Today continues my cram of 2024 content: movies I didn’t find either the time or enthusiasm to write full reviews for. Yesterday, I looked at movies that received fan hate, critical pans, or both. Today I share a few movies that either nobody saw or received a collective shrug from those that did. A couple of these could have been pushed to yesterday’s post or an upcoming set, but here are five films that made the world say “yep, that’s a movie.”
2024 Mini-Review Roundup:
- Part 1: The Panned
- Part 2: The Shrugged
- Part 3: The Debuted
Amber Alert
Amber Alert is a dollar store thriller with just enough of a hook to keep you watching: Two people recognize a car from an Amber Alert text, and follow it to try and save the kid who was kidnapped. The movie bails on its pitch for the final twenty minutes when it’s just a tense little home escape set piece.
It’s watchable for the duration, and it carves out sufficiently human shaped characters in the leads. It’s nice to see Hayden Panettiere again, and I don’t hate the guy from Abbott Elementary (Tyler James Williams), but I’m going to go out on a limb and predict he’s not a future movie star.
Amber Alert is fine for what it is, but if I’m going to be downing nutrition-free junk food films, I’d usually rather it be a zesty comedy (see: next entry on this list) than a rote thriller. Amber Alert will slide off your brain the instant the credits roll.
Interesting wrinkle: The director Kerry Bellessa is remaking a 2012 found footage film she made with the same name and premise, but in a traditional cinematic schema this time.
Is It Good? Nearly Good (4/8)
Prom Dates
It’s a textbook “Superbad but…” though, in this case, you might say “Booksmart, but…” since they’re girls and one of them is lesbian. (And there’s not even really a “but…” in this case. It’s just a knockoff Booksmart.) That means it has two main objectives, 1) be funny, and 2) sketch characters. Goal number 2 goes well enough, as both Antonia Gentry and Julia Lester have good BFF chemistry and carry the material (I continue to want to see Gentry in more movies), though Jess, Gentry’s character, makes some rough decisions down the stretch.
The “funny” objective is a little more hit-or-miss, with a pretty even distribution between “hit” and “miss.” The throwaway one-liners work better than most of the big swings, although there’s a very good foreign language subtitle gag about halfway through. The script is raunchier than you might expect from the poster and its cast’s Disney connections, and it’s to the movie’s benefit.
I give Prom Dates one of those very conditional recommendations like Staten Island Summer in that it achieves its goals, and they are goals I always value movies striving for. You can trust your instincts; if you like teen comedies enough that merely solid execution is enough reason for you to watch, you’ll be satisfied.
Is It Good? Good (5/8)
Kung Fu Panda 4
The Kung Fu Panda series serves as one of the stronger and more consistent franchises that DreamWorks has ever released, and parts 1-3 formed a coherent trilogy. Part four is less unnecessary than Toy Story 4 (or than a HTTYD4 would be), but I can’t say I left Kung Fu Panda 3 feeling like there was more Po story left to tell.
And while it’s the worst of the series, and it (somewhat intentionally) repeats points from the previous entries, it’s not at all the trainwreck it could have been given those parameters.
First, the visuals are solid: Nothing here is quite so revelatory as the spirit world from Part 3, but this is professionally executed piece of animation, overall attractively designed. I definitely could have used some more adventurous stylization in line with the terrific aesthetic flourishes in KFP2 and 3, but it’s a painless and occasionally exciting film to look at.
This film has outstanding fight scenes and chases, including a few of the best in the entire Kung Fu Panda series. The best of them is an elaborate fight in a bar, Tokyo Drifter style, with the added visual flourish that the bar is on stilts and tilting constantly during the skirmish like the boat in The Immigrant. But it’s not the only highlight; e.g. another memorable one is fought in smoke, creating the effect of silhouette animation, and an early one features some terrific use of props.
Where it falls below the passing grade line is the story, which is a by-the-numbers master-apprentice tale. Po’s arc with the bandit Zhen (Awkwafina) plays out pretty much exactly as you’d predict from the first scene. And the B-plot, about Po’s two dads teaming up to save the panda, is a borderline catastrophic misfire, a half-baked mess you’d see in a Disney direct-to-VHS sequel.
It’s a decent enough watch, nowhere near the nadir of what DreamWorks has hit, but my thumb is angled about 15 degrees south of level.
Is It Good? Nearly Good (4/8)
Carry-On
Carry-On is a Swiss watch marvel of a low-art thriller. Very satisfying. The first half is Grand Piano but for a TSA agent instead of a concert pianist — and if you haven’t seen Grand Piano, do. The second half is a little bit like Die Hard but at an airport. (Hey, wait a sec!)
There’s a villain reveal around the mid point that is an against-type surprise of a familiar face, a la Kevin Spacey in Seven, though the actor is freakin second billed so don’t look too closely at the Letterboxd or Netflix pages if you don’t want to get spoiled.
Taron Egerton alternates between overqualified and underqualified for this role on a scene-by-scene basis, and I couldn’t really figure out a pattern. Sometimes I believed him as an action hero, and in fact was ready to cast him in any role you might pitch as “Tom Cruise but 25 years ago.” Other times he looks like a drama kid wearing a blue costume. Speaking of Cruise, Egerton is a great and hilarious runner.
To extend the Die Hard parallels, Carry-On makes very good use of its Christmas setting and Christmas music. I’ll also never object to Danielle Deadwyler getting a paycheck and making 15 minutes of a genre movie better.
Is It Good? Very Good (6/8)
The 4:30 Movie
4:30 is a strange movie to check in on Kevin Smith (the last thing I saw by him was Zack and Miri) because it’s basically his Fabelmans, a late career retrospection on how he came to start making movies, with a proportional thoughtfulness and appreciation of cinematic craft relative to the stature of Spielberg and Smith. It’s a deeply affectionate movie; too much so, I’d say. I was reminded of Chandler Levack’s tough-but-excellent I Like Movies in the way it treats cinephilia as an incurable mental condition the same way other people get stuff like “bipolar disorder.” But Levack saw movies as an addictive and dangerous pathology; or, at best, a flawed coping mechanism. Smith uncritically sees obsessive-movie-loving as a pure virtue.
The characters are flat except for about three scenes, which makes those scenes especially unearned. But the problematic stuff makes up all of 20% or so of the runtime; most of 4:30 is just a vibey, soft-lit nostalgia lark. The cast is very clearly having a good time, which matters, and I was surprised how much chemistry the romantic teen leads have (even if they’re very Kevin Smith-y types; clearly on purpose).
A lot of the anachronism (or however you’d categorize it) humor is nails-on-a-chalkboard bad. “Bill Cosby; great guy, nobody will ever dislike him!” “Can you believe they want us to think the original Star Wars is an Episode 4? They’ll never make prequels.” Kevin Smith used to write good pop culture jokes! I still quote the Lord of the Rings rant from Clerks 2! And I’m sad to say the fake movies and trailers are pretty bad, too, though I do get some warm fuzzies on how many of Smith’s former cast members still seem to like him and want to work with him.
Is It Good? Nearly Good (4/8)
Orion and the Dark
Orion and the Dark starts as a “concepts-personified” story, a premise that has gradually and sadly become a tired trope in American animated movies post-Inside Out. This outing has a little bit more neurosis to it than the typical version, as it’s all about a boy overcoming his crippling fear and anxiety, but it still feels deeply bland in this opening stretch.
It’s not helped by disappointing, shoestring animation. Orion and the Dark is a Netflix-DreamWorks co-production helmed by Sean Charmatz, whose only previous credits are some of the less-interesting Trolls shorts. The “DreamWorks” and “Trolls” part of that had me optimistic, as DWA has been the most daring major American animation studio for the better part of a decade now, and the Trolls franchise in particular is a cudgel of color and energy. But Orion and the Dark is more in line with the Netflix animation house style (read: cheap and ugly), far from the quality I’d expect in a DreamWorks theatrical release, with only a few flourishes that made me take note, like some flavorful character designs and effects on the nighttime creatures.
So I was ready to write this off as a major disappointment, totally baffled why Charlie Kaufman would bother to put his byline on it… and then about a third of the way in, we are presented with a new framing for the entire story. It transforms the over-familiarity of the ostensible premise into the subject of the film itself: How we use stories and abstractions as a means to convey timeless concepts. Storyteller is the world’s second-oldest profession, and we can tie those early human mythmakers to today’s parents who tell bedtime stories to help their kids overcome fear of the dark. We can even tie them to the people who make animated movies that start to feel formulaic to grownups but connect with each new generation of kids.
It still doesn’t excuse the subpar animation or entirely make up for so much of the story within the framing device being so shapeless. But as a reflection on childhood fears and the power of stories to connect us, it’s touching.
Is It Good? Good (5/8)
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One reply on “2024 Mini-Review Roundup, Part 2: The Shrugged”
Having only seen CARRY-ON, I am very happy to agree that it’s the good stuff.