While you were prepping for Furious 7 and watching the Avengers: Age of Ultron trailer over and over again, some other movies came out. Here are some quick thoughts on the other films from this month.
IT FOLLOWS This supernatural horror flick by little known filmmaker David Robert Mitchell originally made the film festival rounds in 2014 before coming to wider audiences. It tells the story of a sexually transmitted curse that slowly, but constantly follows its victims until it can catch them and kill them. Maika Monroe stars as Jay, a girl who receives the curse from her boyfriend and must get her friends to believe her and help her before she is killed or driven mad by the creepy entity.
This film gets tons of points from a filmmaking aspect. Beautifully shot and edited despite a budget obviously not up to the usual horror film standards, if it were a project done by a college student, it might be the greatest ever created. But it isn’t, it’s a major motion picture. And it’s well crafted production, solid 80’s vibe, and intriguing premise can’t save it from being a bore. The characters are dull, the suspense is rarely suspenseful, and by the end I felt appreciative, but hardly entertained. FINAL GRADE: C+
HOME Dreamworks’ latest animated adventure is actually based on a 2007 Children’s book about an alien race called the Boov that invade earth and put all of the humans in zoo like captivity, led by their vain and pompous leader Captain Schmeck (voiced here by Steve Martin). This film follows a little girl named Tip (Rihanna) who, along with her cat named Pig, are the only non Boov left behind. After a chance encounter with a clumsy, socially awkward outcast Boov called Oh (Jim Parsans of Big Bang Theory) the two must learn to put their differences aside to find Tip’s mother (Jennifer Lopez) and save the planet from another hostile alien race.
Unless you have a heart of coal, you’ll find little Oh to be a captivatingly charming character. Children of all ages should be able to identify with his story of being a social outcast who just wants to make friends and be liked. Unfortunately, the first half of the movie feels sloppy and rushed as the two main characters go from odd couple to best friends far too quickly. Still, if you can mange to stay awake through the jokes only a toddler will find funny, the end will be as heartwarming of a finale as I can remember from any recent animated film. FINAL GRADE: B-
GET HARD Comedic gurus Kevin Hart and Will Ferrell team up for this film about a wealthy investment manager (Ferrell) who is sentenced to 10 years in a maximum security prison for embezzlement and fraud. After mistaking his car washer (Hart) for an ex-con he hires him to toughen him up before prison life. Craig T. Nelson stars as Ferrell’s shady boss and rapper Tip “T.I.” Harris cameos as Hart’s actual gangster cousin.
We know these two men can be funny. All you need to do is watch Anchorman or any Kevin Hart stand up. But together the chemistry isn’t quite up to par. There are plenty of chuckle worthy moments, but not a single part was laugh out loud funny. Most of the movie is the two men giving their usual routines: Kevin Hart being little and screaming and Will Ferrell saying something random and being socially awkward. The other parts are filled with penis jokes or homophobia (which shouldn’t be too much of a surprise based on the film title). The story is a bit predictable, so the laughs should be what get you through. That’s hardly the case… and now I wonder if these two comedic All-stars are past their best days. FINAL GRADE: D+