I am fully aware of how silly it is to feel the need to pump out reviews for films that have already long come and gone, but it’s far more a dedication to my own work and acknowledgement that running a podcast (hey, go check out Best Animated Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts!) has drained a lot of free time. If only we had 4-day work weeks, the fifth day would be entirely dedicated to me absorbed by my laptop screen. But as the podcast is winding down before it’s eventual hiatus while I get slammed with awards season (hey, another one of these is coming soon, perhaps about some awards contenders I would be foolish not to talk about!), more space I will make to actually spend time writing full reviews again. In the meantime, it felt so wrong to go the entire year without an Odyssey review or even a mention on the two biggest films of the year being horror films. So, without further ado, here are my quick thoughts on some notable blockbusters I saw from this summer.

“Backrooms”
(dir. Kane Parsons)

While the majority preference went to another small budget mega-hit horror, Kane Parsons’ startlingly bleak and perplexing mindbender grabbed my attention most. A fairly smart allegory of the male loneliness epidemic, and with a handful of good jolts and terrifyingly minimalistic production design, Backrooms excels with dream-logic scenery pulling you into its unnervingly claustrophobic grip. The character work is less well-defined and its third act is polarizing, but its unwillingness to play it the easy way is commendable and its YouTube origins do little to diminish the bold creativity on display. Parsons brings to life the type of world that can only be visualized in our deepest subconscious, in our deepest and strangest dreams, and it’s all his playground.

“The End of Oak Street”
(dir. David Robert Mitchell)

It’s been far too long since David Robert Mitchell directed a film (thankfully his It Follows sequel is finally filming!) and choosing an Amblin-produced throwback dinosaur flick in the vein of Jurassic Park is not what any of us were expecting. While the script is a big bowl of nonsense, Mitchell still managed to deliver the most entertaining and gnarly dinosaur flick since that 1993 blockbuster. A reliable presence, Ewan McGregor is still awkwardly cast, unable to form a convincing American accent, but Anne Hathaway delivers one of her best and most interesting performances as a “do-whatever-it-takes-to-survive” mother who has her own selfish desires she clings to. Mitchell’s insistence on keeping the dinosaurs (and all the other stomach-churning creatures in his cinematic drawer) bloodthirsty, life-or-death threats allows for tons of screams, jumps, and armchair gripping. The ending is certainly a conversation of morality: either Mitchell is intentionally being devilish with the outcome or the sincerity is entirely miscalculated. Either way, entertainment is entertainment, ridiculous or not.

“The Mandalorian and Grogu”
(dir. Jon Favreau)

It has been seven years since Lucasfilm delivered a Star Wars film in theaters and the idea that audiences would be satisfied with this as their long-awaited comeback is laughable. While it never commits the heinous lows of the third season of the Disney+ series, The Mandalorian and Grogu both misunderstands the interest its audience had in it all along and also exposes all of the flaws the series had to begin with (stilted dialogue, monotone performances, cheap-looking makeup, and a sense that the setting only extends a few yards back). In what is essentially three mediocre episodes of the series fused together to form a plot, this film follow-up feels empty, useless, and meandering, reducing familiar characters and creatures to basic set-dressing and bastardizing others in the process. It’s still a hearty laugh to see a Hutt with a six pack, but it’s never not an embarrassment. There are some mindlessly fun moments including a rowdy escape sequence and an admittedly cute solo Grogu time in the jungle (which is the film at its most “Muppety”), but it’s undeniably the most forgettable Star Wars movie to date and the biggest wasted opportunity of the franchise since… well, the last Star Wars movie.

“Masters of the Universe”
(dir. Travis Knight)

Travis Knight’s animated work ranges from great to outstanding, so when he signed on to direct Masters of the Universe, even my pessimistic attitude had to suppose he would deliver. Sadly, Masters of the Universe, while a cheeky and loving ode to its 1980’s cartoon/Mattel origins, is excruciatingly overlong and deeply unfunny. I’ve liked Nicholas Galitzine in a handful of films, but this is truly the moment where I felt “he doesn’t have it”. Usually reserved for love-sick heroes in streaming romances, Galitzine just looks too goofy in his armor to take seriously when the film needs us to and is forced to deliver quippy and quirky bits of comedy that just do not land. It’s not his fault at all, but it seems as though Amazon/MGM (his main employer) isn’t utilizing his specific strengths properly here at all (whereas he works great in his outrageously over-the-top role in 2023’s Bottoms). Beyond him, the effects look unpolished and rubbery, the tone can’t stay balanced, and the IP itself feels like it can only cater to a fanbase that has long grown up. It was a long road to get this movie made, but it can’t help but feel like the time had already passed.

“Obsession”
(dir. Curry Barker)

The biggest box office success story in years, maybe not since The Blair Witch Project, Curry Barker’s jump from social media comedy to free-to-watch YouTube thriller to unexpected $500 million blockbuster formed from a $750,000 budget catapulted his name (and leading lady Inde Navarette) into the zeitgeist. While Obsession is a memorable and fun time, there does carry with it a slight feeling of over-praise. For one, this is a pitch that has been done countless times (not so much a wholly original concept) and most of the film can be reduced to frightened reactions of “oh my god, this girl is crazy” while Navaratte screams and shouts. But Barker does strike the right tone, just ridiculous enough to elicit strong laughs of surprise and just tragic enough to feel like the integrity of these characters (or lack thereof) is still at the forefront. Michael Johnston is a captivating and handsome but unlucky protagonist making all the wrong choices and Navarette is totally go-for-broke fearless and believably possessed. The exact type of film that clicks on a lightbulb within the younger generation who are just getting the real nuances of the horror genre (vital social commentary through extreme entertainment) and hopefully is a gateway film for them to explore even more. A totally solid semi-debut feature from a promising new voice in film, whose own audience obsession feels a bit overblown, even though its success is just another huge win for the genre.

“The Odyssey”
(dir. Christopher Nolan)

The big one (well, the biggest one). Record-breaking superhero films aside, The Odyssey is certain to go down as the year’s biggest film with nearly $2 billion at the box office and a dump-truck-load of Oscar nominations and wins for it on the horizon. But it’s to absolutely nobody’s surprise given it’s the largest film and biggest passion project by the biggest director working today, Christopher Nolan. Nolan continues to redefine the modern blockbuster and even resurrects whole genres on his way. The Odyssey is, as we all expected: an enormous, stunningly well-shot and spectacularly entertaining epic with a slew of great performances by an enormous cast. Matt Damon, one of our most sturdy leading men in the business, fully commits to a physically-demanding and philosophically-torn hero, burdened by his own sins and the sins of mankind. The sound design is ferocious and ear-drum-blasting while the mostly practical effects work is astonishing to behold.

Its brain-rattling editing choices and plot structure intentionally mimic the non-linear storytelling of the original Greek poem, while its modern-ish dialogue and all-star casting choices does feel both goofy and also comfortably evocative of old-school 20th century sword-and-sandals epics. Nolan isn’t aiming for extreme accuracy, he’s simply making a big ol’ film, and films at this scale that feel like this momentous and eventful feel so depressingly rare in the digital age. Thank god for an IMAX camera and a vision.

“Scary Movie”
(dir. Michael Tiddes)

Theatrical comedies have been on a ventilator for the last decade, with studios opting for more comedy in their blockbusters and franchise films, and less literal comedies for the same ticket price. Thus, monoculture comedy is a sad rarity. So it was the attempt of a mush-brained monoculture comedy franchise to see if it could reawaken interest in filmgoers to see an “unafraid to offend” barrel of laughs in these highly divided and political times. The problem with Scary Movie (or Scary Movie 6), is that the laughs feel five, six, maybe even 20 years behind.

In what I can only assume was made in pure spite for a franchise “stolen” from them, the Wayans brothers have returned to take back their horror parody series and stuffed it with extremely lazy digs at woke culture, MAGA absurdity, and most eye-roll inducing, COVID hysteria. There are some chuckles from a totally game cast, but the entire thing feels thrown together in a desperate attempt to lampoon everything it never got to (even throwing in a cringe K-Pop Demon Hunters spoof at last minute). While the original is seen as a comedy classic by many, especially older millennials, the original Wayans’ films still haven’t aged perfectly and even sadder, the franchise’s best entry is still the third: the one that was made without them.

“Spider-Man: Brand New Day”
(dir. Destin Daniel Cretton)

Spider-Man is the superhero I hold dearest to my heart, so it was a great relief to see that Destin Daniel Cretton came in with a real intent to bring the character down from the overly-technological, cinematic universe-adhering version back to the street-level, depression-riddled hero we all know and love, and with a directorial vision! The stunt-work, the swinging, the combat, and the scope feel refreshingly large yet intimate and the character work on Peter Parker and the relationship he has (or attempts to rekindle) with his lost-love MJ and his best friend Ned feels impressively complex and layered. This new film works entirely due to its rock-solid emotional engagement and raucously entertaining action sequences.

Where it doesn’t work, though, is its need to stuff a totally acceptable core plot with an overwhelming amount of side characters, culminating in a film with way too much going on, needlessly padding out a film that feels weighed down by excess. We do not need multiple appearances by MCU superheroes, a major introduction of a brand new MCU franchise, cinematic universe catch-up, a body-horror plot, deceptive corporate baddies, and (oh yeah) ninjas, in a film that works best when it’s primarily focused on a delicate young romance. But it’s hard to say that dramatically, Sony and Marvel aren’t on the right path. And they know it, delivering the highest grossing film of all time domestically, so audiences got what they wanted and then some. Do I trust them to narrow their focus a bit for next time? Not a chance.

“Supergirl”
(dir. Craig Gillespe)

You can see the good film buried underneath the slap-dash filth of studio meddling and its disastrous “edited with a blender” final cut. Adapting a celebrated graphic novel that everyone that reads it, loves, should have been a simple task, especially following a film that most audiences really enjoyed. But the mistakes are all over the frame in (only the second!) DCU entry. Stuffed with comedic bits that don’t elicit much laughter and action that feels just as effective under squinted eyelids, Supergirl feels depressingly basic and heavily borrowed of other better sci-fi and comic book films. There is a colorfully punk film hiding somewhere, mostly seen in the first act, and flashbacks featuring Milly Alcock’s Supergirl’s father Zor-El are given extreme conviction from actor David Krumholtz. But the film begins to really crack at the halfway point as Jason Momoa awkwardly crashes the party in a role he was born to play in a plot that couldn’t need him less. Matthias Schoenaerts’ villain Krem is as wasted and mishandled as some of the worst comic book villains before him. By the time we get to the big third act finale, the film has fully tilted over and spilled itself all over the floor. Somehow, the 1984 Supergirl with Helen Slater is a much more enjoyable time (stupid or not) than this.

Well, that does it for now! It feels good to add these to the roster of films discussed on this blog and stay tuned for more upcoming reviews (including Digger, yes we definitely need to talk about Digger).