The End!

 

And so, with over 1,700 reviews in the can, the curtains close on this blog.  It was originally created as part of my efforts to wear down my pile of purchased but unwatched DVDs, and it's lasted to a point where DVDs themselves have become a niche format.  Streaming is here and I doubt it is going away, though making it sustainably profitable is something that the entertainment industry still has to work out!

It's been a fun project, but it is time to focus on other things.  

Happy viewing, all!

Defendor (2009)

 

By day, Arthur Poppington is a mild-mannered construction site worker.  By night, he is Defendor, a costumed hero who patrols the city in search of his archnemesis, "Captain Industry".  When he finds a criminal, he employs his grandfather's trench club and a jar full of wasps to punish them.  "Feel the sting of justice" is something Defendor might say, if Arthur were better at coming up with pithy fight quotes.

Defendor's crusade has several key flaws. The most immediately obvious of these is that he's just a regular guy who has put on a costume.  Yes, he's brave and fairly tough, but he's got no special training, nor access to all kinds of gadgets.  He does definitely demonstrate some low-budget inventiveness with his weaponised wasps and some voice-activated gadgets ... but as anyone who's tried to use the voice assistant on their mobile phone knows, that's still a somewhat problem prone technology.

Less immediately obvious, but perhaps even more critical, is that Arthur's understanding of the world and how it works is little better than that of a child.  He sees things in very simple, literal ways - hence his decision to become a costumed hero - and nuances like "some cops are bad people" and "vigilantism is against the law" entirely escape him.  If his quest for justice actually brings him into contact with the real hardened criminal element of the city, will he really be prepared for it?

Defendor apparently struggled to secure funding and distribution, and I can see why that would be the case. This is not a movie that fits neatly into a genre or classification. It's certainly got humour in it - I particularly liked the "Defendoor" and "Defendog" visual gags, which are not just amusing but also help underline Arthur's 'comic book' view of the world - but it's not a "comedy". Its moments of sadness are too convincing and its consequences too serious to fit under that banner. It's also not a "parody", despite the fact that it's a superhero movie about a man who isn't super at all. Again, it's too real and Arthur is too heroic (in his flawed and limited way) to be a subject of ridicule. But it's probably got too many quirky absurdities for many people to accept it as a "drama", and it lacks the spectacle to be an "action film".

I personally liked the film a lot, and think it has a lot of good elements, but it's definitely a movie that's marching to the beat of its own drum, and that's going to be a hard sell, commercially speaking.

So, what are those good elements?

Well first, let's start with the cast.  How did this low budget Canadian film get so many talented people on board?  It has Woody Harrelson, Kat Dennings, Elias Koteas, Michael Kelly and Sandra Oh. Plus a pre-Orphan Black Tatiana Maslany in a very minor role!

All deliver their usual strong work.  Harrelson may have gone down to the wingnut factory in recent years, but he's a compelling actor when he wants to be, and does a great job as the earnest but not all together "with it" Arthur Poppington / Defendor.

The writer has also clearly given some thought to how a normal person with limited resources might try to emulate a superhero.  Defendor's crime fighting accoutrements are well chosen -  they are things that it would be possible for an ordinary person of limited means to get, and which might serve the purpose he's chosen for them, albeit in a much more limited way than a "real" superhero's gadgets. Marbles are no batarangs, but if someone chucks one at you with full force, it's going to hurt.

The story in general is more thoroughly thought out than the film's goofy title and premise might suggest.

One thing that I was worried about while watching the film was that they might do a blatant Harrelson/Dennings romance, which I'd find a bit on the nose because he's 25 years older than her. They didn't outright go there, though. There was obviously affection between their characters, but not necessarily romantic/sexual affection.  I got the impression that Arthur wasn't really aware of such things, in fact.

Do I have any outright complaints about the film?  A couple.  I'm not a fan of the script's endorsement of torture as an effective technique for the "good guy" to use.  I also foudn the ending to be a little bit pat/optimistic, overall.  

I did however really like that this is a superhero film where the good guy doesn't just win by punching the bad guy a whole lot (which is not to say that he doesn't try to win like that, mind you!)

Christmas at the Ranch (2021)

 

When workaholic career woman Haley Hollis returns to the family ranch for the holidays, she has no plans to stay any longer than familial duty requires.  As far as she is concerned, the ranch, with all its outdoorsy workings and twee Christmas hay rides, is very much in her past.  And perhaps, if she were being truly honest with herself, she resents (and feels a bit inadequate about) the way her brother and grandmother rave about superwoman ranch hand Kate.

Haley's plans for a quick escape are thwarted when she realises the financial difficulties the ranch is experiencing.  Like Emma from Vida, Haley's ultimately unable to stand by and watch her family's business get gobbled up by greedy neighbours.  Also like Emma from Vida, Haley prefers romantic companions of the female persuasion.  

Gee, I wonder who Haley will unexpectedly realise is the love of her life?

Alas, whereas Emma from Vida was a dynamic, take charge firebrand of a woman who could believably wrestle an ailing business back to profitability in spite of suspicious locals and often thoughtless sister, Haley displays no such verve here.  Her competence is all told and not shown.  In fact, what we are shown often runs directly counter to what we are told.  The dialogue, for instance, insists that Haley was a capable ranch hand in her youth.  Yet there's a scene where she can't even get on a horse by herself.  Said scene exists purely for Kate to be there to try and help her and for them to argue about that, of course.

Arguing is in fact the main thing that Haley and Kate will do for most of this film.  And sure, enemies to lovers is a popular trope in romantic comedies, and it's true that the only time the pair really show much spark together is in their squabbles ... but the spats never really go anywhere or lead to anything.  If you're going with enemies to lovers, then use the heat of the arguments to build up the heat of the relationship, people.

To be frank, though, Christmas at the Ranch is not a film where the word 'heat' has any presence.  It is as safely chaste and sweet a romance as any you'd get on the Hallmark Channel, it just happens to be two ladies performing the awkwardly close-lipped "romantic" kisses, this time.

In fact, their whole relationship - which is, let's face it, the entire point of the film - is lacking in any kind of verve. I will acknowledge that the movie does establish Haley and Kate's mutual attraction OK, before they realise who each other are, but after that pretty quickly flames out, the script makes only the most rudimentary efforts to establish a connection between them before they declare their undying love.

The conviction of the relationship is not helped by the film's acting, much of which is pretty flat and wooden.  Given that the main cast members all have pretty solid TV careers, my inclination is that the problem lay behind the scenes: quite probably, this was a production where meeting deadlines and budgets were the only real criteria of success, and whether the final product was actually any good was not a significant concern.

I've worked on some projects like that, in my time.

The most enjoyable performances in the film actually come in the form of a couple of secondary characters - Masonry the New Age Woo-Woo woman, and Lucy the hotel receptionist - that seemed to have the potential to be fun and were honestly more engaging and memorable than the stressy workaholic and stoic cowgirl leads.

I also wonder if the script went through lots of last minute changes and re-writes, resulting in parts of an earlier draft getting left in.  The movie goes to some lengths to establish that Haley owns a dog and it is important to her ... and then it is left behind when she goes to the ranch and not mentioned again.  Last minute re-writes might also explain the dialogue saying Haley was good at ranching, when she can't even get on a horse.

Ultimately, this wannabe heart-warming romance is likely to leave you cold.

Underwater (2020)

 

The Kepler 822, a research and drilling facility at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, is struck by what appears to be a strong earthquake. Part of the facility is catastrophically destroyed by the incident, killing most of the crew in that section.  Only mechanical engineer Norah Price and her colleagues, Rodrigo and Paul, manage to get out alive and make their way to the escape pod bay. 

Once there though, the news doesn't get any better.  While they do find three more survivors, including the captain, there are no functional pods left in this bay, and attempts to contact the surface have been unsuccessful.  The only other hope for escape is the pods in the abandoned Roebuck 641 base.  They will need to don pressurized suits and then walk one mile across the ocean floor.

Even in the best of circumstances, this would be a dangerous journey, as visibility at this depth will be almost nil.  With the whole area strewn with debris, and several of them not trained in this equipment, the danger is far greater - even a small tear in the suit would lead to catastrophic and deadly depressurisation.

Oh well, at least the earthquake didn't herald the release of any deadly, previously unknown deep sea monsters with a taste for human flesh, right?

Right?

Underwater; it's a bland title, but a good film.  Much better than the mixed reviews and poor box office would suggest.  Ignore the complaints that it is derivative.  Innovation is less important than execution, and Underwater executes well.

This movie reminds me a lot of The Descent, but set under the ocean rather than under the earth. Both films feature a small group of people who are trapped in an environment that is inimical to human life.  In both films, the characters can survive only by moving forward through dangerous and difficult terrain.  And both films feature excellent, tensely structured opening sections in which the only threats come  from the natural dangers of the location.

Where Underwater does differ from The Descent, though, is that it handles the transition to "monster movie" much better.  In the earlier film, after the initial monster onslaught, the nature of the threat never changed much and some of the film's tension and excitement was sapped away by a growing feeling of repetition.  The creature encounters here are more varied in form and structure, helping maintain tension and interest.  It's good work, especially because the monster threats not only vary, but escalate. The first encounters pale in comparison to the later ones in several different ways, helping the movie build to a crescendo at the end.

Going back to comparisons with The Descent, I also think this film lands its ending far better: neither the underbaked US ending of the earlier film, nor the nihilistic UK one, were particularly satisfying to me.  Underwater does a much better job of finding a thematically strong, satisfying conclusion. 

I also liked that the film eschewed the common movie gambit of having one or more of the characters be a selfish jerk or crazy loose cannon.  Underwater has the good sense to let the dangers of the situation be the focus.  All the human characters work hard to survive and have each other's backs.  That doesn't mean they always see eye to eye on what they should do, or that they will all survive - but they give it their all.

I'm not quite done with my praise, because I also need to take the time to acknowledge the strong cast, who all do solid work.  I imagine this production involved a lot of green screen work, which must be challenging, but the actors consistently deliver.  Kristen Stewart, who plays Norah, proves once again that she's a real talent - something I would never have believed in the Twilight stage of her career. I'm confident her 2022 Oscar nomination for best actress will not be the last time she's up for a major Academy Award.

The Cleaner, Seasons 1 & 2 (2021-2023)

 

 

Paul "Wicky" Wickstead is a cleaner.  A crime scene cleaner, a distinction he frequently feels the need to make to those he meets.  He is a government-certified cleaning technician, responsible for the removal of any signs of death, injury or other biohazard debris from crime scenes.

Leaving aside that this sniffy response rather dismisses the hard work that being a "regular" cleaner actually entails, Wicky's job is one tailor-made for bringing him into contact with people at a stressful time in their lives.  They may have lost a loved one.  They may witnessed the death occur.  They may actually be the murderer!

Only two things are more or less certain: first, that Wicky will squabble with whoever he meets.  He's rather an irascible and irritable fellow, after all.  And second, he will leave the place without any trace of the tragedy that befell it.  He's The Cleaner, after all.

Written by and starring comedian Greg Davies, who is perhaps best known for his title role in Taskmaster, this show is based on the German sitcom Der Tatortreiniger (literally, "Crime Scene Cleaner").  Almost every episode follows the same basic standard pattern; Wicky arrives at a scene, where he meets someone related to the case and immediately either irritates them or gets irritated by them.  Shenanigans ensue, in the course of which the odd couple pairing will generally learn to come to some understanding of each other ... or at least, some form of détente.

That kind of very specific structure could easily outstay its welcome, so this is one of those cases where the short seasons of UK TV shows is a positive.  With only six half-hour episodes per series (plus a Christmas special in between the two), the show doesn't overstay its welcome, either on an individual episode basis - each scenario remains funny throughout and builds to a satisfying conclusion - or across a season.

It is also a structure that allows for a lot of guest stars.  Other than Wicky himself, The Cleaner has only one recurring character, with everyone else appearing for only a single entry.  This is a formula that the show has turned to its advantage, with an excellent array of British actors and comedians turning up across the show's run.  The first two episodes, for instance, feature Helena Bonham Carter and David Mitchell respectively, both of whom make great foils for Davies to interact with.

Speaking of Davies, he does a good job as Wicky.  He's got the irascible, prickly demeanour down to an art, as seen on Taskmaster, but he proves he can do more than just that, here.  Wicky is less pompous and arrogant than the Taskmaster, and underneath his gruff exterior he does at heart actually want to do the right thing ... albeit preferably with as little effort as possible.  

In terms of specific episodes, I think the highlights include the opening episode - Helena Bonham Carter seems to be having a great time - and the Christmas Special.  That episode does a great job of balancing humour and sentimentality without becoming overly twee.

The finale of season two is also fun - though the final act relies a lot on implausible character decisions - and it offers a feel good last moment, that, if the show did not return, makes a satisfying finale to Wicky's story.

Worth a look if it sounds at all up your alley.

Motel Hell (1980)

 

Farmer Vincent Smith and his younger sister Ida live on a farm with an attached motel, named "Motel Hello". The Smith family farm is renowned for its smoked meats, but since this is a comedy-horror film, the secret ingredient is the old Soylent Green scenario: people.

Vincent employs a variety of tactics to collect victims. The most direct is to engineer accidents on the nearby road, such as by shooting out the front tyre of a motorcycle. But that's far from his only technique. However he initially acquires in his prey, however, Vincent has the same fare for them all. He sedates them, cuts their vocal cords to prevent them from screaming, and buries them up to their necks in his "secret garden".

Or at least, that's how it goes until beautiful young woman Terry falls into his hands. Old Vincent - and he is old, being more than thirty years Terry's senior - is instantly smitten. He tells Terry that her former lover, Bo, was killed in their crash, though of course, Bo is actually in the secret garden.

Terry's beauty also catches the eye of the local sheriff, the genial if rather inept Bruce. Bruce also happens to be Vincent's younger brother, and is bitterly disappointed when Terry returns the older man's affections, rather than his own.

Of course, it remains to be seen what Terry will think of Vincent once she learns the secret behind his famous smoked meats ...

So as noted earlier, what we have here is a comedy-horror.  Such films often struggle to develop much in the way of tension of scares.  Scream and The Faculty are among the few exceptions that come to mind. Motel Hell will certainly not be joining them among those outliers: it's very much canted toward goofy schlock and off-colour jokes.

So how well does it work as a comedy?  Well, it is very broad and absurd in its comedic style, and I think it is at its best when the goofiness is not overly called out.  For instance, the time Vincent uses cardboard cut-out cows for one of his traps. When the script more loudly sign-posts its jokes, in a nudge nudge wink wink kind of fashion. they tend to fall a bit flat.

I did like the general geniality of the murderous cannibals, and their hippy trippy motives and methods. Their self-justification is obviously spurious, but at least they're a change from the usual squalid, mentally deficient thugs of more straight-forward cannibal horror fare.

The movie definitely has some issues with its depiction of romance and gender, though.  The burgeoning relationship between Terry and Vincent is very under-developed, and no mention is made of the fact that he is more than 30 years older than her. Her quickly forgotten previous boyfriend Bo was also played by an actor 20 years older than her.

Still, May-December romances do happen.  A bigger issue is that the film ultimately casts Sheriff Bruce, who is pretty much an out-and-out sex pest, in a heroic role.  I'm not keen on that.  Not keen at all.

I also felt that the film's final act stretched out too long, with an excess of fairly clumsily staged action sequences that failed to be either exciting or amusing - and they really needed to be one or the other.

Motel Hell had a few amusing moments, but it was not good enough that I can really give it even a qualified recommendation.

Parallels (2022)

 

Four friends - Bilal, Romane, and brothers Sam and Victor - are preparing to begin high school.  It is Bilal's birthday, and to celebrate the event the quartet plan a secret late night get together.  Their chosen venue: an abandoned bunker deep in the local woods.  This is far enough from town that their music won't be heard; which is a good thing since Victor snuck a bottle of champagne out of his parent's collection for the event.

In the middle of this shindig, however, just after Sam finally confesses his feelings for Romane and the two are about to have their first kiss, the lights flicker and die. In the darkness, Victor and Romane vanish, and Bilal is mysteriously replaced with an adult version of himself - though one who does not remember anything that happened after this event.

What caused all this?  Where are Victor and Romane?  Can Bilal be restored to his younger self?  These are all questions which Sam may have to answer more or less by himself, because as you might imagine, it seems unlikely that anyone will accept the story "Bilal became an adult overnight".  It's hard enough for Sam to accept, and he was there when it happened.

And what about Romane and Victor?  Have they simply vanished from reality, or is something much more complicated going on?

Well, the title of the show is probably something of a give-away, in that regard!

This French science fiction show as produced for Disney and is available on their streaming service in France, the US, and various other markets.  It runs six episodes of roughly forty minutes each, making it functionally about the same length as a typical film.  I think this is pretty much the sweet spot for the scenario it presents, allowing time for the characters and events to develop, but not at any point feeling like it is dragging things out.

The show is helped a lot by a likeable cast.  I'll particularly call out Naidra Ayadi as Bilal's mother, Sofia, and Guillaume Labbé as the police Lieutenant assigned to the apparent disappearance of Bilal, Romane and Victor.  Both are very engaging in their roles.  They probably profit from not having to share there parts, of course: of the four "kids" at the heart of the story, only Sam is played by the same actor throughout the show. All the others have two different actors portraying the roles at differing ages.

The character writing is also solid.  The main cast all feel multi-faceted and fleshed out, with their own foibles, strengths and weaknesses.  All the "good guys" live up to that moniker, being generally well-intentioned, but they're still flawed enough to make mistakes, and they sometimes succumb to fear or frustration.  When they do succumb, however, those failures feel well-justified by the situation.  I never got the sense that a major character was acting in a counter-productive way simply because the script needed them to do so in that moment.

This is a solid show, and well worth watching if untangling a strange science fiction mystery seems at all in your wheelhouse.

If you do decide to watch this show, I strongly recommend doing so with the original French dialogue, even if you only speak English.  The dubbing is cut from the same lifeless, anaemic mould as I've experienced from European Netflix shows - about thirty seconds of it was enough to send me scrambling for the app settings to change to subtitles.

Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

 

In 1934, famed Belgian detective Hercule Poirot solves a theft in Jerusalem. The obsessive-compulsive Poirot intends to take a rest in Istanbul, but finds himself summoned to London for another case. His friend Bouc, director of the Simplon-route Orient Express service, arranges Poirot's accommodations aboard that famous train.

Once aboard, Poirot is soon introduced to the colourful array of other passengers, which include an American widow, a Hungarian diplomat and an elderly Russian princess, among others.  Perhaps the most notable other passenger, however, is businessman Edward Ratchett, who boards the train accompanied by his manservant and his secretary.

Ratchett approaches Poirot and asks the detective to become his bodyguard for the duration of the journey.  Ratchett explains that he has received several threatening letters and fears for his life.  Poirot, having already deduced that Ratchett's business is a dishonest one, declines.

Ratchett is found murdered the very next morning, stabbed a dozen times. Poirot must take on the case and investigate the other passengers in order to find the culprit.  If he does not, then not only will the killer likely go free, but it will reflect very poorly on his good friend Bouc, who is responsible for the comfort and safety of the guests.

Of course, it soon begins to emerge that Ratchett was not the only passenger with secrets.  Will even the brilliant Poirot be able to untangle this thorny problem?

Well of course he will.  That's how these kind of films work.  The real question is "will watching him do it be enjoyable and end in a satisfying manner?"  The answer there, I am pleased to say, is generally positive.

This 2017 adaptation of Agatha Christie's famous novel is helped immensely by a talented cast of well-known names.  Such star-studded line-ups can sometimes become a hindrance, turning a film into a "spot the famous face" party game, but that risk is deftly handled here.  The famous players are recognisable, but both the direction and their performances are firmly oriented toward telling the story, not in "ooh, look who it is now!" celebrity spotting shenanigans.  And since these people all became celebrities because they are good actors, they all turn in the usual excellent performances you would expect.

Director Kenneth Branagh also assumes the role of Poirot. This is doubtless a challenging combination of roles to take on, but Branagh's juggled directorial and leading man duties on multiple previous occasions, and I think he proves up to the task once more, here.

One possible flaw of the film - depending on your preferences, I think - is that it has a very mannered, stately pacing.  There are a few flurries of mild action and intrigue, but this is on the whole a restrained and genteel film, unfolding its mystery carefully and precisely, but perhaps without the verve that some viewers would prefer.  I certainly wouldn't call the film "dull", myself, but some may find it a little on the slow side.

Overall though, if murder mysteries are your thing, this is a train trip you'll probably want to take.

Motherland: Fort Salem, Season 3 (2022)

 

With the apparent assassination of the US President, the malevolent Camarilla have secretly usurped the government; the former vice president is secretly in league with this fascistic anti-witch organisation.

Witches in the military find themselves placed under the control of non-witch commanders, who are entirely ready to expend the lives of their forces in wasteful fashion.  Those witches not in the military are forced to wear magic-nullifying collars while out in public

Raelle, Abigail, Tally & Scylla continue their struggle to expose the Camarilla and restore peaceful co-existence between witches and humanity.  A struggle much complicated when Raella's connection to the Mother Mycelium leaves her in a coma, and the group is forced to seek shelter in the Chippewa Cession: native land with limited autonomy from the federal government.

The Camarilla, of course, are not the sort to let ancient treaties stand in the way of their persecution of witches, and they have many new weapons ready to use in their war of extermination.  Can our heroes and their dwindling array of allies find a way to head off a devastating war between humanity and witch-kind?

This final season of Motherland: Fort Salem is an enjoyable and entertaining ride, though the pacing does feel a little wonky.  I suspect this may be a result of a real life injury to Taylor Hickson, who plays Raelle.  Hickson was hurt in a car accident shorting after filming of this season began, and was unable to work for several weeks.  That forced a number of re-writes, of which Raelle's coma is surely the most obvious.

The show definitely misses Hickson/Raelle.  The rest of the cast are strong and enjoyable performers.  Minute to minute they fill the gap quite nicely, but the story's overall structure definitely seems to have suffered a bit because of Hickson's injury. Certain events are drawn out more than they probably need, and others - particularly toward the end - seem very rushed.  Also, however good the other actors are, Raelle has always felt "first among equals" in the ensemble of characters.  Her absence is a big void to fill.

I was also a bit disappointed by the sudden disappearance of new villain Kara Brandt. She was thoroughly despicable and really needed suitable on-screen comeuppance.  Perhaps actor Emilie Ullerup was unavailable for the final episode?  Or perhaps they wanted to keep their options open for a sequel.

Overall though, despite the occasional weaknesses likely caused by real world problems, this is a satisfying conclusion to the program.  I particularly liked that the writers recognised that the fact that the show is ending does not not magically mean that all the world's problems will be fixed.  They make it quite clear that there is still a huge amount of work left for these characters to do, and that they intend to do it; even if it will not be work we get to see.  That's a more nuanced and thoughtful resolution than I expected, back when first watching season one.

The Lion King (2019)

 

Somewhere in the African veldt, a pride of lions rule from Pride Rock. As the film begins, the current King and Queen present their newborn son, Simba, to the gathering animals.

As Simba grows, his father Mufasa endeavours to teach him about the responsibilities of kingship and the "circle of life", which connects all living things. I think it is fair to say that the elder lion is only partly successful in this regard. The bright but somewhat self-satisfied Simba is much more interested in the power and prestige of kingship than in its responsibilities.

Also very conscious of the benefits of the crown is Mufasa's scheming brother, Scar. Recognising an opportunity in Simba's naivety and over-confidence, this wicked lion plots the downfall of both his brother and his nephew, along with his partners in villainy, a cackling clan of hyenas.

This is of Disney's "live action" remakes of its successful animated films, although given that this entire movie is actually photo-realistic CGI, the quotes around "live action" are very much in full effect.

I was not much impressed by Disney's live action Beauty & the Beast, so I never bothered to see this version of The Lion King at theatres.  It took a steep discount on Disney+ to tempt me to return to Africa.

So how's the movie?  Well, it's better than the Beauty & the Beast remake, but it still feels wholly unnecessary except as a money-making exercise. 

Let's start with the visuals. The hyper-realistic CGI is technically very impressive, but ironically its fidelity to true life saps it of the energy, verve and relatability of the original. In particular, it is hurt by the fact that the character's faces are much less expressive.  It may not be realistic to have lions and other animals smile in a recognisably human-like way, but that kind of "unrealistic" artistic adaptation makes for a much more emotionally invested experience.

The remake is also hampered by how much of film feels like a shot for shot remake of the original.  There are a few minor changes; the dynamics between the hyenas are different and there are occasional brief alterations of dialogue, but not much more.  I wonder if this was a reaction to complaints about the changes in Beauty & the Beast?  If so, Disney missed the point - the issue wasn't that the remake had differences to the original cartoon, it was that the specific differences were bad ideas.

Despite how little is actually different here, this version is somehow nearly 30 minutes longer than the original. Admittedly some of that is due to the near 20 minutes of credits!

Are there any pluses?  Well, I appreciate the decision to cast African American actors for Simba, Scar and Nala. Also, the singing vocals are strong. Technically they're better than the original in some cases ... but I don't feel like the songs have the same show-stopping impact as the original.  The most obvious case here is Scar's "Be Prepared".  Jeremy Irons is not a particularly gifted singer, but his version is still more memorable to me.

Ultimately it comes down to a simple thing: even nearly 30 years after it came out, there are multiple segments of the 1994 film that still give me chills. This movie meanwhile was ... okay. In isolation, I'd probably give it a qualified recommendation. But in a world where we have the option of watching the original instead, I'd never pick this one.

The End (of the Blog) is Nigh

 

After over 1,700 reviews, I've decided the time has come to bring this blog to an end. 

I'm pleased to say that the blog has achieved its initial purpose of dramatically reducing my pile of unwatched DVDs; not least because the advent of streaming has more or less brought my purchase of new physical media to an end.

Reviews will not stop immediately - but as the sign says, the end is nigh.  My final review will be posted in about 4 weeks, on 29 December 2023.

Galavant (2015-2016)

 

Galavant is a dashing knight, loved and respected by all for his courage and honour.  Blessed with looks, strength of arms, and a beautiful lover in the shapely form of the lovely Madalena, it seems Galavant has it all.

Or at least, it does until the supercilious, entitled and dishonourable King Richard kidnaps Madalena, intending to make her his bride.  This cannot be allowed to stand, and - powered by the strength of his passion and the might of his sword-arm - Galavant cuts his way into the castle to free the love of his life.

Only it turns out that, when you get down to it, Madalena's feelings don't run as deep.  She may not care much more Richard, but he's as weak-willed as he is pompous, and he has lots of lovely power and money.  She spurns Galavant, crushing the knight's spirit. He descends into a melancholy of depression and alcohol.

Princess Isabella of Valencia, whose kingdom has been conquered by Richard, finally manages to stir the old flames of courage and heroism in Galavant's heart when she (falsely) tells him that Madalena has repented her earlier decision and now wants Galavant to rescue her after all.  All he has to do is help Isabella first ... but can one single hero and his squire really save the day?

Galavant is a fantasy musical comedy adventure series.  Which is something of a niche offering and may explain why, despite positive reviews, the show struggled to find an audience.  At the end of its first season of 8 episodes, it was a favourite for cancellation - a fact that the show cheekily acknowledges in the opening episode of season 2, "A New Season aka Suck It Cancellation Bear".

I personally enjoyed the show a lot, particularly the first season.  The show is helped a lot by having a talented core cast who seem to be having fun with the genre aware silliness of the story.  Some of them were likely helped by having past experience in such material: Timothy Omundsun, who plays King Richard, had a recurring role in Xena: Warrior Princess, for instance.

The guest stars are also strong, with numerous recognisable faces turning up in one-off or occasional roles.  I give the show particular props for looping in 'Weird' Al Yankovic as the leader of an order of monks who have taken a vow of singing.

As a musical show, it is of course important that the songs be fun and well written. There are no worries on that front: Alen Menken, who composed for Disney's The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, delivers his usual excellent work in combination with other talented musicians.

On the comedy front, the jokes certainly come thick and fast. Not every single one is a winner, but you're likely to laugh more often than not.  There's plenty of funny moments here, including one or two sequences of such gleeful absurdity that I came close to having to pause the show and give us some time to recover.

I also liked writers' willingness to spend time with characters you might not have expected to feature much, and to develop arcs in unexpected ways. Characters do not necessarily end the show in the places you might expect, and I think this is a strength of the program.

So: that's all pretty glowing.  Do I have any complaints?  Well, two.  Firstly, the breaking of the fourth wall .is perhaps a smidgen overdone at times.  Secondly, the show's second season is a bit overstuffed in general and could perhaps have shed a couple of episodes.  It feels to me like they started the writing for this season from the the ending they wanted to get to, and then kind of invented stuff to connect that up with where they ended the first season.  To my mind, the stitching together of these elements is sometimes a little clumsy.  For instance, things sometimes happen that seem like they should utterly change the direction of the show - but then ten minutes later they are fully resolved and have already triggered the next plot point.

Overall, though, this was 18 brief and breezy episodes of TV, packed with funny scenes, clever songs, engaging characters, and a few neat surprises.  I'm definitely glad I watched it.

The Million Eyes of Sumuru (1967)

 

The film is set in the fictional nation of Sinonesia, somewhere in South East Asia. The President's Chief of Security has recently been assassinated. The regional head of British intelligence, Colonel Baisbrook, recruits two Americans to investigate. Why does he not use his own agents? Presumably either because he had an eye on the US film market, or because he knew Frankie Avalon couldn't do a British accent. Or both. Probably both.

Whatever the reasons for their hiring, the American duo - Nick and Tommy - prove pretty successful in their assignment. They soon identify that the assassination was the work of agents of a beautiful and evil woman named Sumuru, who plans world domination by having her all-female army eliminate male leaders and replace them with her agents.

Obviously, this sort of thing can't be allowed to go on.  Now all Nick and Tommy have to do is stay alive long enough to stop it.

This film is based on a female supervillain created by Sax Rohmer, who is best known as the author of the Fu Manchu series of novels.  What that essentially means is that it is based on stories in which Rohmer swapped his usual gross racism for ... slightly less gross racism and lots more egregious sexism.

Only slightly less racism though, as this film makes clear very early on. President Boong of Sinonesia (yes, that really is his name) is clearly a white guy in very peculiar make-up.

The sexism meanwhile mostly makes itself known through the twin vectors of (a) the whole plot basically being "only an evil woman would be unhappy with men running things" and (b) lots and lots PG-rated titillation: bared thighs, backs and midriffs, as a consequence of the fact that Sumuru apparently believes bikinis to be suitable attire for her army of female assassins.

So, it's racist and sexist; perhaps not surprising, given it is nearly sixty years old.  How is the movie otherwise?

Not very good, frankly.  The plot is weak and formulaic.  And while Shirley Eaton is clearly having a good time vamping it up as the wicked Sumuru, she's rather undermined by the fact that the script makes the villainess her own worst enemy.  Sumuru decides to kidnap the guy trying to thwart her.  Sensible enough.  Having done so, she then ... tells him all her plans. Yes, it's in the context of trying to blackmail him to work for her, but still, it's rather clumsy and an obvious way to avoid him having to do any actual investigation.

The film also features a fair number of efforts comedy.  Many of these seem to have been directly inspired by Looney Tunes, including an obvious variation of Bugs and Daffy's classic "duck season"/"rabbit season" sequence.

The other source of 'humour' is basically 'Frankie Avalon's been in musicals!', which ... I mean, okay, I can excuse one gag in this line, given that he is your star.  But the film returns to the well a number of times, which would rather be like if Deadpool 3 cracks a whole bunch of jokes about the fact that Hugh Jackman was in The Boy from Oz. 

But at least the film will have a big action finale where the good guys (who are all men, of course) storm the beaches of Sumuru's island, right?  A large scale sequence clearly inspired by the James Bond films of the period.  That'll be fun, right?  Well, it would be, if it was executed well.  Alas, it is static and dull, with unconvincing action choreography.

The 60s delivered some fun, cheesy action espionage films.  This aspires to be one of them, but falls far short of the mark.

Stitchers, Season 1 (2015)

 

Kirsten Clark is a brilliant but emotionally closed off Caltech student. Her seemingly cold demeanour is a symptom of her medical condition: temporal dysplasia. This (invented for the show) condition makes a person unable to sense the passing of time. This hinders Kirtsen's ability to form emotional relationships with others, as she does not seem to have normal reactions to events.  An example Kirsten herself gives in the show is that when she was told her foster father was dead, then to her he had been dead forever. 

Kirsten's medical condition is important because it makes her an ideal candidate for a secret government agency that employs a highly experimental process known as "stitching".  This technology allows the subject to view the slowly fragmenting memories of a recently deceased person.  The process is dangerous and can be unreliable, but it makes it possible to find the answers to mysteries that would otherwise go unsolved.

Of course, the government doesn't invest huge amounts of money into a process just to solve a few crimes.  Nor is Kirsten's suitability for the process a mere coincidence.  But you'll have to watch the show to learn the deeper secrets at play here: and you will also need to prepare yourself for not all those questions being answered, because the show as cancelled on a cliffhanger after three seasons.

The real question then is, is the journey good enough to survive the lack of an ending? 

Well.  There are a number of restaurants near my old house, many of which I visited while I was living there. At some of them I had great meals, at some the meal was a disappointment ... but the one that is relevant to this review is the one that was reliably 'alright'. I never had a bad meal there, but I also never walked out thinking 'I need to recommend this place to people'. It was the definition of 'adequate'.

Stitchers is that restaurant's TV show equivalent. The cast are likeable, the episode plots are fine, there's a longer arc at play that - although moving a little slowly, is at least recognisably moving - and I never once shouted at the TV in frustration. But it also never really rises above "an okay way to pass the time".

Let's start with the cast, which includes Alison Scoglietti of Warehouse 13 and Salli Richardson-Whitfield of Eureka. They're both solid hands and I wish they'd been given a little more to do: Richardson-Whitfield is just the tightly buttoned boss lady, while Scagliotti is largely just playing a slightly more sexual version of her Warehouse 13 character.

"I wish they'd been given more to do" is actually a problem all of the actors face with their roles.  The characters in general are a little 'flat' and lacking in much depth. They are mostly a set of plot points in human form.

As for the plots, well like I said, they're fairly solid and there's an over-arching story that is slowly unfolding.  The "stitching" concept is of course pure science fiction plot device, but I'll give the writers some credit here: they're relatively consistent with how their made-up technology works within the fiction.  I've seen plenty of shows where the capabilities and limitations of technology fluctuate wildly to meet an immediate narrative need: I appreciate it when I see a bit more effort expended, as it has been here.

 

Ultimately, though, the show doesn't quite have enough to draw me into watching more - particularly since I know it won't get a tidy conclusion.

 

One last note if you do choose to watch this show: episode "11" of this season is a Halloween episode.  It is actually set before episode 10.  So I suggest you watch it after episode 9, but before 10. Then watch 10 as the season finale - because that is what it is.

Also be aware that that the Halloween episode is quite a change of tone for the show and feels a little out of place in general.  A case I think of forcing a concept onto a show to which it was not especially well-suited.

Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)

 

Two decades ago, Evelyn and her boyfriend Waymond eloped from China to the United States, where they got married and had a daughter, Joy.  

It has all been downhill from there.  Evelyn has a tendency to cope by avoidance, and her ability to duck and weave has finally been exhausted.  She avoided filing correct tax paperwork for the laundromat she owned, and now the IRS is auditing here.  She avoided dealing with the fracture of her marriage to Waymond, and now he feels the only way to make her talk is to ask for a divorce.  She avoided acknowledging her daughter's sexuality and non-Chinese partner, and now they are estranged.

All in all, Evelyn really, really doesn't have time to deal with anything else going on in her life.  But she's going to have to, because she's about to find herself at the centre of multiversal martial arts madness.  It seems in a parallel reality to her own, another Evelyn invented technology that allowed people to transfer their consciousness between realities.  Unfortunately, that Evelyn's disregard for safety splintered the mind of her best agent.  Jobu Tupaki, as this agent is now known, experiences all universes at once and can verse-jump and manipulate matter at will.  Alas, this has left her as filled with rage and madness as she is with power.  She seeks to destroy the multiverse as the only way she can know peace.

How can this Evelyn; the greatest "failure" of all Evelyns in the multiverse, a woman who cannot even save her laundromat; possibly hope to save the multiverse?

Everything Everywhere All At Once was a surprise commercial success.  It initially opened in only 10 theatres.  By its third week, it was in over two thousand.  It would ultimately recoup somewhere between five and ten times its production budget in worldwide box office.  The variation in that multiple is due to conflicting reports as to what the film actually cost.

One number that is quite firmly known, however, is the number of Academy Awards the film won: it picked up an astounding seven Oscars.  And not just the low profile technical awards, either.  It was in fact shunned in those categories.  Instead, it picked up Best picture, Best director, Best Original Screenplay and no less than three of the four main 'best actor' awards.  It got a lot of love in other awards ceremonies, too: this is a movie that has an entire Wikipedia page just to list the nominations it received.  

Clearly, a lot of people enjoyed the film, and I'd certainly count myself among that number.  It is not, however, a movie that I would give an unqualified recommendation, because I definitely don't think it will be to all tastes.  In particular, some people will not appreciate the film's absurdist humour. It gets very out there at times. Some viewers will be left entirely cold by this, and that will almost certainly spoil their enjoyment of the movie.

For my own tastes, not everything was a hit, but there were multiple moments I found extremely funny.  I particularly liked the script's willingness to build on a joke.  Things that seem like a passing, inconsequential gag like Evelyn's misunderstanding of the movie Ratatouille come back in unexpected ways.  Ways that don't necessarily massively impact the plot, but which do serve to flesh out and illustrate the true diversity encompassed by an infinite multiverse of possibilities.

In fact, the film does has a consistent pattern of starting quite small with most of its concepts, and then growing more and more wild as time goes on.  The 'improbable things' people must do to trigger their multidimensional powers, for instance, start with pretty minor stuff like 'wear your shoes on the wrong feet' but ... well, let's just say they escalate from there.  

This is a clever structural decision since it eases the viewer in, step by step.  Smart stuff.

However, despite all the wackiness, the science fiction plot trappings, and the martial arts sequences, at its core Everything Everywhere All At Once is a quite thoughtful movie about life, love, family and the human condition.  What the film has to say about these things is perhaps not particularly novel or surprising, but it says them quite well.

Ultimately, some people will love it, some (me!) will like it, and others will be pretty "meh", or even flat out hate it.  Heck, if you're feeling adventurous, it may be worth seeing the movie just to find out in which category you fall.  You're probably not going to see anything else like Everything Everywhere All At Once! Unless of course Hollywood decides to trot out a bunch of copy-cat projects, of course.  Though the recent WGA and SAG strikes have probably stymied or at least delayed, any such plans.

 

The Hardy Boys, Season 1 (2020)

 

After a fishing boat is raided and a lockbox containing a radioactive Egyptian idol is stolen, a mysterious man kills the captain and almost the entire crew of the boat - only one man escapes alive.

Some time later, while on the way to her eldest son's baseball game, Laura Hardy notices she is being followed.  After the game, the two Hardy boys and their father are informed that Laura has been killed in a car accident.

Papa Hardy apparently decides to add insult to injury when he informs his sons that they will be moving to the small town of Bridgeport for the summer.  Elder son Frank is upset to be pulled away from his team, his friends and his girlfriend.  Younger son Joe lacks the same social connections, but clearly expects the kids there to be even more dull and hostile than those at his current school.

But as will soon become clear, Bridgeport is a far more important and complicated place than it appears.  And if their father thought moving there would keep his sons out of whatever danger claimed their mother ... well, it's safe to say he's taken them out of the frying pan and into the fire.

This is the sixth TV adaptation of the Hardy Boys book series, which originally launched in 1927.  It updates the timeframe to the 1980s, perhaps to cash in on the same nostalgia factor that Stranger Things used to such success; or perhaps as a canny writing tactic.  In that era, kids were allowed much greater freedom to roam around unsupervised, and narrative complications such as cell phones and internet searches are off the table.  The setting is nicely realised.  Certainly, as someone who lived through the 1980s, I definitely recognised many of the fashions and technological devices on show!

Rather more unusually, this version of The Hardy Boys also introduces a strong supernatural element.  Objects can and do have mystical powers.  And it's here that things go wrong. While I'm not opposed to the idea in principle, the execution of this element falls flat, not least because it directly contributes to several elements of the main mystery becoming frankly rather nonsensical.  Which has you might imagine, is a real problem for a mystery show.  

 

It's by no means the only flaw in this area, but I have to call out in particular that the instigating event for the whole series - Laura Hardy's planned exposé of the secret conspiracy that controls these magical artefacts, and the lethal steps taken to silence her - make no sense at all.  The show provides no indication that Mrs Hardy had any actual evidence of genuine supernatural powers being at work, and without such evidence, her whole article would either amount to "in this small town, it is the richest people who run things" (which as news stories go ... isn't one), or would be laughed out of any serious news room as pure fairy tales.

 

It's a shame that the main plot doesn't really deliver, because the show does have some good elements. For instance, I did like the subtle hints at something more than friendship between the boys' aunt another character's mother.  The 'under the radar', very tentative nature of this relationship is I think a good reflection of the times in which the show is set, and how careful non-straight people had to be.  I'm glad that public attitudes toward same-sex couples are better now, and they no longer have to hide themselves as much as they once did, but if you set your show in the 1980s and have characters interested in a same-sex relationship, there is value in being truthful about the social issues they faced.  So thumbs up for the work done in that space.

 

I also feel I should call out the strong work done by the young cast.  They all deliver good performances, and I think deserved better material to work with.  Alas though, even they can't paper over the weaknesses in the main plot.

I Think We're Alone Now (2018)

 

Del lives alone.  Not 'alone' in the sense that he's the only one in his household - though he is.  'Alone' in the sense that as far as he knows, he is the only living human left on the planet.

Everyone else in Del's home town died, in an unspecified manner, "on a Tuesday afternoon", and there have been no radio communications or broadcasts.  Believing he is the last man on Earth, Del has set about leading a peaceful existence in his hometown, living in the library where he used to work and spending the day clearing out people's homes and burying the dead. 

And then one night, he sees fireworks.

The person responsible for this turns out to be a young woman named Grace.  Although Grace is noisy, and somewhat erratic in her behaviour, Del can't quite bring himself to force her to leave.  Instead, he slowly becomes used to her presence, and when he teaches her his methods for clearing the homes of the dead, it provides am opportunity for her to help him, and for the pair of them to bond.

Which of course means that things are about to get complicated ...

This post-apocalyptic drama relies very heavily on its two main cast members, particularly Peter Dinklage, who plays Del.  Much of the first act is just him; while the second act is entirely about how Grace's arrival turns his very structured life upside down and how the two of them must learn to live together.

Fortunately, in Dinklage and Elle Fanning you have the actors to meet this kind of challenge.  Dinklage in particular is great, especially at the non-verbal aspects of acting.  For instance, there's a sequence where only his eyes are visible, and you can see the emotional pain.  It's really great work.

I think the script also does a good job of balancing the two characters.  There's a hood dynamic, as Grace is feasibly both the kind of person who would drive Del crazy, but also the kind who can thaw his icy exterior.

Unfortunately, after all this solid establishing work, the script lacks a bit on the follow-through.  For instance, there's a sub-plot involving a disagreement about a stray dog - Grace wants to adopt it, while Del wants it gone (possibly because he thinks Grace will also go, if it does).  Del gets his way, and then the sub-plot just kind of stops; there is never a real acknowledgement of Del's actions, and he and Grace never mention the animal again.

Also, while it has been obvious all along that Grace has not been completely honest about her background, and there is another shoe to drop, the dropping of that shoe is a bit ... fumbled.

As you might have expected, there are more survivors, and they come looking for Grace.  But little about this sequence makes much sense.  How did they find her? Why did they go to the immense effort it must have taken to do so? The film doesn't present any convincing need or motivation.

On the plus side, I did like that the newcomers' sinister scheme of sinisterness is, in their minds, benevolent.  They're wrong, of course: what they are doing us deeply misguided and quite frightening. But they're not the usual 'evil for the sake of it' monsters that we often see in post-apocalyptic stories.  This does result in a rather more low-key denouement than might be expected.  Some people may find it a little underwhelming, in fact.  Still, I appreciate the effort to try to do something a little more nuanced than normal, in this regard.

I Think We're Alone Now definitely has its flaws, but it has enough strengths that I don't regret seeing it.

The Legend of Vox Machina, Season 2 (2023)

 

As the people of Emon gather to celebrate Vox Machina's heroic adventures in Whitestone (last season), the city comes under assault from four dragons who call themselves the Chroma Conclave.  Even one of these beasts alone would be a terrible danger to Emon.  Combined, they completely obliterate the city's defenses and inflict heavy casualties, including the Sovereign.

Hopelessly outmatched, it is all Vox Machina can do to escape alive.  They flee first to their keep, then when that it razed by the 'weakest' of the dragons, all the way back to Whitestone.  A conference with their allies there sets the adventurers on a new path: seeking powerful artefacts called 'Vestiges' to assist them in facing the dragons.

Of course, finding people willing to go up against not one but four such powerful creatures is far from an easy task, and the dragons themselves aren't about to simply sit idle while some ragged bunch of would-be heroes tries to collect super-weapons to use against them.

A great many adventures - and dirty jokes - are sure to follow.

This is the second season of the animated show based on the events of the first of Critical Role's Dungeons & Dragons campaigns.  I very much enjoyed the first season, and was looking forward to this series.  So did it live up to expectations?

Not entirely.

There is a fair bit to like about the show, still.  The opening dragon rampage is a really quite intense sequence, effectively underlining how overwhelming this new threat actually is.  Vox Machina have defeated a dragon once before, but it was both complacent and ill-prepared, and even with some very useful advice on its weak point, they nearly died.  This first encounter is merely a desperate race to escape alive, as scores of other characters die around them.

The show's biggest problem is that opening sequence is probably the strongest part of the whole season.  A big contributor to this, I think, is that the rest of the season is over-stuffed with content.  There is just so much going on as Vox Machina not only visit multiple new locations in search of the 'Vestiges', but also encounter a host of new (to the audience, anyway) characters.  Many of the newcomers prove to have history with our 'heroes', and between explaining what all these new places are and how all these new faces fit into the characters' backgrounds, the show ends up bulging at the seams.  

It's all a bit of a whirlwind, but also at times it seems like there's lot of activity that isn't actually accomplishing all that much.  I think this is in large part because the show too-often stops all forward momentum to have extended fight scenes.  The many battles with the black Umbrasyl, in particular, ultimately got a bit wearying for my tastes.

As for the new characters who get introduced: most seem interesting, but they generally get only a limited amount of time to shine because the show is galloping through so much plot.  There's also the matter of Anna Ripley, a minor antagonist in season one who returns here but whose role in the story lacks much context or any resolution - I suspect that she is mostly on screen to remind us that she exists, and that she will play a bigger role in season three.

I also don't think this season is as funny as the first.  Not because there are fewer jokes; there are just as many, maybe more; but because they are pretty much exactly the same jokes. 

Finally, I have some minor visual quibbles.  This season features a lot more "really big monsters" - dragons and sphinxes and such - all of which are done in CGI.  I don't feel that these always integrate all that well with the traditional-style animation used for the main cast and other "human scale" characters.

Overall, I don't regret watching this: it's still a pretty fun fantasy adventure show.  I will definitely tune in for season three when it appears. But I definitely think this season was not quite as enjoyable as season one.

Alto (2015)

 

Frankie is an Italian American pursuing a career as a singer-songwriter with her band. Frankie's life suddently becomes a lot more interesting than usual when she discovers a dead body in her rental car and turns it over to the police. It turns out to be the corpse of a mob boss, and at the urging of her mafia-obsessed sister Heather, Frankie somehow finds herself attending the dead man's funeral.

There, Frankie meets Nicolette, a charming, confident, beautiful woman who, unbeknownst to Frankie, is also the daughter of the new mob boss.

The two women begin to spend time together, which quickly starts to complicate things.  Some of this is complication is because of the emerging romantic interest between them.  Nicolette clearly wants more than friendship, while Frankie - who has a boyfriend, though admittedly not one who enriches her life her very much - struggles to process her feelings.

The rest of the complication, however, comes from the fact that neither the cops nor the mob believe that Frankie has innocently stumbled into Nicolette's life.  Troubles of the heart could soon be the least of her concerns - her freedom or her life might be in danger ...

This is a pleasant little romantic comedy about two women meeting, falling in love, and - as often happens in romantic comedies - dealing with quirky, unexpected complications along the way.  It's definitely comedy with a lower-case 'c', though: there are few outright laughs here.  Instead it's mostly humour of the  'wry smile' family drama variety ... with added mobsters.

Speaking of mobsters, one theme from which the film manages to find several of those wry smiles is interplay of the pride Italian-Americans take in their culture and heritage, and the less-than-enthusiastic feeling they have for the popular culture depiction of the mafia.

The film profits from a solid cast.  There's no "big stars" here but the cast are all capable, and several are recognisable in an "I know I've seen them somewhere before" kind of way.

Frankie herself is played by 2004 American Idol runner-up Diana DeGarmo.  Transitions from such shows to scripted film and TV can sometimes be rocky, but there are no issues here.  I'd definitely include DeGarmo's performance in the "capable cast doing solid work" category.  Likely it helped that she had done a variety of musical theatre and film and TV work before this movie.

Not surprisingly, given DeGarmo is playing an aspiring musician in the film, she also features on three tracks in the movie's soundtrack.

So do I have any complaints?  Only one, really, though I do think it's a somewhat important weakness.  This is that the central romance seems very quick.  Frankie and Nicolette don't interact all that much before they are kissing - and remember that Frankie, at least, is at least supposed to be "taken". Even if she is clearly not satisfied in that relationship, she hasn't ended it.  Both the main players are likeable enough that it's fairly easy to let this slide, and it's certainly not the only film that I've seen where this is an issue - people understandably want to get to the romantic heart of the story, after all - but it was still a bit of a niggle for me as I was watching the film.

Overall, though, this is decent lightweight fare.  Solid lazy afternoon or evening, "just want something undemanding and fun" kind of stuff.