Unhinged (2020)

With a talented writer and director having fun with their material, Unhinged would have been a decent enough thriller for film fans to enjoy easily enough. The addition of Russell Crowe in the lead role, giving a performance as gleefully psychotic as any I can think of, makes it even better, turning it into something that feels surprisingly unmissable for this particular subgenre.

Essentially, this is a “*insert noun* from hell” movie. Crowe plays a character who is having such a bad time, apparently, that his only solution is to kill some people. And with that killing done, he is sitting in traffic, and zones out while a traffic light turns to green, when he is given a horn honk from Rachel (Caren Pistorius). Rachel is late, a bit stressed, and also has her son, Kyle (Gabriel Bateman), in the car with her. Thinking that she is having a bad day, the man she upset with her horn honking becomes determined to show her just how bad her day can get.

Director Derrick Borte has an interesting filmography that includes Cat Run (very enjoyable stuff) and The Joneses (excellent). He doesn’t seem drawn to any one genre, but rather seems to simply react to material he thinks he can treat well. Carl Ellsworth, on the other hand, definitely feels comfortable writing thrillers, having also worked on the excellent Disturbia, Red Eye, and the remake of The Last House On The Left. Ellsworth knows how to make the most of a cracking concept, and both he and Borte do superb work here. Because the unique aspect to this movie is the fact that Crowe’s character gives absolutely zero shits. He doesn’t care who seems him acting like a psycho, and doesn’t care who else he has to hurt by his one-man tsunami of violence and pain.

Crowe is more than up to the task when it comes to being intimidating, vicious, and also playing things in a way that feels very darkly comedic. Pistorius is a solid lead, starting off bewildered by the sharp turn of events before accepting the madness and digging deep to find extra reserves of strength. Bateman is a decent child actor, there’s a great little scene for Jimmi Simpson that underlines just how dangerous Crowe’s character is, and Austin P. McKenzie, Juliene Joyner, and others do a good job portraying likeable individuals who could very easily become unable to continue breathing due to the actions of one madman.

If this had gone along the same lines of many other films we have seen like it then Unhinged would not be as memorable as it is. It goes from zero to one hundred within the first few scenes, and that makes it a memorable viewing experience. It allows the film to feel different from others in this subgenre, despite heading to the same third act. And I like to think that some candy cane scissors owned by the lead character were a nice nod to another superb thriller about a vicious psycho behind the wheel of a big engine. 

Highly recommended. In fact, you will be mad at yourself if you dismiss it as something not worth your time. And the fact that it's a nice and well-paced 90 minutes (something becoming increasingly rare nowadays) is another reason to recommend it.

8/10

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Prime Time: Playmobil: The Movie (2019)

Considering Playmobil is usually the easier, more childish, precursor to LEGO, it's completely unsurprising to find that Playmobil: The Movie is a more childish and simpler film compared to the brilliance of The LEGO Movie (or, indeed, any of the main LEGO movies). It still has some fun moments here and there, and it's a good little adventure for kids to enjoy, but it's definitely an inferior selection of blocky toy movie moments. It has some issues that are easy to point out, but I don't think it deserved to do as poorly as it did at the box office. I'll take this over either of the Trolls movies any time.

The plot, and I'll keep it as simple as I have to, revolves around Marla (Anya Taylor-Joy) and her younger brother, Charlie (Gabriel Bateman). There are dead parents, tension between the siblings, and a large toy exhibition that has a magical Playmobil set in it. Marla and Charlie end up in the Playmobil world. Charlie ends up in a very bad situation, one that may see him unable to leave the world, and it's up to Marla to try and save him, aided by Del (Jim Gaffigan), a food truck driver who is currently using his vehicle to transport and sell magic hay.

Directed by Lino DiSalvo, his first feature after working on a number of animated movies before this, Playmobil: The Movie suffers from inconsistency in a number of areas, and it's almost as if DiSalvo worked on various scenes without remembering that they should come together to form a satisfying whole movie. The script, co-written by Blaise Hemingway, Greg Erb, and Jason Oremland, is sometimes content to keep kids distracted by the figurines onscreen, and various environments, and then seems to remember that they can add in some more jokes. You also get a few songs, none of which are memorable, and all feel very much like an afterthought.

Taylor-Joy and Bateman both do well in their roles, faring better in Playmobil form than when they have to do the live-action work that bookends the animation. Gaffigan is a fun presence in the role of Del, and you also get some good work from Kenan Thompson. Less impressive is Adam Lambert, playing the bloodthirsty Emperor Maximus with a distinct lack of any real pizzazz. Thankfully, the lacklustre turn from Lambert is compensated for by the real star of the show, Daniel Radcliffe, playing a James Bond type, named Rex Dasher, who comes with his own theme tune and an amusing lack of self-awareness.

I can absolutely see why this is viewed as a lesser option when compared to many other animated movies. Generally, it IS a lesser option. And perhaps people thought it was covering the same ground as certain other toy-based movies, without being as good as those. Which is also completely true, as I already said in the opening paragraph. But it's really not a terrible film, certainly not in the scenes in between those shoehorned songs anyway. If you have younger children in the house who want something bright and fun then you could do worse than this. That's maybe not a ringing endorsement, but it's probably a nicer appraisal than many others have given it.

6/10

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Child's Play (2019)

Much like the killer doll at the centre of it all, there's something about Child's Play that is just a bit off from the very first scenes. I am never automatically against remakes, but this one just seemed like a pretty bad idea, and one that was being churned out for the wrong reasons. Whether you like them or not, the original movie series was still growing under the watchful eye of Don Mancini. All seems to be going ahead with the TV show idea, which I hope comes out soon enough for me to be able to forget all about this attempt to reboot a fresh money-maker.

As you may have already surmised, I didn't like Child's Play. It's a film that doesn't ever make the right decisions at any point, treating viewers as if they will all be situated perfectly within the teen age bracket that it is aiming for (and I know some teens who won't be impressed either).

It all starts with a disgruntled factory worker removing safety protocols from a toy doll before then committing suicide. One thing leads to another, and that doll (a Buddi who decides to name himself Chucky, voiced by Mark Hamill) ends up being owned by young Andy Barclay (Gabriel Bateman). Andy lives with his mother (Karen, played by Aubrey Plaza), it's a new home for them, there's a man on the scene, there's a police detective who is often in the building as he visits his mother, and a few other characters that are supposed to be worth watching. Chucky starts killing, all for the sake of his friendship with Andy, and his ability to be linked to various apps makes him a lot more dangerous.

I am not familiar with the previous film by director Lars Klevberg, or writer Tyler Burton Smith, but it seems, rightly or wrongly, that they were picked here as a couple of people who would toe the line and give the studio what was expected. I am assuming an awful lot here, and may be being very unfair, but it's hard to see anything here that represents a unique vision or talent. If that was the case, it would be easier to believe that Klevberg and/or Smith were chosen because someone had seen something prominent in their work that they thought could work well with the  Child's Play concept.

Here are the things that work in this movie. The music, another great bit of work by Bear McCreary (who has been on top form recently). The casting of Mark Hamill in the vital voice role of Chucky. The first major human murder scene.

Almost everything else fails. Take, for example, the fact that a character is slightly hearing-impaired. This is all well and good if it is for representation. It isn't though. It's mentioned once or twice in a way that makes us think it will be very important later in the movie, and then isn't used in any way that feels necessary. Take a scene in which Chucky uses an app to terrorise and kill someone. Except he doesn't. The big set-piece ends with our knife-wielding doll . . . wielding a knife. One death scene has a character jumping up to stand on a desk that has a bloody circular saw on it. The relationship between mother and son never feels real, unlike the original film, there aren't any actual scares (although, to be fair, the film does provide a couple of amusing moments, which prove that it occasionally works as the black comedy it is trying to be), and the third act staggers from one horribly ill-conceived moment to the next.

Bateman is okay as Andy, Plaza is as underused as she so often is in more mainstream fare, and Smith is the best character in the movie. Nobody stinks up the place, not even the other younger cast members who work alongside Bateman in the strand of the film that plays out a scenario building up the whole "the kids will save everyone" vibe, but there's also nobody good enough to help distract from the many shortcomings of the film.

Horror movies can be fun, they can be dumb, they can be sheer entertainment without having to be anything else. But there have to be certain things done right to allow film-makers to get away with that. It can be hard to put a finger on the things that have the opposite effect, sometimes it's just an overwhelming feeling of laziness, sometimes it's a lack of logic that breaks the rules set out within the movie universe, but this film has enough of them to spoil your enjoyment. Well, it has enough to spoil my enjoyment. Others have had fun with it.

4/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.