ORPHAN: FIRST KILL (2022) ** ½

Sometimes with prequels, it’s best to wait a few years until you come up with a great reason to justify its existence.  Sometimes, it’s better to strike while the iron is hot.  The makers of Orphan:  First Kill waited thirteen years to tell us the origins of the deranged psycho kid, Esther.  What’s odd is that in 2009, Isabelle Fuhrman, who plays Esther, was nine years old.  Now she’s pushing twenty-three.  If you saw Orphan, you will remember that Esther was revealed to be a thirtysomething dwarf masquerading as a child.  Now instead of having a kid playing an adult playing a kid we have an adult playing an adult playing a kid.  Got that?  I’m not sure why they waited so long, especially since Fuhrman is much too old to play the part, but that at the very least makes it memorable.  

They don’t do a convincing job trying to cover up the fact that Fuhrman is too long in the tooth to play a kid either, which may give the film some shelf life as a camp classic.  The child doubles are obvious, as are the parts where the other actors are clearly standing on apple boxes to make it look like they’re a lot taller than her.  It all seems sloppy and cheesy, which of course, I kind of dug.  

Esther murders her way out of an Estonian psycho ward.  She eventually poses as a missing child and dupes the parents into thinking she is their long-lost daughter.  Before long, she begins manipulating and killing.  

Although it’s a little slow to get going, it gets better/cheesier/weirder as it goes along.  The first film had an insane twist ending, so naturally, you’re wondering if they will even try to top it.  While the twist in this one is appropriately nasty, it falls short of the one from the original.  Julia Stiles, who I hadn’t seen in a while, sinks her teeth into the role of the estranged mother gamely and gets the best line of the movie when she says, “If you think I’m going to let some psycho dwarf destroy what I’ve built… you’re mistaken!”

DAY SHIFT (2022) ***

Jamie Foxx stars as a vampire hunter in the sunny San Fernando Valley.  Unlike most screen vamp slayers, he has modest aims.  He’s not trying to rid the world of bloodsuckers.  He just wants to get enough dough to pay for his kid’s braces.

Day Shift kicks off with a great fight sequence with an old vampire contortionist lady who bends, cracks, and gnarls her body in a variety of ways while attacking Foxx.  From there on, it gets a little spotty in places.  Like most Netflix movies, it’s way too long (almost two hours), but the biggest debit is the weak villain.  As Audrey San Fernando, Karla Souza looks and acts less like a Queen of the Damned and more like a Real Housewife of Beverly Hills.  That or maybe a reject from one of those house-flipping reality shows since her character moonlights… err… daylights as a real estate mogul.  

Fortunately, the rest of the supporting cast is a lot of fun.  There’s Snoop Dogg as a cowboy vampire hunter, Peter Stormare as a sleazy pawnbroker who buys vampire teeth on the black market, and Dave Franco as Foxx’s nerdy by-the-book partner.  The best characters are a pair of badass Russian vampire hunters played by Steve Howey and DTV action legend Scott Adkins.  Their big action sequence where they team up with Foxx to dispose of a nest of vamps is breathless, fun, and inventive.  (I especially dug the stake that can also be used as a nunchuck.)  It’s enough to make you wish that Adkins and Howey get their own spin-off somewhere down the road.

Foxx’s performance helps to tie the loosey-goosey tone together.  He’s very funny and is at his best when he’s ad-libbing insults at the expense of Franco.  He also fares quite well in his everyman family man scenes too, which grounds the film from flying off the rails.  

Overall, Day Shift is more than a tad bit uneven.  It often feels like parts of a couple of different scripts sewed together.  All this barely gels, and if it skates by with a *** rating, it’s thanks to the charm of the cast.  It’s just that it never quite realizes its full potential.  There are times when it flirts with awesomeness (like the stuff with Adkins and Howey), and yet it always feels like it’s holding back.  Ultimately, it delivers just enough to make it all worthwhile, but it kind of leaves you wanting more.

PREY (2022) ** ½

Prey is understandably low key next to its Predator predecessors since it takes place three hundred years before Arnold Schwarzenegger kicked extraterrestrial ass.  Still, it’s lacking a certain quality that makes the franchise so much fun.  (AVP:  Requiem notwithstanding.)  The most noticeable missing ingredient is the camaraderie between a ragtag group that fights the monster.  Here, we just get a Comanche woman named Naru (Amber Midthunder) trying to prove to her tribe she can be as good of a hunter as the men.  While she gives a strong performance, the supporting characters lack substance and pale in comparison to the rogues’ gallery typically found in the series.  

While the last entry, The Predator had definite peaks and valleys, it was at the very least a memorable (if a tad goofy) effort.  This one is more or less “not bad” all the way through.  On one hand, that’s a good thing when you’re watching it as you’re never really bored.  However, I can’t say I’ll be thinking about this one all that much in the near future.  I mean, no one will ever put Predators at the top of their Predator franchise ranking, but it at least had that badass samurai duel.  Prey, on the other hand, is relatively enjoyable.  It's just that it’s sorely lacking a big set piece like that one to put it over the top.  

It doesn’t help that the Predator design is piss-poor.  I’m not sure who came up with the idea to have his face look like an asshole, but it’s not intimidating or scary in the least.  Another debit is some of the shoddy CGI, especially for the animals.  There’s a scene where the Predator fights a bear that should’ve been a real crowd-pleaser, but it feels rushed and is hampered by crummy computer effects that make the bear look cheesy.  Give me the Lou Ferrigno/bear fight from Hercules any day.  

Still, as a stripped-down, three-chords, down-n’-dirty Predator flick, it almost, but not quite, gets the job done.  A lot of the stuff you’ve come to expect from the franchise is here (minus the machine guns, obviously) and done competently enough.  Midthunder carries the movie admirably and she clearly has what it takes to become a bona fide action star.  Maybe next time they can build a better movie around her.

LAST NIGHT IN SOHO (2021) *** ½

Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho is a nifty little change of pace for the director.  He trades in his typical comedic approach for a highly stylized horror-thriller that has echoes of many of the old masters.  There were moments here that reminded me of Argento, De Palma, Craven, Polanski, and even Kubrick, but they all feel like an organic aspect of the movie than a mere pastiche of inspirations.

A shy girl named Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie) moves from her small English town to London to attend fashion school.  Longing to get away from her annoying roommate, she strikes out on her own and rents an apartment.  Soon, she begins dreaming of the beautiful tenant (Anya Taylor-Joy) who lived there in the ‘60s.  

To go into any more detail would be a disservice to potential viewers.  What makes the film so much fun is how Wright puts our heroine AND the audience squarely in Taylor-Joy’s shoes.  The way he subtly turns the screws to his characters (and us) is masterfully done, and eventually, we feel like we are in the grips of a nightmare we can’t wake from.

Wright slathers on the style too, which helps make the flashback scenes crackle.  The sequences where McKenzie follows Taylor-Joy down a rabbit hole of increasingly seedy predicaments are exhilarating and intoxicating.  He also gives us a gnarly murder sequence that would make any of the aforementioned filmmakers envious.  Wright’s use of nicely timed needle drops of ‘60s tunes also helps heighten the atmosphere.

McKenzie does a great job as the curious bystander who quickly gets thrown in the driver’s seat of terror.  She does some of the best terrified acting I’ve seen in a long time.  It’s Taylor-Joy though who steals the movie with her longing, hypnotic gazes at the camera.  She’s so mysterious and alluring that you can’t blame McKenzie for chasing after her, even after she knows it’s all leading to a tragic end.  

At a few minutes shy of two hours, Last Night in Soho is overlong to a fault.  Wright’s overreliance on CGI specters furthers hinders things.  I know there’s a “reason” why they look the way they do, but their appearances aren’t particularly effective.  These quibbles are relatively minor in the long run and don’t detract too much from the overall mood though.  For when Wright is cooking, the movie really sizzles.  It is certainly a Night to remember. 

GAME NIGHT (2018) ***

I’ve heard a lot of good things about Game Night recently, and as an avid boardgame fanatic, I figured I would roll the dice and check it out for myself.  It also helped that I was a big fan of directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein’s previous flick, Vacation.  While it’s not quite on the level of that classic, it’s still a lot of fun.  

Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams star as a couple who live for game night with their friends.  Bateman’s ultra-successful big brother (Kyle Chandler) crashes the festivities and tries to one-up his sibling’s quaint evening of fun by staging an elaborate murder-mystery dinner party-style game.  The premise is that one of the guests will be “abducted” and the rest of the party has to find them.  Naturally, Bateman’s brother gets kidnapped for real, which leads to several complications.  

Game Night is sort of like a reworking of The Man Who Knew Too Little as our heroes think they are taking part in an elaborate game, but they are actually in danger every step of the way.  Unlike that flick, the main characters here catch on to that the scenario is all too real about halfway in, which kind of takes some of the fun out of it.  There are also one or two totally unnecessary plot twists in the final reel, although nothing that threatens to derail the film’s momentum.  Despite those quibbles, Daley and Goldstein deliver plenty of memorable moments and funny sequences (like when McAdams is forced to perform an impromptu back-alley surgery on Bateman’s bullet wound) to make it worthwhile.  

It helps that the cast is strong all the way around.  Bateman is still playing yet another variation on his usual shtick, but he is nevertheless very funny.  His chemistry with McAdams is winning too, and if there isn’t a sequel in the cards (heh), then I hope they are at least paired together again real soon.  I also liked Jeffrey Wright’s intense bit as the hardboiled “detective” in the game as well as the cameo by the “big bad” in the finale.  It’s Jesse Plemons though who steals scene after scene as Bateman’s nosy cop neighbor.  

NATIONAL SECURITY (2003) **

Cop Steve Zahn is investigating the murder of his partner (Timothy Busfield).  Things get complicated when he is fired for using excessive force on a black motorist, played by Martin Lawrence.  Afterwards, the only job he can get is working as a security guard.  Naturally, he winds up being partnered with Lawrence, who reluctantly agrees to help him clear his name and find the murderer.

National Security is an odd duck.  The early scenes work well enough, especially the stuff where Zahn is accused of excessive force.  These scenes hit a little differently now than when the film was released, but they are still pretty funny.  The best sequence though details how Zahn is able to avoid being killed in prison.  I wouldn’t dream of spoiling it as it is easily the biggest laugh in the movie.  

Once Lawrence enters the fray, it kind of switches gears and becomes a Martin Lawrence action comedy.  His solo scenes aren’t bad or anything, but they certainly pale in comparison to something like Blue Streak or Black Knight.  At times, it almost seems like there were two scripts that became conjoined as the tone in Zahn’s scenes doesn’t quite gel with Lawrence’s stuff.  That probably wouldn’t matter much if the pair had any real chemistry to speak of.  

At least the supporting cast is interesting.  Colm Feore and Bill Duke are suitably intimidating as detectives, but it’s Eric Roberts who looks like he’s having the most fun as a white-haired assassin.  Sadly, like everything else in the movie, the script never quite figures out what to do with him.  

Another problem is Dennis Dugan’s direction.  His style might be perfectly suited for Adam Sandler movies, but he really isn’t the guy for the job when it comes to an action-comedy.  He also collaborated with Zahn for the much better Saving Silverman, which came out two years prior. 

BULLET TRAIN (2022) ***

I have no problem when an action movie cranks it up to 11.  The problem is when an action movie STARTS cranked up to 11 is that there’s nowhere for it to really go.  If the action lets up, the audience feels letdown, and if the action remains breakneck for too long, it can feel like a pain in the neck.  Luckily, director David Leitch keeps the momentum going at a zippy clip for much of the running time.  

Bullet Train feels like a throwback to those post-Tarantino post-Ritchie crime movies full of colorful hitmen who make pop culture references (mostly Thomas the Tank Engine), have lots of flashbacks, go by cheesy codenames (like “The Hornet”), and are introduced alongside an onscreen title card so you can try to keep up with all the assorted riffraff and miscreants that populate the film.  As far as these things go, it’s pretty entertaining, thanks in part to the wild action and bloody mayhem (most of which takes part inside the titular train).  

The biggest buoy that keeps things afloat is the game cast.  Aaron-Taylor Johnson and Brian Tyree Henry are fun as a team of brothers who go by fruity codenames.  Andrew Koji lends some dramatic depth to the proceedings as a father performing a hit in order to save his son.  Although most of the characters feel like they came out of entirely different films, any movie that features Michael Shannon as an insane Russian Mob boss/samurai is my kind of picture.  

It's Brad Pitt who holds it all together as the goofy, bumbling hitman, Ladybug.  With a film populated with so many eccentric oddballs, you need a character like this as a sort of palette cleanser.  He has a cool, laidback quality that may remind you of his roles in The Mexican and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and his Zen philosophy towards being a hitman often gets some of the biggest laughs.  There are also some great cameos along the way (which I wouldn’t dream of spoiling) that help keep the sometimes overly chaotic flick from flying off the tracks (literally and figuratively).