For It Is Man's Number: avantika

Showing posts with label avantika. Show all posts

Wednesday, 1 April 2026

Prime Time: Pretty Lethal (2026)

When I heard that Pretty Lethal was an action movie with ballerinas at the heart of it, and when I saw the poster with the tagline "blood, sweat and tutus", I mistakenly assumed that this would be something along the lines of, well, Ballerina. I already had the film playing out in my head. A group of innocent-looking ballerinas working together to successfully complete one deadly mission after another, probably using their skillset and grace to their major advantage. I was a bit off, but not entirely incorrect.

Pretty Lethal DOES have ballerinas using their skillset and grace to their advantage, but these are actual ballerinas. They're not trained killers. They just end up in a situation that forces them to become inventive and fight back against a large number of armed and menacing men.

It all starts with a bus breaking down. Our featured dancers end up sheltering in an inn, one owned and run by Devora Kasimer (Uma Thurman). A bad man is embarrassed by a woman, which leads to death, and that's what leads to the ballerinas all being kept in place until it's time to get rid of them. Once they realise how serious their situation is, however, the ballerinas find a way to dance around some of the baddies and weaponise their ballet moves.

With two women at the helm, (this was written by Kate Freund, who also has a small role in front of the camera, and directed by Vicky Jewson) there's definitely something running through Pretty Lethal that allows it to feel just a bit different from the many other films it could have been. It's bloody and violent once everything kicks off, but it's also very much about women supporting one another, and reminds viewers more than once about the pain and dedication required to become a celebrated ballerina. There's a really nice balance of the masculine and feminine here, perhaps inevitable due to the main premise, but also nurtured by both Freund and Jewson.

The cast all help too, particularly the youngsters who have to fight for their lives while wearing tutus and looking woefully out of their depth . . . until they show a natural talent for despatching brawny henchmen. The main five are played by Maddie Ziegler, Lana Condor, Avantika, Millicent Simmonds, and Iris Apatow, and they're all fantastic at being believably frightened, but also determined to fight back, for the sake of themselves and those right alongside them. Thurman has a lot of fun portaying a heavily-accented villain with a real appreciation for the discipline of ballet, Tamás Szabó Sipos is the main instigator of all the trouble, and easy to hate as he spends a lot of time trying to stay protected under the cloak of his father's reputation.

If someone else hadn't already described this as "reasonably en pointe" then you know that I would have rushed to use that great pun. I was too late, unfortunately, and I don't think anyone is waiting to hear this referred to as Tutu Fast Tutu Furious. It's maybe not quite as packed with violence and death as some would like, but it does maintain a good amount of energy and momentum once everything kicks off. If you're looking for a new action flick to help you pass just under 90 minutes then you shouldn't be too disappointed if you give this your time.

7/10

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Tuesday, 18 June 2024

Tarot (2024)

I think I need to clarify something at the very start of this review. I didn’t like Tarot. Not only did I dislike it, it is one of those slick and tame horror movies that embodies the worst of modern horror. There’s even a moment that makes use of my favourite trope to laugh at (the train that can quietly sneak up on someone while going along at great speed). But, and this is a big but (because I often like big buts and I cannot lie), there were elements here that I appreciated, and would have loved to see incorporated in a better film.

The plot could be written on the back of a matchbox. Some youngsters find a deck of tarot cards, one reads the fortune for each of the friends, and then they start dying in ways that seem linked to those readings. That is it. There’s then a race against time to figure things out, and figure out a way to prevent any further deaths.

Adapted from a book, “Horrorscope” by Nicholas Adams, this lazy mess was both co-written and co-directed by Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg, both seemingly unable to do more than the bare minimum for the material. The dialogue is often inane, the plotting doesn’t have enough distractions around a few decent set-pieces, and the screen is often darker than my soul, which is a shame when you actually get a chance to enjoy some of the production design.

The cast are almost all eminently forgettable, this is unlikely to be a big break for any of them, with the only two standouts being Jacob Batalon and Avantika, only because I have been familiar with them in other film roles. If Batalon’s character was played by anyone else then he could have easily been far too annoying, and he comes close as it is. Harriet Slater and Adain Bradley get most of the screentime, compared to everyone else in their core group, but viewers will just want them to get out of the way while they try to get a better view of the tarot card characters.

Those characters are a big plus for the film, with the design of them making up for the poor editing choices and inconsistency of their methodology. It wouldn’t have taken much to turn this into something decent, either showcasing the characters in a better way or, alternatively, hiding them away to make the set-pieces more in line with some Final Destination moments. Cohen and Halberg go for the easiest and laziest options though, and the end result is a missed opportunity that never gives you anything to fully appreciate.

And yet . . . I STILL preferred this to The First Omen. Which probably says enough to make people completely ignore my opinions on recent horror movies.

4/10

Friday, 5 April 2024

Mean Girls (2024)

Maybe it is my brain refusing to accept the passage of time, maybe it is the idea that turning Mean Girls into a musical isn’t a very good idea (although this was already a stage show before being turned into this film), but I was not looking forward to seeing this. The cast of the original movie were all so perfect, the script was consistently brilliant, and it hasn’t exactly faded away into irrelevance since it first hit our screens. Despite my major misgivings, and an extra Spidey-sense tingle when they advertised this without letting people know it was a musical, I tried to stay open-minded. I needn’t have bothered. This is pretty dire.

Angourie Rice plays Cady Heron, a teenage girl who ends up experiencing the ups and downs of high school when she finally gets a chance to attend one after time spent being home-schooled by her mother (Jenna Fischer) while they lived in Africa. Cady struggles, but is soon befriended by Janis (Aul’i’ Cravalho) and Damian (Jaquel Spivey). After Janis and Damian explain the school cliques to Cady, and then see her unexpectedly befriended by “the plastics”, they come up with a plan to destabilize and break down the established heirarchy. It all relies on taking down the top mean girl, Regina George (Reneé Rapp), and her two main confidants (Karen, played by Avantika, and Gretchen, played by Bebe Wood).

With Tina Fey still in charge of the writing, having adapted Rosalind Wiseman’s book for the original movie and then worked on the musical, it’s impossible to call this a completely laugh-free zone. Unfortunately, the funniest lines are the lines that worked so well in the first film, and were arguably all delivered better by that original cast (with no offence intended to the players here).

Married co-directors Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr. feel locked in by the script, and they aren’t helped by the weak selection of songs, all of which lack energy and creative staging. The production design, wardrobe choices, etc. all work very well, but the script and direction stumble in between each one of the unwelcome songs.

The cast try hard, and it is because of them that I kept willing this to improve before the ending rolled along. Rice is a decent lead, although she does better with the wide-eyed innocence than she does in the third act of the film, and Rapp is such a great Regina that a better film around her would show her to be equal to the Regina played by Rachel McAdams. Fey and Tim Meadows reprise their roles, but somehow don’t do quite as well, Fischer is sweet in her few scenes, and Busy Philipps is fun as the wannabe-cool mom this time around. Sadly, the rest of the cast have to settle for being lesser replacements for their original counterparts. Cravalho, Spivey, Avantika, and Wood are all good. They just aren’t as good as those who made the roles their own the first time around. The same can be said of Christopher Briney (playing the young man who catches Cady’s eye) and Mahi Alam (head of the mathletes).

If you love the original Mean Girls then I don’t imagine you will love this. If you have yet to see it then I don’t imaging you will love this. It is hard to think of who will get the most from it, especially when the original film is just so much better, and isn’t punctuated by unmemorable and unnecessary songs.

3/10

Sunday, 15 May 2022

Netflix And Chill: Senior Year (2022)

I have been someone who, for a few years now, has gone against the majority opinion when it comes to Rebel Wilson. I actually think that she's good at what she does. Well, I used to think that. I am now, belatedly, coming to agree with the people who dislike her film appearances. Just a quick glance over her recent movie roles is enough to show that the bad far outweighs the good. And Senior Year is one of the bad ones.

In a standard ridiculous movie concept, Stephanie is a young woman who managed to turn herself from uncool nerd to super-popular cheerleader captain, with the boyfriend she always wanted and her life unfolding exactly the way she wanted it. That all changes when a cheerleading move leads to her being comatose for twenty years. When she finally wakes up, Stephanie (now played by Rebel Wilson) struggles to adjust. It was just moments ago that she was about to become Prom Queen. She still wants that. She wants her moment. But a lot of things have changed. Her friend, Martha (Mary Holland), is now the school principal. Another friend, Seth (Sam Richardson), works at the school. Both would like to help Stephanie adjust, but both find themselves disappointed and unsurprised when she starts to fall back into very bad habits, spurred on by social media and a desperate need to right the ship that sailed away without her twenty years ago.

Written by Andrew Knauer, Arthur Pielli, and Brandon Scott Jones, the biggest problem with Senior Year is the fact that the central character is too thoroughly unpleasant. That's sometimes all well and good, especially when you expect a predictable bit of redemption and some lessons learned in the third act, but this is a film that doesn't really rectify anything that way. It tries to make it look that way, but it doesn't. So you have someone who has, for the most part, acted like an asshat to many people around her, and she avoids any punishment that feels proportionate to her actions.

Director Alex Hardcastle has a pretty easy job, keeping Wilson as the focus while things move from one scene utilising a pop hit and some nostalgia to the next scene . . . often utilising a pop hit and some nostalgia. The fact that it all ends with the kind of sing-and-dancealong moment usually shoehorned in at the end of an animated family flick maybe indicates how much he underestimates anyone choosing to view this. The problems may have come from the script, but Hardcastle just seeming to go along with everything really compounds them.

Wilson is Wilson. This isn't a good role for her, but she has moments where she gets to deliver her usual schtick, which can lead to an occasional chuckle. Thankfully, the supporting cast are much better, with Holland once again stealing the show (she was also great in Happiest Season) and Richardson very sweet and funny as the friend who has long held a candle for Stephanie. Zoë Chao is the high school nemesis who has grown up and starts off by pretending that the past is left in the past (spoiler - it's not), Justin Hartley is very funny as Blaine, her husband who was once dating Stephanie, and Chris Parnell plays a typically wonderful movie dad. Other good turns come from Avantika and Joshua Colley, students who befriend Stephanie when she rejoins high school, and Jade Bender, playing the daughter of the old high school nemesis who is manipulated by her mother into competing with someone she doesn't want to compete with.

I really disliked the first third of this, the middle section was a bit better, and I can't say that I completely hated the third act while everything was playing out. Thinking about it more though, as the terrible musical sequence was playing out, I started to resent giving it my time. I feel bad for contributing to whatever viewing figures are collected for these streaming releases, and I hope others don't make my mistake. Although it's not irredeemably awful, this is bad. I hope those who still managed to make the most of their roles are rewarded by some better movie options in their near future. And I hope that the director and writers seriously consider their approach to the medium before their next project.

4/10