I managed to squeeze in more movies this weekend than I had anticipated! Yes, I attended a film festival, but you’ll hear all about that next week. Here’s what made the cut.
Werewolves Within – I had Showtime for the week, so I was happy to see this Tribeca Film Festival offering available for me to watch again! I remember back during the festival that I mainly rented this for the cast, but was beyond surprised by how much I liked it. I was even more shocked to learn it was based off a video game! Critically, I know this is way better than Uncharted, so you’d be doing yourself a massive favor in checking this out. Either way, a group of people get stranded at a large bed in breakfast in a snowy town where pretty quickly they have to determine who among them is a werewolf so they can stop them from killing anyone else. Equal parts jump scares and laugh out loud moments. Definitely worth the re-watch.
Morbius – After what seemed like a lifetime, this latest Sony Marvel offering finally hit theaters. Now, I wasn’t expecting much and it certainly didn’t deliver over my expectations, but it wasn’t quite as bad as critics were claiming (and still are). Jared Leto plays Dr. Michael Morbius, a genius of a man who is trying to find a cure for the disease that’s killing him. In a last-ditch effort he uses some vampire bat blood and he pretty much changes into a heinous blood-thirsty beast immediately. Somehow he’s able to control himself enough with artificial blood, but his long-time pal with the same disease is fine drinking the real stuff. My biggest complaint is that they should have fleshed out everything a lot more. It had all the elements, but just rushed through them. Funniest scene hands down though was right after Leto transformed for the first time and there was steam to go along with his buff appearance. Right out of a cheesy romance!
North Hollywood – I officially dislike skating movies. This film popped up on my radar a little while ago and I only found it again scrolling through Showtime’s offerings. It had Miranda Cosgrove and Vince Vaughn, so that was really all I needed. Too bad I’d be spending almost all that time with a dick of a teen named Michael. He’s just graduated high school and is dead set on becoming a professional skater. This means he alienates his friends and is honestly vile towards his father. I suppose in the end it was about this father/son relationship, and how they both needed to learn to understand each other, but the journey was uncomfortable to watch. The kid just seemed ungrateful and that really irked me. I suppose it should have come as no surprise that because this movie is adjacently connected to Mid 90s that I would dislike. Fool me once…
Violet – This is another drama that intrigued me a while ago with it’s casting, but boy did it come up short. Olivia Munn (never really cared for her) plays the titular Violet, a woman who exudes confidence and success, but is being bullied into doing and feeling certain things by her inner voice. After some pretty big missteps she is able to ignore this inner voice for a time, but it isn’t until she cuts out the bad in her life that she is finally able to ignore the voice for good. I liked the concept, but just not the execution. I found the inner voice to be pretty annoying and found that it maybe could have been more effective if it was Munn’s voice instead of Justin Theroux (neat, though!). Overall, not my cup of tea, and I kind of have a hard time imaginig anyone else I know enjoying this.