Eenie Meanie (2025)

Written and directed by Shawn Simmons, Eenie Meanie has the air of something given to someone finally allowed a shot at feature film-making after years spent helping to create entertainment for the small screen. A quick glance through the filmography of Simmons confirms that, yes, that's exactly what has happened. Simmons has his name on about 30 or 40 various TV show episodes, but this is his first major film credit. He helps himself immensely by getting Samara Weaving for the main role. Sadly, he spends a lot of the movie then working against himself.

Weaving plays Edie (nicknamed Eenie Meanie by some). Edie used to be the best getaway driver in the business, but she got out of that life. Unfortunately, her on/off boyfriend, John (Karl Glusman), didn't. He now owes Nico (Andy Garcia) a large debt, and Nico has a plan for John to repay that debt with a major score. It will need an excellent getaway driver though.

There's nothing new here. The super-skilled getaway driver has been done in a number of movies. The ex-criminal unable to go straight because they've been manipulated into one last job has been done in almost every other crime flick from the past hundred years. And daring heists that have people using skill and a bit of luck to defy impossible odds? Well, I'm sure you can name a few films with that main plot point. So the only real novelty here is having Weaving as the central figure, and it's her charisma and talent that make this more watchable than it otherwise would be.

Simmons makes the mistake of not really nailing down the tone, which doesn't help. Some moments are fun, some moments are thrilling, and some moments take viewers on a hard turn into a road called downbeat street. If these different strands flowed and blended well then Eenie Meanie could have been a pleasant surprise, but they do not. None of the fun moments reach their full potential as viewers are reminded of the high stakes, the same goes for the thrills (a couple of expected driving stunts aside), and the most downbeat moments feel as if they've been spliced in from another film entirely.

Weaving is great. When is she not? That's rhetorical. Don't answer, especially as I anxiously try to remember the many film appearances she has racked up that aren't deserving of her good work. Glusman is fine, although he has to struggle at portraying a character who feels quite irredeemable. He's a greedy and selfish idiot, and doesn't get any big moment to turn things around. Garcia delivers the goods in a few scenes that are real highlights, and the rest of the supporting cast members - including Steve Zahn, Jermaine Fowler, Marshawn Lynch, Randall Park, Mike O'Malley, and Chris Bauer - are almost all wasted. Nobody is given enough time or character development, which is more annoying when it means more time spent in the company of Glusman's character.

There's a nice muscle car being put through its paces in the third act, the score is decent, and Weaving gets to carry the film. It's just a shame that there's nothing more to it, and it's a shame that I was thinking about twenty better movies I could have rewatched instead of giving this one 106 minutes of my time. 

5/10

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Sting (2024)

The main creature at the centre of Sting may actually be a small alien, but it looks like a spider, makes webbing, and generally triggers my arachnophobia, so I will be referring to it as another spider horror flick, coming along relatively hot on the heels of Infested.

Annoyingly starting with a sequence that shows some peril and the apparent fates of one or two characters, we then move back a few days to see how we got to that point. We got there thanks to a young girl named Charlotte (Alyla Browne). Charlotte finds a spider and decides to keep it as a pet. She feeds it, she learns that it can mimic certain sounds it hears, and she watches it get bigger in the jar. Things soon get out of control though, and when Sting, because that is what she has named it, is free and roaming around the building, Charlotte can’t imagine just how big and mean it is going to get.

Writer-director Kiah Roache-Turner has a lot of fun here. I have been a big fan of pretty much everything I have seen from him, and this is another success, albeit a low-key one. It’s not as effective as it could be, often missing major opportunities to make viewers skittish and uncomfortable, and it’s disappointingly tame for most of the runtime, but works brilliantly when it sets everything up to maximize the fun of the concept.

Roache-Turner knows exactly what he wants to do, and he starts the film off by filling up scenes with Chekhov’s Everything. The character details, the quirks of the building, the behaviour of the spider, viewers used to this kind of movie will know that almost everything is a set-up to some kind of pay-off, big or small, further down the line. And once everything is in place, it’s just a waiting game to see how much pain and death can be caused by the central creature.

Browne is a solid lead, likable enough to compensate for the stupidity of keeping a strange, potentially deadly, spider in a jar in her bedroom. Penelope Mitchell and Ryan Corr play her mother and step-father, respectively, with the latter more involved in the central storyline the tension in their relationship, and in the household. There are other people who may or may not end up in grave danger (played by Silvia Colloca, Noni Hazlehurst, Danny Kim, and Robyn Nevin), but the one who gets to make the most impact is Jermaine Fowler, playing a pest control guy about to be in way over his head. Fowler is fun, and it is obvious what film Roache-Turner is trying to emulate with his scenes, but his energy and humour would work better if the rest of the film was a bit darker and sharper.

I can understand people not liking this. It certainly isn’t great, and it’s generally far too predictable. I enjoyed it though. It did what I wanted it to do, even if I would have preferred some more blood and gore, and the pacing and set-pieces all show that it was made by someone with a real knowledge of, and love for, creature features. There’s still an even better modern spider horror to be made, in my opinion, but this is the better of the two recent ones, although most people seem to think otherwise.

7/10

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Prime Time: Ricky Stanicky (2024)

I saw the trailer for Ricky Stanicky a couple of months ago and I wasn’t happy. First of all, it looked dire. Second, I knew I would still eventually watch it. And so here we are, but was it as dire as the trailer made it out to be?

After a childhood incident that requires some quick creativity, three friends realise how much they can help themselves by making use of an imaginary friend, named Ricky Stanicky. Ricky can be blamed for many  misadventures, he can be used to get out of other obligations, and life is just better with him available. That is, of course, until things are complicated by people wanting to meet Ricky. With the alternative option (coming clean after many years) not really an option at all, our main characters hire an adult entertainer/actor (John Cena) they met in Atlantic City. 

Starring Zak Efron, Andrew Santino, and Jermaine Fowler as the friends who keep the secret of Ricky Stanicky between them, this is a fairly enjoyable and predictable comedy that would have really benefited from pushing into much more outrageous and bawdier territory (which people might have expected from director Peter Farrelly, although he has certainly settled in to helming much mellower fare over the past decade). I enjoyed the leads well enough, but there should have been someone else on the mix, someone to help add laughs and elevate every scene. Santino is clearly positioned here as the most comedic of the cast, setting aside Cena for the moment, but he just isn’t good enough.

I am surprised that this doesn’t feel like a bigger mess though, considering at least half a dozen writers were responsible for the screenplay. While it lacks any big laughs, and even skimps on the milder chuckles, it works well for most of the runtime due to the potential of the premise. There’s also a very enjoyable second act that shows “Ricky” stealing the show and living up to his legendary reputation.

Efron has always been someone I enjoy seeing onscreen, and he is fine here as the man who desperately hopes to get through a busy time without being caught out for his many lies. Santino is okay, but not as funny as he should be, and the same can be said of Fowler, who is given a plot strand that never feels fully developed, making you wonder why it was included anyway. Lex Scott Davis and Anja Savcic have a few good moments, playing the partners of Efron and Santino, respectively, and William H. Macy is fun as their boss (accompanied in one or two scenes by Jane Badler, playing his wife). Cena is the star though, given another chance to showcase his comedy chops, and he tries hard to make up for the weaknesses elsewhere in the script, whether oozing confidence and knowledge about subjects that Ricky should be fluent in or being shown performing his act onstage as “Rock-Hard Rod”. He’s certainly game to give anything a go, and I appreciate how well he transitioned from one incarnation of his personality to the next, sensing an opportunity to turn Ricky into his big break.

The enthusiasm and talent of Cena isn’t enough though. This isn’t a good movie, although it also isn’t the horrible car crash I thought it might be. It’s just average. I was moderately entertained while it was on, but I am never going to revisit it. At least it doesn’t end in a way that seems to set up any sequel opportunities. There should only ever be one Ricky Stanicky.

5/10

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The Blackening (2023)

Expanding a skit by comedy group 3Peat, and riffing on the well-known horror trope of the black character most often being the first to die, The Blackening is a slasher comedy that I was looking forward to for some time. The marketing was pretty good, and the tagline - "we can't all die first" - was brilliantly on point. 

There's a small prologue showing a couple of people in danger, but then it's business as usual. A group of people meet up at a cabin in the woods, all there for an overdue bit of quality time with their friends during the Juneteenth holiday (a date that celebrates the end of slavery in the USA). Unfortunately, someone has set up a deadly game for them to participate in. That game involves answering various questions revolving around black culture, with a wrong answer due to result in great pain, and even death. It might be time, this time around,  for the "least black" main characters to be endangered ahead of the others. But that pits our characters against one another, as they start to prove their race credentials to one another, playing on stereotypes and clichés that are also subverted as things start to twist and turn on the way to a final act revealing the killer and motivation.

Written by Tracy Oliver (who has delivered a number of fun scripts in the past 6-7 years) and Dewayne Perkins (a member of 3Peat, and someone with a decent selection of TV credits to his name already), The Blackening is a film full of potential, and the first half hits pretty much every target. Director Tim Story has been in the game long enough to handle the material with a steady guiding hand, and the simplicity of the setting keeps the focus on the various friendships and rivalries within the main group of characters.

The cast all have fun in their roles, whether they're playing things broadly or allowed to be more low-key, and I think everyone did their best to ensure that the script was delivered as well as could be. Grace Byers, Melvin Gregg, X Mayo, Antoinette Robertson, Perkins (hey, if you co-write a screenplay then you may as well give yourself a part), Jermaine Fowler, Sinqua Walls, Jay Pharoah, and Yvonne Orji interact well with one another, and convince when faced with a masked killer, and Diedrich Bader is good fun as the aptly-named Ranger White, a character who spends a lot of time ensuring that his words aren't misconstrued when his priority should be stopping a killing spree.

Sadly, as is often the case with many horror comedies, the biggest problem here is the balance of the genre elements. There are some great laughs here, with the script often never too far away from a smart and witty observation, but there aren't any real scares or tension (decent opening sequence aside). Which means that the third act, where laughs are a bit less frequent, stumbles along to resolve everything with an underwhelming sigh. It's so disappointing that it drags down the entire movie, but there's still just enough here to make it worth a watch. And you have to bear in mind that I am saying this as a plain white Brit, so I am sure there are many African American people who will get even more out of it than I did.

A great concept, well-realised during a number of scenes, but it's a shame that there couldn't have been a better handling of the horror elements alongside the comedy. Maybe they'll do better with that if there's a sequel.

6/10

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Prime Time: Coming 2 America (2021)

Coming along over thirty years after the original, Coming 2 America also comes after a lot of years that led to a decline in the star status of Eddie Murphy. And there's no John Landis here. So I can understand why fans would be wary.

Murphy once again plays Prince Akeem (as well as many other characters), based in his homeland with his family, a wife and three daughters. As his father (James Earl Jones) passes away, it comes to light that Akeem may well have a male child from his time in America. This was all thanks to his loyal manservant, Semmi (Arsenio Hall). And a male child is apparently required to take over the throne from Akeem, despite the strength and intelligence of his eldest daughter, Meeka (KiKi Layne). Under pressure from the neighbouring General Izzi (Wesley Snipes), Akeem finds his son, Lavelle Junson (Jermaine Fowler), and brings him back, along with his mother (Mary, played by Leslie Jones), and his Uncle Reem (Tracy Morgan).

While it's not the funniest comedy film released in the past few years, not by a long shot, Coming 2 America manages to remain consistently amusing throughout, as well as taking moments to celebrate some of the popular art and culture of African Americans. Director Craig Brewer keeps everything moving along nicely enough, with the only main flaw being an unnecessary flashback or two that features a de-aged Murphy on a previously-unseen stage of his adventure that made up the first movie. Remember when movies had to use smart camera positioning, make-up, and stand-ins to do that kind of thing? New technology isn't always the best option. 

The script, by Kenya Barris, Barry W. Blaustein, and David Sheffield, stays largely on point, with the focus this time around being on the need for old patriarchies to be shaken up in order for any real progress to be made. Akeem once again wrestles with traditions, wanting to move forward while remaining respectful, and his life is nicely juxtaposed with the life that his son has known, but this is a male-dominated film with a loud message about gender equality, and the casting of the supporting roles helps immensely with that.

Layne is superb, trying to keep her grace and her cool while justifiably angry at the old rules keeping her sidelined. Nomzamo Mbatha is equally wonderful as Mirember, the royal groomer who has some strong views on the way things should be run. You get cameos from En Vogue, Salt-N-Pepa, and it's nice that they didn't try to recast Shari Headley (Lisa, the love of Akeem's life). Although not always front and centre, Headley is the one person often influencing the way that Akeem thinks and acts. Then you have Jones, who is a lot of fun for pretty much every minute she's onscreen. Murphy and Hall are having a lot of fun, whether in their main roles or portraying some of the many faces familiar to fans of the first film (the barbers return, as well as one or two other firm favourites). Fowler is a worthy addition, and he often outshines a lively Morgan (the wide-eyed youth just plays a bit better than the loud-mouthed, cocky, uncle), but it's a huge treat to watch Snipes having so much role as the menacing-but-rictus-grinned General who looks set to wage war.

There are no major set-pieces, and very few BIG laughs throughout, unlike the first film, but this is a good way to do a belated comedy sequel. You get to spend some time re-acquanting yourself with some very likeable characters, and there are lots of call backs to keep you smiling. I've seen many people complain about it, which is just down to personal taste, but I've been struggling to wonder why some have warned others away from it so strongly. Personally, I'd tentatively recommend it. It's an easy one to enjoy in company for an evening's entertainment.

6/10

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