Author: Caillou Pettis

A boastful elf and his prank-happy orc brother must learn to work together to stop a fiendish orc gang from retrieving a magical stone that will give them the power to take over the world.

Back in the first week of March, Disney and Pixar released their newest animated adventure in the form of Onward, a tale of two elvish brothers that embark on a journey together in hopes to find a spell that will be able to bring back their father, whom they never met, for one last day.

Although it did not emotionally affect me nearly as much as the studio’s previous efforts, or as much as I had hoped it would, it was still an incredibly fun, comical, and deeply moving story, even if it didn’t make me cry.

However, the movie ended up being a commercial disaster and was unable to make back its budget. Raking in $104.1 million on a budget of $175-200 million, the movie’s flop is not the fault of Disney or Pixar. It’s nobody’s fault. It just came out at an unfortunate time, as, within a matter of weeks, the coronavirus got worse and worse each day, and ultimately caused nearly all movie theatres to close down temporarily.

So, many people around the world are eager to watch some new movies in the comfort of their own home. Recently, a number of new release movies have been released straight from the theatre to video on demand or streaming, such as The Hunt, Emma, The Invisible Man, and Trolls World Tour, and yes, even the aforementioned Onward, which is streaming right now on Disney+.

But let’s say that none of those movies tickle your fancy. Or, let’s say that you have already seen Onward and don’t really feel like watching it again. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, Homeward, directed by Michael Johnson – a hilariously bad and blatantly obvious ripoff mockbuster of the newest Disney/Pixar film.

It would be incredibly easy to sit here all day and just make fun of this movie for a while, and although it would definitely be extremely easy to do that, I’ll just focus on the biggest reasons as to why this movie shouldn’t exist and why it fails at being a good movie.

First of all, the animation is ridiculously jarring. It isn’t necessarily awful, but it certainly isn’t good either. But, the main issue with the animation here is that the two lead characters here are modeled to look almost identical to the two lead protagonists of Onward.

Not only that, but the main characters of Homeward have incredibly similar names to the heroes of the aforementioned Disney/Pixar movie. In Onward, we follow the adventures of Ian and Barley Lightfoot. In Homeward, we follow the adventures of Lloyd and Barl Lightspinner.

Are they different? Sure. But you have to admit that the names are heavily similar and it is positively another ripoff of Onward. In addition to that, Lloyd and Barl are disappointingly bland and uninteresting to follow. With Ian and Barley, it was easy to root for them and you genuinely wanted them to succeed on their mission. But with Lloyd and Barl, we are never really given a good reason to care for their plight.

They are trying to stop an orc gang from retrieving a magical stone that will give them the power to take over the whole world. It’s a story that we have seen done countless times in the past, and better mind you. As a result, the characters involved really don’t get a lot to do and feel so one-note and underdeveloped.

At the end of the day, that is the best way to describe this movie besides the obvious, a ripoff. It’s painfully dull and underdeveloped. It does nothing to set itself apart from Onward, and instead plays out as an immensely bad ripoff mockbuster. Was it trying to be so bad that it’s good? Maybe. It does sort of feel like that at times. But, then again, something tells me that this was trying to actually be a good movie. Either way, it isn’t. If you want a fun family adventure for all ages, just stick to Onward.

Homeward is a hilariously bad and painfully obvious ripoff of Onward. It takes everything the Disney/Pixar film did right and makes it truly awful.

While police officer James Coffee (Ed Helms) enjoys his new relationship with Vanessa Manning (Taraji P. Henson), her beloved 12-year-old son Kareem (Terrence Little Gardenhigh) plots their break-up. Attempting to scare away his mom’s boyfriend for good, Kareem tries to hire criminal fugitives to take him out but accidentally exposes a secret network of criminal activity, making his family its latest target. To protect Vanessa, Kareem teams up with Coffee – the partner he never wanted – for a dangerous chase across Detroit.

The world right now is a scary place. With the coronavirus still ongoing and with everybody still quarantined within their households, many of us are trying to find great movies to watch to pass the time, since nearly all movie theatres are temporarily closed right now due to public health and safety concerns.

There really isn’t any major movie releases coming until June at the very least, and so, with us all stuck at home, what can we watch? Well, director Michael Dowse has just released his latest comedy action feature Coffee & Kareem on Netflix, and unfortunately, the movie is just as dumb as the title.

Easily the biggest issue with this film is the screenplay by Shane Mack. Admittedly, the premise is quite interesting and had the potential to be a modern-day love letter to classic action comedies of decades past such as Lethal Weapon and Beverly Hills Cop. But in its efforts to pay homage to those classics, it instead rips them off in blatantly obvious ways. There truthfully is next to no originality in this screenplay, and it is baffling as to how all of these big-name actors agreed to star in this.

Aside from the familiar script, it’s also just painfully unfunny. Gratefully, the film has a running time of a mere eighty-eight minutes, so you don’t have to suffer through it for too long, although it definitely feels longer than it is. Sure, there are a couple of moments where you may chuckle, but that’s about it. There’s not a single scene that has excellent comedy in it, and instead comes across as cringy for the most part.

Plus, all of the characters that we follow throughout the story are incredibly bland and, sadly, unlikable. The most annoying and hard to watch character here is Kareem himself, and it is not young Gardenhigh’s fault. It’s the screenplay. They don’t give us any reason to root for him or Coffee. Their characters are essentially just restricted to small quirks and the development here was unexistent.

When it comes to the action sequences, they are decent for the most part. There’s nothing extremely exciting unfolding on screen, but there is also nothing incompetently filmed and headache-inducing either. These scenes are entertaining while you watch them, but as soon as the film ends, you’ll forget about them. As a matter of fact, you’ll forget about the whole movie a few days after you watch it.

Coffee & Kareem is a failed attempt at paying homage to action comedies of the past with a familiar and drastically unfunny screenplay.

Barely escaping an avalanche during a family ski vacation in the Alps, a married couple, Billie (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and Pete Staunton (Will Ferrell) are thrown into disarray as they are forced to reevaluate their lives and how they feel about each other.

It’s most definitely been said already, but I just can’t help myself. Downhill is the perfect title for this movie. It’s an American remake of a widely acclaimed French film, that being Force Majeure by Ruben Östlund, that fails at adapting it in virtually every way possible. It starts off semi-watchable, as we are introduced to the characters of Billie and Pete, but just as their lives start to spiral downhill, so does the rest of the film.

The biggest issue with the film isn’t the source material. The original Force Majeure picture was an incredibly strong drama that was actually emotionally powerful and thought-provoking. No, the main problem with Downhill is the fact that nothing really happens. At all.

With a running time of only eighty-six minutes, there are few times in where we as an audience are able to sit back and breathe after watching a scene. It’s strange because there are a few argument scenes involving our lead characters, but instead of being emotionally invested in it, it just comes across as tired and uninteresting.

One thing I can say is that this movie does feel remarkably authentic and real. It genuinely felt as if I was peering in at the lives of this married couple and their kids. The issue, though, is that their lives are so drastically boring and uneventful that you don’t want to see their story. After about twenty minutes in, you’ll want it to be over already.

But, speaking of the leads, Ferrell and Louis-Dreyfus do deliver two surprisingly rich and riveting performances. Particularly Louis-Dreyfus. She sells every single scene that she is in, and the dynamic between her character Billie and Ferrell’s character Pete felt palpable.

They boast great chemistry on screen with one another, it’s just that they really don’t get a whole lot to do with this material. It makes me wonder why they even agreed to be in this film in the first place? Did it have to do with needing a little extra money? Or were they just eager to be in a remake of a widely beloved French film? We may never know the answer.

But what I do know is that a lot of people are going to be bored by this movie. It’s extremely dull and devoid of any real entertainment value. Sure, it contains some great scenic cinematography by Danny Cohen and boasts genuinely strong performances, but at the end of the day, that’s really not enough to go out and see a movie. All films need to have one thing – a good story. This film did not have that.

Incredibly boring and uninteresting, Downhill is a gigantic missed opportunity due to its bland screenplay, even if the two lead performances are strong.

Ellen Page brings attention to the injustices and injuries caused by environmental racism in her home province, in this urgent documentary on Indigenous and African Nova Scotian women fighting to protect their communities, their land, and their futures.

When it initially premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on September 8, 2019, Ellen Page and Ian Daniels’ There’s Something in the Water was met with a wave of acclaim from critics, with many calling it a deeply moving and important documentary that is timely and thought-provoking.

Since I was not able to attend TIFF in 2019, I was wondering when I would be able to see Page and Daniels’ documentary to see if it really was worth the hype. It’s been a long time since I have watched a documentary – probably months ago to be honest. But I’m glad that I’m getting back into them now because There’s Something in the Water is most certainly a shockingly disturbing and emotionally riveting documentary that has a lot to say and handles almost all of it in a satisfying and thrilling way.

As any great documentary should, this is a film that consistently jumps between various different people that were impacted in some way by the ongoing issues that surround them. In this case, it is the environmental racism and water crisis’ that has been a problem in the world for several years now.

Every single person that the filmmakers interview has a sense of raw emotion to them and you can feel the hurt and pain seeping off of them. As a result, it does make the movie hard to watch, which is the point. When watching a picture relating to issues like this, you’re not supposed to feel at ease and comfortable, and in this case, I most certainly felt disturbed and disgusted.

Whether its individuals that were personally affected by these environmental problems or individuals that know other people that were affected by this, they all feel like it is their responsibility to speak out and make a change. It’s not only emotional and riveting to watch, but it has a sense of urgency behind it that will stay in your head long after the credits roll.

Although the first twenty minutes or so were a bit slow, it definitely picks up immensely afterwards. For the first little while, it felt a bit unknown as to where this movie was ultimately going to go, but once you find out what Page and Daniels set out to do, it becomes a powerful, strong, and important documentary.

There’s Something in the Water greatly succeeds at being an important and deeply powerful documentary with plenty to say.

Following the antics of a young woman, Emma Woodhouse (Anya Taylor-Joy), who lives in Georgian- and Regency-era England and occupies herself with matchmaking – in sometimes misguided, often meddlesome fashion- in the lives of her friends and family.

In case you haven’t been reading the news and have been avoiding the internet and all electronic devices for weeks now, you may not have heard that several upcoming feature films have been delayed in the wake of the coronavirus. Just this past week, John Krasinski’s horror sequel A Quiet Place Part II was set to hit theatres but was ultimately postponed with no new release date.

The same was the case for blockbusters such as Mulan and Black Widow, in addition to the twenty-fifth James Bond picture No Time to Die, as well as a plethora of others. As a result of the coronavirus rapidly spreading, most movie theatres across the world have closed temporarily, meaning that movies that have recently been released have little to no chance at making their budget back.

So, Universal Pictures have taken it upon themselves to do something absolutely unprecedented and unheard of in the industry – release their new theatrical films on video-on-demand already. Among their new VOD releases are The Hunt, The Invisible Man, and the film I will be discussing today, Emma – a movie that I wanted to see back when it was released in February but wasn’t able to catch a showing of it. But now thanks to the on-demand release, I was able to.

Being that I am a big fan of Anya Taylor-Joy’s work in the past, I was greatly looking forward to seeing her in Emma, a period-piece with a comedic spin. Throughout the film, nothing is ever taken deathly seriously, which was a delight. Director Autumn de Wilde manages to find a near-perfect blend of comedy and drama, but one never outweighs the other.

The screenplay by Eleanor Catton is incredibly smooth and smartly written. By far one of the best scripts of the year so far, she injects a sense of love and heart into this Jane Austen story and does a terrific job at doing so.

Where Emma truly shines is in its depiction of the life of the titular character and the relationships she has with the individuals around her, namely Harriet Smith (Mia Goth). Taylor-Joy and Goth have amazing chemistry, and none of their scenes ever feel forced. Throughout the duration of the film, the two women learn a lot about each other and also learn important life lessons that will change them forever.

Seeing the way these two characters interacted with one another and witnessing the way their lives are drastically different created for a beautifully powerful contrast and great entertainment. However, Emma is definitely one of those movies that takes a while to get going. With a running time of one hundred and twenty-four minutes, there are certainly some scenes that feel inconsequential to the grand scheme of things, and there are a handful of sequences that drag.

If you were to watch this movie and tell me that you thought not much happened with this story, I would not blame you or be surprised. This is what I like to call a “talking movie“. If you are somebody that likes a movie with a ton of exciting things happening every other scene, you’re probably going to loathe this film, because there aren’t any crazy sequences like that here. Instead, what we get is a slow-moving but ultimately rewarding character study.

Aside from the story elements being mostly great, the standout element of Emma is without a doubt, its performances. Particularly from Anya Taylor-Joy, Mia Goth and Johnny Flynn, each actor delivers an immensely quiet yet riveting performance that I will not soon forget.

It also contains some stellar, top-of-the-line costume design that absolutely needs to get recognition come the upcoming awards season. Every single costume looks gorgeous and intricately put together. This accompanied by the truly astounding colors that pop thanks to the immaculate cinematography by Christopher Blauvelt make Emma truly shine. It’s a film that is not without its missteps, but when it gets going, it’s greatly entertaining. Handsome, clever, and rich, indeed.

Quiet, impressively funny and dramatic, Emma is a period-piece done right, even if its story takes a little bit to get going.