Alien: Romulus - Review: They Still Can't Hear You Scream

 

In space, no one can hear you scream, but they can keep cranking out movies about the inability to scream in space. 45 years after the first film’s release and seven years since the previous installment, the franchise is getting the “interquel” treatment with “Alien: Romulus,” a new film co-written and directed by Fede Álvarez (“Evil Dead (2013),” “Don’t Breathe”) and set in-between the events of the first film and “Aliens” that’s ready to take you back to space and scare the pants off you. 

The film follows Rain, played by Cailee Spaeny (“Priscilla,” “Civil War”), a young miner working for the Wayland-Yutani corporation with her synthetic adopted brother Andy, played by David Jonsson (“Rye Lane,” “Industry”). They, along with a group of Rain’s fellow miners Tyler, played by Archie Renaux (“Shadow and Bone,” “Upgraded”), Kay, played by Isabela Merced (“Instant Family,” “Dora and the Lost City of Gold”), Bjorn, played by Spike Fearn (“Tell Me Everything,” “Back to Black”), and Navarro, played by Aileen Wu, all decide to scavenge an abandoned space station for supplies to fuel their light-years travel to a better planet. However, while scavenging the station, they discover sinister and horrific experiments that unleash the horrors of the Xenomorph once again. 

If this sounds much like virtually every previous “Alien” film, that’s not an unfair assessment. There are only so many ways to make a film like this without completely reinventing the concept or entering an entirely different genre. Luckily, having an experienced horror director like Álvarez at the helm helps to create more interesting scenarios. Even despite the numerous moments clearly aping other famous situations from across the franchise, Álvarez and co-writer Rodo Sayagues (“Evil Dead (2013),” “Don’t Breathe”) manage to craft plenty of creatively terrifying moments and inject the ones that do repeat with a heavy layer of fun. 

Spaeny is fantastic, now having proved her skills in three different types of films in the last twelve months. She makes for a phenomenal lead, nailing the mixture of vulnerability and sternness that Weaver herself nailed so many years ago with Ripley. Her chemistry with Jonsson is fantastic, bolstered by a great performance of his own. The two are the heart of the movie and they nail everything about their roles. The rest of the cast, however, while being well performed, feel mostly forgettable. Merced is the only one who somewhat escapes this, thanks to one of the most beaten and battered performances in a blockbuster in recent memory. 

While the film industry has recently straddled the line between reintroducing more practical effects into modern filmmaking, Álvarez and his team dive headfirst into the craft for this film. Numerous practical facehuggers leap across the screen, and giant sets with impressive scale and lighting help to establish the setting. Even with our modern-day CGI techniques, the old-school retro-futuristic style of the technology in the “Alien” world never ceases to impress or look absolutely gorgeous. There are truly multiple moments that not only feature great works of practical effects-work, but it also meshes with the CGI in such fantastic ways that it makes the film look like it should easily cost double its budget. It's all set to a great score from Benjamin Wallfisch (“Twisters,” “Blade Runner 2049”) that also manages to fuse new, electronic beats with plenty of cues and notes clearly lifted from past “Alien” scores. 

Which is exactly where this new trek into the terrifying world of “Alien” ends up, because for as much as it takes from previous entries, Álvarez clearly wants to put his characters through the ringer and bring them to a life beyond serving as walking reference machines. Thankfully, the cast is headlined by two fantastic performers in Spaeny and Jonsson, and the almost entirely practical affair is sold by their emotional bond and the great effects on display. It’s taking a lot from what’s come before, but that doesn’t mean it's not adding its own works or pulling it off well. 4/5

Jackpot! - Review: A Middling Payout

 

Our world has gone from one wherein the satire of something like “Robocop” can start to not only seem like reality, but like the logical solution to a lot of people. But that doesn’t mean the desire to tell skewed, satirical tales of humans and their search for money has been diminished in the slightest. That’s why we keep getting films like “Jackpot!”, an action-black comedy and the latest from director Paul Feig (“Bridesmaids,” “A Simple Favor”). 

Set sometime after the year 2030, the film follows Katie, played by Awkwafina (“The Farewell,’ “Crazy Rich Asians”), a former child-star who finds herself accidentally winning the Grand Lottery, a multi-billion-dollar California state lottery wherein the winner must survive until sundown to claim their winnings. If anyone is able to kill them without using guns, then the killer may claim the winnings. Katie finds herself unwittingly under the protection of Noel, played by John Cena (“Blockers,” “The Suicide Squad”), a lottery protection agent who wants to make a name for himself amongst more successful agents, including his former colleague Louis, played by Simu Liu (“Kim Convenience,” “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”). 

It's certainly a heightened concept, and the level of violence and humor could easily lead to comparisons to films like “Robocop.” Feig and writer Rob Yescombe (“Outside the Wire”) certainly mine the scenario for tons of wacky, over the top violence that’s mostly staged with bloody glee. Yet the material itself lacks the sort of punch required to really make a concept like this sing. The observations made about the surrounding world are one-note and surface level, and the script is far more invested in trudging through bland emotional arcs and character revelations. It’s not that these decisions come across as lazy, just uninspired. The film as a whole could hardly be called lazy, given the extensive stunts and sets, so it at least has that working in its favor. 

Awkwafina and Liu are fine with the material they’ve been given, and the pair manage to come out fairly unscathed, even as they're turning in fairly routine performances. Cena makes an absolute meal of the material though, further cementing himself as a scene-stealing comedic master. The film seems to brighten up whenever he’s on screen, and he manages to effortlessly sell his character’s action and meekness in equal measures. 

Given how central it is to the plot, thankfully the action is fantastically choreographed. There’s a lot of it here, and it manages to feel well staged and sloppy at the same time. It makes sense given the fact that it's supposed to be perpetrated by members of the general populus, and thankfully it never comes across as too pompous or overly finessed. There’s variety and verticality in the stunts that means it all really shines. 

Despite a fantastic turn from Cena and the excellent action, “Jackpot!” is mostly saddled with the disappointing nature of being the blandest version of its premise. The emotional arcs, execution of its central idea, and general worldbuilding of this not-to-distant future setting all feel like the first draft version of what they could be; it's the most generic way you could tell this story. It’s even stranger then that, even for how simplistic it’s kept, the rules seem to keep changing at the whim of the writer and director as the story goes on. 

“Jackpot!” is a fun action comedy when it's kept to those two elements. Cena is a delight, easily leaping over Liu and Awkwafina’s performances, and when it pairs him with any of his co-stars, the comedy really excels. The action is violent, choreographed, and fun, but it's all surrounded by a story far too generic for what this concept is. It’s a high concept, low execution movie that’ll be hard to remember too many days in the future. 3/5

Cuckoo (2024) - Review: Call and Response

 

There are few horror tropes as time-honored as simply placing a troubled teen in the middle of a wooded European country and letting all hell break loose on them. It creates easy fears within the forests, unsettling atmospheres from the foreign locations, and allows for a young actor to go for broke in an unhinged lead performance. And if you want all of that and not much else, then “Cuckoo” is the movie for you. 

The film follows teenaged Gretchen, played by Hunter Schaffer (“euphoria,” “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes”), who moves with her father Luis, played by Marton Csokas (“The Equalizer,” “Into the Badlands”), his new wife Beth, played by Jessica Henwick (“The Matrix Resurrections,” “Iron Fist”), and her stepsister Alma, played by Mila Lieu, to the German Alps to live in a resort town while they assist the manager Herr König, played by Dan Stevens (“Legion,” “Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire”), in designing a new resort. While there, Gretchen soon finds herself seemingly hunted by a mysterious woman and is enlisted by police detective Henry, played by Jan Bluthardt (“Luz”), in finding the woman. 

First things first, in a film filled with insane moments and revelations, Schaffer is the absolute queen of it all. She commands the screen and throws herself into the role, unafraid to come across as arrogant or selfish. It’s a commendable kind of performance, one where the actor is letting themselves be completely demolished during the course of the adventure. Schaffer is able to connect with the audience and ground this fantastical tale with a real sense of emotion and exasperation in a way that actively makes the movie better. 

However, the rest of the cast rides the line between under and overplayed with seemingly reckless abandon. Csokas, Henwick, and Lieu are fairly underplayed given their roles in the story. Meanwhile, Stevens and Bluthardt go above and beyond, entering the realm of camp in a way that only somewhat meshes with the rest of the film. The dissonance between their performances works as a metaphor for one of the film’s main issues as well. 

As crazed as the tale can be, there’s a lack of commitment on display that makes is a somewhat confusing affair. You’d expect a tale like this to be over the top or campy, but it all plays things rather straight. Apart from Stevens and Bluthardt’s performances, writer/director Tilman Singer (“Luz”) plays everything fairly straight, instead of divulging into the campy weirdness most would associate with a story like this. There are certainly plenty of twists and turns, and the scares are constructed in a fantastic way, but it's not the kind of over-the-top weirdo horror many might think based on the marketing. 

Thankfully, regardless of how it's constructed or performed, the film itself is a gorgeous tableau. Shot by cinematographer Paul Faltz (“Luz,” “Intermezzo”), there’s a fantastic construction of fabricated sets and gorgeous German woodlands and mountainsides. Faltz and Singer have fantastic eyes for their horrific events and the musical score from Simon Waskow (“Luz”) keeps things underscored with a delightfully playful bit of music matching the events on screen. Singer also keeps things fresh with some creative bits of editing, including a fantastic repeating element that further adds to the weirdness on display. 

“Cuckoo” is certainly that, but it’s a bit too strait laced to fully transcend into the bonkers horror-creature-feature it likely wants to be. The uneven performances are all anchored by Schaffer’s commanding lead role, and the technical aspects of the film, as well as its general weirdness will certainly be enough for genre fans seeking a scary and bizarre night at the movies. Though some will absolutely wish it got weirder. 3.5/5

Harold and the Purple Crayon (2024) - Review: Coloring Inside the Lines

In the realm of Hollywood IP consumption and beloved children’s books, it is kind of surprising that it took them this long to make a film out of Crockett Johnson’s eponymous childhood tribute to drawing and creativity. Based on the book of the same name, the film version of “Harold and the Purple Crayon” seeks to inspire creativity and hope in the real world, and doesn’t end up conjuring much feelings of anything. 

The film follows the titular Harold, now grown and played by Zachary Levi (“Tangled,” “Shazam!”), as he and his two animal friends Porcupine, played by Tanya Reynolds (“Sex Education,” “Emma (2020)”), and Moose, played by Lil Rey Howery (“Get Out,” “Free Guy”), venture to the “real world” to find their narrator/“old man”, voiced by Alfred Molina (“Spider-Man 2,” “Frida”), and end up finding themselves mixed up in the lives of newly widowed mother Terri, played by Zooey Deschanel (“New Girl,” “Elf”), her imaginative son Mel, played by Benjamin Bottani (“Leo (2023)”), and the villainous but incompetent librarian Gary, played by Jermaine Clement (“What We Do in the Shadows,” “Flight of the Conchords”). 

It's a very bog-standard family film plot, reusing many of the same “weird thing comes to the real world to the bewilderment of the real people” plot thread that’s been given to every IP adaptation from “Rocky and Bullwinkle” to the “Looney Tunes” to “The Smurfs”. It feels just as lightweight as it ever has, lacking impact and strength in its material. It’s the same kind of story output used in plenty of other films because it's easy to attach to almost any property. But “Harold” the IP lacks the complexity required to allow this kind of structure to flourish in “Harold” the movie. 

Levi is fine enough, using the same kind of manchild charms he’s made a career out of over the last decade or so. He’s certainly been better or felt more genuine, but he’s working with a shtick that’s stuck to him and he’s fine enough. Deschanel simply does not want to be here, and it shows during her every scene. Bottani is fine enough as well, in a very standard “kid actor in a family movie” kind of way. Howery and Reynolds stand out the most, thanks to their commitment to the weirdness of their animal-to-human characters and the strength of their cartoonish delivery. Clements is the oddest one of the bunch, as he does a fine job with the oddball character he plays, but the character itself feels completely out of place with the film, tone, and story that exists here. So, take that for what you will. 

It’s understandable that a director with plenty of experience in the animated realm like Carlos Saldanha (“Ice Age,” “Robots”) would want to make his first live-action film one with as much creativity and animation baked into the premise as this. His direction is fine and capable, and the movie itself never drags, moving briskly through is 90-minute runtime. The script from David Guion (“Dinner for Schmucks,” “Slumberland”) and Michael Handelman (“Dinner for Schmucks,” “Slumberland”) is also, as previously stated, fine if unadventurous. Then there are two majorly weird developments that both lift the movie up and drag it back down. 

The films central concept, of Harold looking for his “narrator” in the real world in the form of author Crockett Johnson, is an interesting metatextual idea, and the resulting inevitability given the authors passing in 1975 resembles the inklings of a film that could grow beyond its initial premise. Somewhere in there is a more mature, committed idea to the concept of imagination, of the “real world”, and of holding onto things. Levi even, for a brief moment, gives a genuinely somber performance. However, the film then spirals right back to its cheery, “what kind of weird animal can you draw” spirit and even goes into more wildly bland and tonally dissonate directions. The third act is so standard and boring that, even if it wasn’t followed by the brief glimpse into a more complex version of this tale, it would still drag the movie as a whole down. 

A handful of other weird qualities pop up as well. The musical score from Batu Sener (“The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild”) is a standout feature of the film, but the look of everything is overly bland, from the visual effects to the cinematography itself. There’s also an extended bit of product placement for Ollie’s, the bargain store, which makes it almost look like a rural interpretation of Sears instead of a cheap bargain store filled with wholesale toys and carpets. It’s not just a weird bit of misrepresentation, but also a bizarre choice of product placement for the “Harold and the Purple Crayon” movie. 

While there are certainly worse family movies on the market, there are also far far better ones. And more than that, there are more memorable ones, as arguably the biggest sin “Harold and the Purple Crayon” commits is mediocrity. It’s filled with performances that are just fine, a visual style that’s just fine, a plot that’s just fine (and then not), taking a book long remembered as a tale of childhood creativity into another bland IP farm film that’s frustratingly lightweight and leaves almost no impact. 2.5/5

Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie - Review: Turn the Other Cheek

 

Titled like a Lifetime movie biopic made a few years after she’d passed, “Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie” isn’t a retelling of the tragic life of a starlet. Rather, it’s yet another spinoff for the uber popular “SpongeBob SquarePants” series, this time focusing on SpongeBob’s best friend and scientifically minded squirrel from Texas, Sandy Cheeks. And it’s one tale you’ll wish was left untold. 

The film follows Sandy, voiced by longtime performer Carolyn Lawrence (“Moral Orel,” “Jimmy Neutron”), and SpongeBob, voiced by Tom Kenny (“Rocko’s Modern Life,” “Adventure Time”), as they attempt to rescue the town of Bikini Bottom from B.O.O.T.S., the science lab Sandy worked for back in Texas, and the clutches of evil scientist Sue Nahmee, played by Wanda Sykes (“The New Adventures of Old Christine,” “Over the Hedge”). To do this, they venture to the Texan plains, where they encounter Sandy’s circus performer family consisting of Pa Cheeks, voiced by Craig Robinson (“The Office,” “Pineapple Express”), Randy Cheeks, voiced by Johnny Knoxville (“Jackass,” “Action Point”), and Ma Cheeks, Granny Cheeks, Rowdy Cheeks, and Rosie Cheeks, all voiced by Grey DeLisle (“Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated,” “Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends”). 

Where to begin with this tale? Well, for starters, this is the first streaming movie for the franchise, as opposed to the theatrical outputs made for the first three “SpongeBob” movies. Because of that, it's natural to expect the animation to be of a lower quality compared to those outings. But even given that disclaimer, the animation is much poorer than anyone would have expected. Sure, it all squashes and stretches like the requisite elasticity of the show, but it feels almost too stretchy, as if someone took the finished animations and cranked up their intensity by 25%. Not only that, but so many moments seem as if they’re against a flat backdrop. Yes, these are CGI characters layered overtop of a live action scene. But they somehow manage to give too many moments the feeling of being poorly green screened onto said live action footage, despite these characters already being digital to begin with. 

Director Liza Johnson (“Elvis and Nixon,” “Hateship, Loveship”) simply seems like an odd fit for the series, as her previous work has been adult aimed dramas. It comes across as a film directed by someone simply unfamiliar with the material or the medium, and it appears that might have been the case. There’s a particular moment in the third act where a live-action character’s head is super imposed on a younger body, to give them impression of them at a younger age. But the effect is so bad, it's hard to tell if this was meant to be the final effect or was simply a work-in-progress shot that snuck through the vetting process. 

Luckily, the vocal work is still incredibly solid, even as many of the actors are showing their age after voicing these characters for 25 years. Kenny and Lawrence are as delightful as ever, really nailing the back and forth between these lifelong friends. The entire pack of Bikini Bottom-ites are fun whenever they’re onscreen, and it helps to buoy the otherwise uneven film. Meanwhile, the live-action actors are just plain bad. Ilia Isorelýs Paulino (“The Sex Lives of College Girls,” “Family Switch”) and Matty Cardarople (“Stranger Things,” “A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017)”) play a pair of bumbling scientists named Pheobe and Kyle, respectively, but they come across like bad high school play acting. Sykes, meanwhile, is certainly giving her all in a performance that is just terrible. It’s as if she thought she’d be giving a campy, “so good it’s bad” performance and yet still ended up with a bad one. 

It’s hard to expect much from modern SpongeBob, especially after Stephen Hillenberg’s passing, given that Paramount greenlit two different spinoff shows (something he’d always said he’d never do) almost immediately after his death. But even for the lowest common denominator material churned out now, the script from Tom Stern (“An American Werewolf in Paris,” “Freaked”) and series veteran/cartoonist Kaz (“The Patrick Star Show,” “Phineas and Ferb”) lacks anything resembling intelligence. It's the same yelling and pop-culture references plaguing most modern kids cartoons, made even stranger by a seemingly genuine attempt to critique Nickelodeon’s oversaturation of SpongeBob merchandise slid into the second act. It disappears almost immediately, but it hints at a much better film hiding under the surface. Or a cheeky dig at Nickelodeon that nobody at corporate managed to catch and order be removed. 

It’s hard to really expect a lot from something like “Saving Bikini Bottom,” but even as the returns diminished, each of the three previous “SpongeBob” movies managed to at least be enjoyable at bare minimum. Not so here, as this is simply 80-minutes of the franchise’s worst impulses laid bare. Full of poor live-action performances, a lousy script, and animation that’s weirdly over-stylized yet still poorly made, this is a supersized adventure for Sandy and SpongeBob that would be better left under the sea. 1.5/5