less monologue from Alex though. Both films were solid, but I might have to give the ever so slight edge to Calling Doctor Death. Regardless, both are rather short films and you can even see them back to back since they’re both pretty fun and fast paced.

You may just lose track of some of the characters after a while. It’s not so much that the cast is big, but everyone has quite a few motives and since Alex is oblivious to everything around him, it’s sometimes hard to tell exactly what is happening. I still say that the villain’s plans also were a little iffy and they definitely wouldn’t work too well against a different main character. There were a lot of gambles here, but most of them paid off I suppose. Without Maura, the villains probably would have had the last laugh here.

Overall, this is definitely another fun film to add to your collection. It doesn’t take itself too seriously aside from Alex since Chaney always takes himself very seriously and always makes sure to be an upstanding guy. Seriously, it feels like people try to tempt Alex to the dark side in every film or give him chances for revenge, but Alex never cracks. He always stays as an upstanding hero and makes all of the right calls. The plot is pretty good and will keep you guessing the whole way. One villain’s fate is rather sad since the plan backfired a little, but that’s why you shouldn’t lock yourself away in a freezer. I forget if that was purely part of the plan or not, but even if it was an improvisation, it’s a sad way to go out. You’ll probably sympathize with Alex as the film goes on and his strong conscience just makes it all the worse for him. I definitely recommend checking this film out and then you can make your own guesses as to whether or not his powers were actually real. For the record, I’d definitely say that they are based on the very first circumstance. I don’t buy into coincidences and it just makes sense. It’d be cool to see how this version of Chaney would stack up against the Werewolf. I may have to actually give this one the edge although the Man-Made Monster, electric version of himself is probably the most lethal. It’s cool to see how many different monsters he’s become over the years.

Overall 7/10

Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League: Cosmic Clash Review

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It’s time for another Lego Justice League Adventure! This one is quite a step down from the last one, but lets be honest…how could it possibly have topped that one? The last one was near perfection and the series had been hitting it on all cylinders. It makes sense that it would have to slow down at some point and this was that moment. The film may not be all that long, but it didn’t feel that way and several parts slowed it down. Unfortunately, the film lost its identity, but I believe it will find it again.

Brainiac is coming to Earth and the heroes may not be able to stop him this time. This being has conquered many planets before and Earth is just to be another stepping stone for him. To ensure that the Justice League do not interfere, Brainiac erases their memories and sends them into the distant path. Specifically, he does this to Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, and Superman since they are the League’s heavy hitters. Batman must don the cape once more (Well, fine he already had the cape) and travel back in time to restore their memories and then come back to finish off Brainiac. Can the other members buy him some time along with the new recruit: Supergirl, or is humanity already doomed?

The film starts off very strong with the Justice League taking care of business as usual. The way that they handled the invasion was very on point and while Batman may not have been invited for hide and seek…at least the heroes were apologetic about it. I can see their side of the story as well since there is no reason for them to expect that Batman would have wanted a piece of the action right? These films are always at their best when the League is around since the banter between them is always solid.

You all know that Lego Animation isn’t my favorite so the film can’t rely on its animation to get it through to a solid score. The writing and soundtrack have to be on point. While the music isn’t quite as dynamic as some of the other films, it’s still pretty solid as it should be. What helps to make the film pretty good is that the writing is mostly good. This is also what brings it down from past films. The writing is excellent with the main Justice League members. They all look pretty great and Batman steals the show as expected. His voice actor does a tremendous job in the role and the character just has all of the best moments. Unfortunately, the writing falters with Brainiac and Supergirl. I feel like the film overplayed its hand with those two.

Supergirl’s personality is a little different than usual as she’s all about being a cheer leader and constantly cheers throughout the film. “Give me a D and an O and O and M” for example as she keeps on punching out villains and this gets old the very first time that she did it. As she continues on and on…it just doesn’t help matters. I can’t say that I really liked her in this film and she joins Cyborg as a member of the team who doesn’t really feel like she’s there yet. It was a fun in joke though as Cyborg was basically cut off during his big montage moment by the others. All of the main Leaguers got their own big moment inspired by the animated Justice League’s intro, but Cyborg had to share with someone and it only lasted for an instant. I forgot who he had to share with though.

As for Brainiac, he’s maybe a little too silly at times. His dialogue isn’t crafty and subtlety funny like the League members and just goes for more of the obvious jokes. His banter with the other Brainiacs is cool though and managing to see through their ruse was actually pretty impressive. I guess we know why he is the brains of the operation right? He can’t fight the others in hand to hand combat, but he had a lot of robots to make for a bit of a climax. His plan was good at any rate since erasing the memories of the heroes was basically fool proof. It’s just that Batman exists so no plan is ever completely fool proof.

As for the Batman plot, I only liked one out of the three time travel adventures. Wonder Woman’s will be clear as to why I didn’t like it. Batman warps back to the Caveman era so the locale is pretty bad and I don’t care for everyone speaking like a Caveman. It was interesting to see Wonder Woman show her true colors and murder all of the men though. They were asking for it so I won’t really object. Luckily Batman was around to set things straight. Green Lantern’s also dragged on, but not nearly as much. I did like how they incorporated the meme of Batman riding a shark and he just acted pretty hardcore the whole time. I’m not sure about Batman being caught so easily though. The pirates should have been thoroughly outclassed. These two segments are what held down the film to an extent, but at least the final segment helped to make up for it.

Batman winds up in an apocalyptic future that will remind you of Future’s End. Superman is now working for Brainiac so Batman must take him down yet again to prove once and for all who the strongest crime fighter is. Batman won’t even resort to Kryponite because deep down…he’s never needed it! It’s a pretty intense fight and we even have the Legion of Superheroes show up. This was definitely a fun part of the film and I’m always eager to see Batman and Superman go at it. It’s a match-up that never gets old and seeing as how they’re the best characters in all of DC Comics, it’s easy to see why.

If anything, I’d just like to see more of the League next time. When I mentioned that the film lost its identity, it’s that the plot just wasn’t worth it. Having the League sent to different eras ensured that we couldn’t see the whole team for very long. It meant that we only had the D listers in the main plot as Batman tried to gather up everyone in the B Plot. The film is at its best when the League is bantering and making fun of the villains as they humiliate them. We didn’t get much of a chance of that here, but at least we did learn that while Superman is one of the greatest Hide and Seek players, Batman is the best. Just about all of the really funny moments involve Batman, Superman, or the League as a whole. Removing that aspect also ensures that you’re removing a critical piece of the film.

Overall, This is still a solid film though and one that I’d recommend. Other titles like Teen Titans GO can learn a thing or two from this one on how to do humor effectively. Specifically, look at Batman. I can’t stress enough just how good he is and this is one of those cases where he is even better than Superman. Batman gets all of the best lines and character development as well as some of the best action scenes. He’s always got a good plan even if nobody ever listens to him. I don’t know where the League would be without him, but it’s safe to say that the group wouldn’t be nearly as potent. I look forward to seeing which Lego Justice League film comes out next. It’s a series that I hope doesn’t end anytime soon as there are still many stories to tell.

Overall 7/10

Jingle All the Way Review

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I’ve seen this film many times over the years, but that was before my reviewing days. I finally got a chance to rewatch it the other day and the film holds up well. It’s a fun Christmas film that you can certainly watch time and time again without the story getting stale or losing its charm and for me it’s probably the most iconic Christmas film thanks to how many times its been viewed in my household.

The film follows Howard, a rather successful business man. His problem is that he tends to forget about everything else once he’s at work and this leads to him not getting his son Jamie a gift for Christmas. He can’t afford to lose this opportunity though since tensions are already high since he missed Jamie’s karate promotion. Howard goes on the hunt for the Turbo Man toy that Jamie wants, but he will have to contend with Myron. Myron is a cynical delivery man who wants to get the toy for his son at all costs and he’s not above using cheap tactics to get it. Criminal organizations and mean spirited police officers also stand in Howard’s way, but he has the determination to keep on going. He is on the clock though since his corrupt neighbor Ted is trying to pull the moves on his wife while he’s gone. Run fast Howard!

From the start of the movie you can tell that it’s going to be a fun adventure. The clip from the Turbo Man show was pretty fun and a nice homage to the Power Rangers. Howard may have forgotten about Jamie’s event, but at least he was working while the rest of his staff was having fun at the party. Howard’s a hard working guy…things just don’t always work out very well for him. He does make it up to Jamie pretty quickly. His next mistake was maybe a little worse as he had weeks to get the toy, but forgot until the very last night. I can definitely see why it would be hard to find a toy by then, just look at the Nintendo Wii from a few years back. It was incredibly difficult to get that toy and it seemed like every store was out of stock. I pulled through of course.

The main part of the film that makes for good entertainment are the battles between Howard and Myron. First off, I have to acknowledge that Myron is the best character in the film. I’ve always had a knack for attracting people like him in real life so I’m pretty familiar with the type. He could talk about anything for days and it’ll always be complaints. One of these characters once called me a casual as a result and I just let it pass through me. I’m only a casual when it comes to my Godzilla knowledge and even then I’m mainly just a casual to get people to let down their guards. Myron is a charismatic character from the start with his speech about how toys are made to be cheap on purpose nowadays and how it’s all a conspiracy. I’m always eager to hear about conspiracies and this guy was full of them. Things escalated quite a lot from there as Myron and Howard would bodyslam each other and get into a lot of chaos.

Howard typically took the high road or at least the less painful one. Myron slammed him into CDs, blasted him with pepper spray, threatened Howard with a gun, threatened Howard’s son, etc. Howard hit him with a toy car, got a mob to tackle Myron, and slammed a door in his hand. You can easily tell who the more unhinged one is here. Myron is always ready for a truce when he’s losing though and Howard was all too ready to except the quick shot of Miller Time. It wasn’t enough to quench his thirst though.

While not quite as great as Myron, Howard’s still a good main character as well. Once he infiltrates the villain organization, he definitely gets into the fight. He’s also a quick thinker and manages to get out in one piece. His only failing is taking a shot at the reindeer. That was pretty uncalled for and he should have just run for the hills. I didn’t really mind him deciding to get even with Ted. Breaking into the house would help teach Ted a lesson before knocking him out with the toy. It doesn’t really help that Liz refused to listen to him at all during the scene though. Howard sure does drink a lot though. He went through quite a few bottles before coming back to his senses. He may not be perfect, but he can certainly hold his own film.

Ted is the worst character in the film and that’s probably intentional. He is always flirting with Liz even though she’s married. Liz probably should have gotten Howard to step in a little sooner, but at least she ultimately gave him a stern rejection. There’s not really anything good to say about Ted and his polite facade never gets all that convincing. I wasn’t a big fan of Liz either though. It felt like she was upset for about 90% of the film. If anything, Howard seemed to have a better Christmas than her even though he was the one who kept getting attacked by just about everyone. Jamie was a little worse though. I always feel like the little kids are pretty unreasonable and he is no exception. While he can’t really guess how much effort Howard is putting into the search, he isn’t making things any easier by going on tantrums. He just needs to accept the fact that Howard can’t usually keep his promises and it’ll help him learn to expect the unexpected.

There was a Cop who got a fairly large role in the film. He came across as a jerk the whole time though so it’s hard to sympathize with him when a bomb blows up in his face and his motorcycle is destroyed by Howard. The guy was basically asking for it, but I guess you can’t say that he’s not determined. The guy certainly went all out. There aren’t really any other big characters as the cast is relatively small. The rest of the people who show up are typically just people trying to make life hard for Howard. The little kid, the store owners, they all believe that this is some kind of fun joke.

Jingle All The Way has a nice soundtrack, which helps the film out overall. You’ll get to hear a nice array of classic Christmas themes as the film goes along. It’s definitely good to have and I’m always on board for that. While there are no real fight scenes to test the effects, the climax of the film plays out a bit like a real Turbo Man clip with Howard getting to take down Myron once and for all. That was a fun way to end the film and you’ll just feel bad for the actor who got knocked out by Myron. The poor guy never even saw it coming.

Overall, It’s easy to see why Jingle All The Way is such a solid film. It has rapid pacing and the writing is on point. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and embraces the battles between the two leads the whole time. The only weak part of the film is the Ted plot as it seriously did not need to be here. Liz also handled the whole thing as badly as you can imagine. She shouldn’t have let him even help set up the lights, much less be in a position to put up the Star while Howard was watching. It added the extra drama, but I don’t think the film would have changed much if he wasn’t around. Well, I definitely recommend this film. You may have missed out on the chance to see it for Christmas, but it’s a fun enough film to watch anytime. Also, it is snowing today so now might be a good chance to check it out right?

Overall 7/10

Home Alone 4 Review

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It’s time to take a look at the next Home Alone film. Kevin’s back and we already know how good he is at stopping crooks. The problem is that the crooks do a good job of stopping themselves as it is and Kevin doesn’t have as much nerve as you’d think. It’s a solid film that is bogged down by a few elements like the villains and the unfortunate ending. There are less iffy jokes like in Home Alone 3 though so that’s a nice improvement.

Kevin is getting ready for Christmas, but it doesn’t seem like it’ll be a good one. His parents filed for divorced and his Dad immediately found the rebound character and intends to marry her as soon as possible. He wants Kevin and his two siblings to spend Christmas at his house, but the Mom doesn’t approve. Ultimately, she leaves it up to Kevin though and initially he chooses to spend Christmas with her. She then makes the really odd decision of telling Kevin to stay with his older brother for a while while she gets some errands done. Kevin tells her that he’s going to get bullied a lot, but she ignores him and leaves. Well…Kevin gets humiliated, lids slammed on him, and a whole lot of other stuff off screen and the Mom’s only response to this is to tell Kevin to go to his room and think about how much worse it could have been. Kevin imagines it all right and decides that instead of having a terrible Christmas over there, he’ll visit his Dad.

This is where the plot starts to get a little obvious and unfortunate, but lets continue. The Dad is now with a super rich soon to be step mom who is basically perfect. She has a large game room, personal attendants for everything, and the house is fully electronic. You just say something and the house will listen. Lets just add in the names so it’s easier. Kate = Mom. Natalie = Step Mom. Peter = Dad. So, Natalie is not just super rich and more fashionable than Kate, but she’s also a nicer person. Her only flaw is that she’s super successful and has to go to a lot of meetings and parties. That’s fine though, it pays the bills and helps keep them rich right? Kevin doesn’t approve though and has a bad attitude the whole time.

Marv returns from the first film and brings alone Vera to rob the place. Kevin has to stop them himself since nobody will believe him, but he does it in the worst ways possible to the point where you can’t sympathize with him. If we’re being honest, we all knew how the film was going to end from the start. Natalie would lose out since Kate has to win and the family would get back together again. It all happens as expected, but you just feel bad for Natalie. Lets think about all of the examples from the top.

Kate allowed Kevin to be bullied and was not apologetic about it at all. She wasn’t being nice to Kevin during Christmas time and her plans for Christmas were rather terrible. Meanwhile, Natalie wasn’t expecting Kevin since he declined the invitation and was ready to have a fun night with Peter, but Kevin just walks in uninvited. All right….that may have wrecked Christmas to an extent, but Natalie quickly shifts gears without batting an eye and gives Kevin a great welcome. The day is going perfectly and while Kevin’s a little ungrateful about Natalie and Peter having to leave, he lets them go. When they get back…Kevin has completely wrecked their multi million dollar mansion by flooding the entire thing with water. He did it to stop the crooks, but did he have to be so extreme? Seriously…millions of dollars gone in the blink of an eye. He ruined the entire mansion.

This is already reason enough for Natalie to get Kevin out of the house for good. Instead, she chooses to forgive and forget. This time, the party is at her house so she gets people to quickly fix it up as best they can and hopes for no disasters this time. That’s not in Kevin’s game plan though as he breaks the windows and makes a loud commotion. He freezes the butler and nearly destroys him. Next, Kevin wrecks the dinner as he throws everything at the villains, which leads to a big fall for all of the guests and things shatter. The party is completely ruined and once again, Kevin should have planned things out better.

Natalie is very upset by this point, but she is completely justified in it. It’s not as if she goes off the rails and hits Kevin or anything like that, but she finally tells him that one more “accident” like that and he’ll have to leave. That’s reasonable right? No, the film makes it a point to say that she is the villain and we should be sympathizing with Kevin right now. No, I was sympathizing with Natalie. She was being a good sport the whole time and even helped with putting the tree up. It got taken down because she had a professional company already on the way to put up their own, but that’s not a big deal. Her very small slights against Kevin were nothing compared to what he did and they weren’t even intentional. She then had to endure a painful conversation between Kate and Peter as they talk about how much fun it used to be when they were married and the old days with Kevin. Is that really a good topic to talk about in front of your new fiancee? Peter’s definitely unlikable, but more on that later.

As you can tell, Natalie had to put up with a lot. The ending just makes it even worse as all of the characters gang up on her. First, Peter decides to break up with Natalie because he wants to move back with his wife. This shows just how petty and superficial Peter is. He was glad to be with her for the money and the late night fun that they had. Once he had enough of that, he just dumped her. I mean, you’ve got to be kidding me. We’re supposed to be on this guy’s side? No way! He has the delicacy and manners of James Bond if he’s going to be like that and the film gives no indication that Natalie was not a good person at all prior to this. She was a very nice character and it just gives you the impression that Peter was using her the whole time. He got what he wanted and got out.

The next big diaster was that Natalie’s butler decided to quit. He had a very well paying job and a nice boss. Natalie was always reasonable and it’s not as if the butler had a whole lot to do. Still, he quits because Kevin tells him that he should. Natalie’s other butler turned out to be a crook as well so now she has no main employees to watch the mansion. It can’t get worse can it? I’m afraid it can as a subplot in the film was that the royal family was coming over. This was super important for Natalie since it would benefit her company quite a lot and she really needed this contract. Well, that’s out, since the prince wants to have Christmas over at Kevin’s house instead.

Lets recap. Natalie had her ultra rich mansion ruined, She had her party completely sabotaged, She lost her reputation, She lost her soon to be married boyfriend, and she lost her staff. You’re supposed to be thrilled at this “happy” ending, but it was really all just in bad taste. She was easily the best character in this film, but she ended up getting a raw deal anyway. I could go on and on and on about how she was the secret hero here and how the film’s ending is very tragic, but you get the point. Over half of this review was just on that after all.

That’s part of the reason why I couldn’t stand Kate and Peter. Peter’s obvious so we don’t need to talk about him anymore. Kate is just as bad as she is completely okay with bullying and she makes life as tough as possible for Natalie. Busting into the house uninvited was definitely not good manners and then trying to say that Kevin’s past Christmases were better is just hogwash. She doesn’t even cope well as she just spends her Christmas Eve crying in front of the TV. She’s not a good character whatsoever. Kevin’s two siblings aren’t good either as they are even more extreme than usual. They were total bullies and I didn’t buy their “suddenly nice” routine at the end. Even when Kevin was in actual danger and called for help, the brother just laughed at him, insulted him, and then hung up. There was quite a lot of bullying and people being generally mean in this film.

Kevin’s not exempt though as he’s just not a nice guy. He immediately goes into areas where he’s not allowed too just to spite everyone. He has the run of the entire mansion aside from one room so what does Kevin do? He immediately goes into that room. He panics a lot and is scared of the villains even after he was just trash talking. He goes through a ton of personality shifts the entire time and you just have to wonder what his plan is. Half of the time he doesn’t seem to know himself. He’s definitely very unlikable and comes off as an ingrate the whole time.

The villains were pretty bad as well. The film went a too far with how goofy they were. They just kept tripping and slipping up at every opportunity. The girl villain seemed as if she was always chewing on something and the guy would just get beat up by everything. Any scene with those two was a little hard to watch so I was always glad to see them not show up. They didn’t have a major role here so that was good. The slapstick definitely looks very painful here as per usual. The villains should have died multiple times, but they keep on going. At least the butler got to help a bit unlike that old lady from the last film who was heavily hinted to do something at some point, but never got around to it. It’s more of a mild consolation than anything though.

Some of the dialogue can be quite forced in the film. Kevin has conversations with his parents about their divorce and offers up his worldly advice, but then he’ll go back to being a very unintelligent kid after that. He is a very inconsistent main character and after a while you’ll start to realize that the writers just didn’t know what to do with him. It’s definitely cheesy and the parents getting back together at the end was more tragic than happy.

Overall, Home Alone 4 was a fun film. For the most part, it was even better than 3 and I was enjoying it quite a bit. It may be silly at times, but the other parts were written well. Unfortunately, the ending kind of wrecked it for me. I thought I would be giving it a solid 7, but the more I wrote this review, the more that I realized that would not be possible. The ending is just way too mean spirited and the film got its protagonists mixed up. It doesn’t really leave you with a “feels good” feeling at the end so I actually won’t recommend it. 90% of it is pretty solid, but the other 10% is enough to knock it back out. I suppose it breaks even, but just barely.

Overall 5/10

Moms’ Night Out Review

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It’s time to take a look at another film. This one was pretty interesting in the sense that I couldn’t accurately figure out its true identity. I actually thought that it was a PG-13 film as it was playing. The trailer seemed like one and the movie just generally had that vibe the whole time. I also didn’t realize that it was a Christian aimed film like God Is Not Dead and the others. One of the main characters was a preacher’s wife and their were references to God during the movie, but I just thought the film made the cool move of adding these quick scenes in and not that it was supposed to play a large role. So, I’m still going to review this film formally since I think it definitely could have made more of an effort to throw in more Christian themes than the occasional reference.

Allyson is the main character and she needs a day to herself. Watching after her kids day in and day out is tough because they rebel quite a lot and are always making a mess of things. She has no time to herself anymore. Luckily, she has friends who are dealing with similar issues and invites them to have a Moms’ night out. The husbands will deal with the kids as best they can, but unfortunately the guys seem to have messed up yet again. Can the heroines have a fun day out, find a missing kid, and then save their husbands from imminent embarrassment? It’ll be tough, but they’ve got this!

Surprisingly, (Or maybe not since a side character usually beats the lead) the best character is not one of the Moms, but is actually the main husband. Sean steals the show right from the get go as he gets a lot of good one liners and metaphors. He takes everything in stride while the other characters are busy panicking about everything. Nothing phases Sean and he’s the only guy who has a lot of confidence. “We got this” is basically his catchphrase and even though he breaks his arm, loses a bird, and goes through many more tricky situations, he never loses his wits.

Allyson isn’t bad, but she can panic quite a lot. Pretty much every setback results in a panic attack from her. She ultimately learns not to set such high expectations on herself though and that she is doing a good job as a Mom. She just has the unfortunate luck of having kids who continually sabotage the house and make the whole situation a lot more difficult than it needs to be. She is definitely the toughest of the heroines though. To contrast her personality, Sondra is the nicest heroine and that makes sense since she is the pastor’s wife. Her difficulty is that her daughter wants to live like the average teenager, but Sondra knows that this will lead to a life of ruin. There’s a plot twist about this since Sondra has some experience and ultimately she helps her daughter realize that having a nice life without being one of the “cool” kids works out quite well.

There’s a third heroine, but she’s really bland and doesn’t actually do anything so we can skip her. Bones is the hardcore biker gang dude who helps the heroes find the missing kid. It turns out that he used to be a Christian, but defected to the gang life. Surprisingly, he doesn’t change his mind at the end, but he gives Allyson words of encouragement and helps the team out a lot. Naturally he had to get out of there when the cops showed up though since the police weren’t playing around. The police also panicked a lot, but that’s a running theme in the film. All of the characters panic a whole lot aside from Sean. There was a cool cab driver who stepped in to help as well. His accent may have been fake, but at least he admitted to this. He talked a really good game and even though he couldn’t back it up, the guy had spirit. If he hadn’t been knocked out so easily, he would have been even cooler.

There was one big aspect that stopped the film from getting a positive score. (Well, among others) Stop me if I’m wrong folks, but I’m about 90% sure that the parakeet died. We see him fly off then they sent two of the guys after him and I believe one of the gags is that they stepped on him. I’m pretty sure we never saw him again so if so…..that’s definitely not cool. There was also a quick scene of one of the characters burning an insect alive which was unnecessary. So, even if the bird scene didn’t happen, the film would break even at most, but I’m pretty sure that he died and this is a fatal mistake for the film.

The film mostly stays classy with the humor. There is only one crude humor joke that I can think of and while it was pretty gross, at least it was the only moment where this happened. Since the film is PG, we don’t get any iffy Pixels level of humor so that’s definitely another good thing. The film goes by pretty quick since the pacing is good and it’s just not all that long. The characters are good enough to pass the time by and the story isn’t bad. At the very least, you shouldn’t be bored.

Since this film is supposed to be a Christian based film, I should mention how their attempt just didn’t work too well. We had the motivational speech, which was nice, but it was given by a gang member who used to be a Christian and doesn’t intend to go back. The pastor’s wife apparently doesn’t know how to have fun so she is unable to dance when the spotlight is on her, but after the film’s adventure she is able to dance with the best of em. She also doesn’t know how to use a cell phone since she’s really old school, but bu the end Sondra ends up being the tough character who gets the characters into the back alley. It’s a little cheesy, but most of the film is like that. It’s not bad per say, but I stick to my stance that this is really just a normal comedy film that just so happens to have a Christian character in it and that speech at the end. Perhaps if I watched it again while knowing beforehand its intentions, then it would be more obvious, but that kind of defeat the purpose.

Overall, Moms’ Night Out is a decent film for the most part, but a scene or two doom it into being a film of missed opportunities. It’s just a little too silly and extreme with the character portrayals at times. Now, this can work is handled well like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or a whole host of other films that I’ve seen. I’m not actually against super comic relief characters and just random hi jinx, but it really needs great writing to work well. Groundhog Day is another good example of a comedy like that. It’s probably a combo of things that would have helped this film to have been better. The subplot with the husbands could have definitely been less predictable. Just about any scene with the kids was a little tough to watch so I was always glad when they didn’t show up. The film is good for a few laughs and at the very least, it’s lighthearted. You won’t feel down or tired after watching it, but the parakeet scene will have you shaking your head. I’d recommend checking out Groundhog Day instead.

Overall 4/10