Nutcrackers (2024)

I'll admit it, if I'd noticed that Nutcrackers was directed by David Gordon Green then I might not have made time for it during this holiday season. He's been on the "naughty list" for a while now, all thanks to his work on a couple of big horror franchises, and I wouldn't necessarily trust him to deliver a traditional Christmas movie. Nutcrackers isn't a traditional Christmas movie, and it doesn't entirely work, but it does have the spirit of the season buried in the middle of it. I'll admit that I was hit by an emotional punch in the final scenes.

Ben Stiller plays Michael, a very busy man who has to temporarily take care of his four nephews after the sudden death of his sister and her husband. Michael is ill-equipped for the situation, trying to prep for the big business deal of his life, and just wants things resolved and the boys rehomed as soon as possible. Gretchen Rice (Linda Cardellini) is the best person to help him in that regard, but it's tough to find a foster parent willing and read to take on all four siblings. Tying in with the movie title, a home-made ballet production looms large in the third act.

Written by Leland Douglas, who has more shorts than features making up his filmography so far, this is both a Christmas film and a concept film, with that concept being "unruly kids who can also do ballet". That works . . . eventually, but both Douglas and Green spend a bit too much time making things feel grimy and downbeat on the way to the expected Christmas cheer before the end credits roll. It's low-key and very grounded, in line with many other films made by Green, but that doesn't necessarily make for the most rewarding viewing experience when things are also working to a familiar template.

Stiller is good in the main role, doing the kind of uptight and slightly awkward guy that he's been able to do in his sleep for decades, and Cardellini is a ray of sunshine whenever she appears onscreen, but the young siblings, played by real brothers (Homer Janson, Ulysses Janson, Arlo Janson, and Atlas Janson) are a mixed bag, perhaps picked for reasons other than their acting skills. They're not terrible, but they feel a bit too rough around the edges, and they're given a bit too much leeway from Green, who clearly thought their personalities would win over viewers (sadly . . . not the case). At least you also get some decent supporting turns from Toby Huss and Edi Patterson.

I did manage to enjoy this, don't get me wrong, but it felt as if I had to work hard to meet it halfway. There were a lot of little improvements that could have been made. Fixing the tone would have helped, Green doesn't seem to find the right balance between the yule and the yuck, and having a more convincing bit of character development for Stiller, considering how suddenly everything seems to click into place when everyone remembers that the end credits are about to play. I also think the film would have benefited enormously from having more established actors portraying the four brothers.

5/10

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The Curse Of La Llorona (2019)

There's a lot to like about The Curse Of La Llorona, on the surface. I am going to start with that, just in case I get distracted and give the impression that I hated it. I didn't. Hell, it gets bonus points straight away for giving a lead role to Linda Cardellini. So it's just a shame that so many moments that could have worked well just fall surprisingly flat, with all concerned seemingly happier to turn what could have been an impressively fright-filled bit of mainstream horror into something a lot more tame, and sillier, than it needed to be.

The main premise is simple. There's an evil spirit, La Llorona, that frightens and takes away children, once they come under her gaze. Cardellini plays Anna Tate-Garcia, a woman employed in the social service sector, first seen being asked to work on a case involving a fraught mother (Patricia, played by Patricia Velasquez) and two young boys. More importantly, Anna has her own two children, Chris (Roman Christou) and Samantha (Jaynee-Lynne Kinchen). It's only a matter of time until La Llorona catches sight of those two, giving her two new potential victims while Anna tries to figure out just what is going on, and how she can put an end to it.

Cardellini does well with her complex role of "strong, frightened mother", the kids do well while being terrorised and terrified, and Raymond Cruz is the other main cast member, playing Rafael Olvera, a priest on the edge who doesn't necessarily play by the rules but gets things done, dammit. Velasquez is fine, Marisol Ramirez is given a makeover to play La Llorona, and Tony Amendola appears to connect events to Annabelle. Because, yes, it is tangentially linked to that movie, which gives it a head start at the box office, and in the home entertainment market, thanks to the value of the IP, always fairly visible on all of the marketing materials.

Considering this is his first feature, Michael Chaves does a very good job in the director's chair, even if he wraps every main scare sequence in low lighting and murkiness. There are some nice visual touches throughout, but it's hard to remember them once the end credits have rolled after you realise that you spent most of the film squinting at one patch of darkness after another. The jump scares are reasonably effective, but only until you realise that it's the same couple of tricks being re-used every few minutes (either something glimpsed in one part of the frame to then be seen a lot closer to a main character in the next moment or a feigned bit of misdirection while La Llorona gets within reach of her prey), and the third act subsequently suffers because of this. What should have been a sustained helping of tension just becomes a bit tiresome, something you want over and done with at least 10 minutes before you actually get to the end.

Writers Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis (who previously wrote Five Feet Apart together, this is their first horror movie) seem to know what is expected of them, and I'm curious to know how much of this is their own creation and how much of it was shaped by the producers who wanted another hit entry in the ever-expanding Conjuring universe. They don't do a terrible job at all, considering this is their first foray into the horror genre, although the simplistic plot should have been fertile ground for some much better, scarier, set-pieces.

Far from the worst of these movies (that would still be The Nun), this is also far from the best. It just feels like some kind of place-holder, something to throw out as a treat for audiences in between the titles expected to do bigger business.

5/10

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Hunter Killer (2018)

Gerard Butler. Gerard bloody Butler. I have been a fan of his for quite some time now, but he seems intent on making it harder and harder for people to say that aloud. His movie choices are often problematic, at best, and some could say that he seems to deliberately pick some of the worst scripts around when he gets his name in the hat for potential blockbuster material.

In this submarine-based action thriller, Butler plays Captain Joe Glass, a slightly unorthodox type who is trusted by the men around him because he may seem a bit odd but he gets results, dammit. He's given a crew and immediately sent off to Russian waters, where there has been an incident involving the sinking of both a Russian and an American sub. Knowing just what is at stake if the wrong move is made, Glass is determined to do whatever he can to get to the bottom of the situation and avoid an all-out war.

Written by Arne Schmidt and Jamie Moss, two men without too many scripts already under their belts, Hunter Killer is just about as lazy and incompetent as you can get, at least without descending to the level of the laughably bad. I'm not sure if the source material (a novel named "Firing Point") is any better but this certainly doesn't have me in any rush to check it out. Almost every line of dialogue is a cliché, and director Donovan Marsh doesn't think he should do anything in his role to help distract viewers from that. He adds to it all, if anything, with every decision made, taking his cues from the back catalogue of Tony Scott and Michael Bay when it comes to moments that show slick and powerful military action but forgetting to keep things orderly when it comes to the geography of the action sequences.

While there's supposed to be tension under the water, there's also supposed to be some tension on land, as a small group of soldiers (led by Toby Stephens) attempt to get in and extract a Russian president being held against his will by the individual who wants to start the war. One decent sequence aside, involving an enemy sub hidden under a large ice glacier, no tension is to be found once the plot starts to unfold. There are also no characters to care about, and the ending is laughably bad.

Butler is still a decent onscreen presence, making this just about bearable, and the cast is rounded out by Stephens, Michael Nyqvist (also a highlight, playing the rescued captain of another submarine), Common, Gary Oldman, and Linda Cardellini. I like all of these people when they're in half-decent movies. This isn't even a half-decent movie.

The submarine movie subgenre isn't the biggest one around, by far, but I guarantee you that almost any other film you can think of featuring periscopes, men getting tense while standing quietly in a floating chunk of metal, and radar screens that go ping and bloop, will be better than this. That even includes Down Periscope.

3/10

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Daddy's Home 2 (2017)

Let me start this review by saying that I enjoyed Daddy's Home. Yes, I know the comedy banter between Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg isn't something that many people admit to enjoying (aside from their best work in The Other Guys) but they made me laugh many times in the tale of a sensitive stepfather (Brad, played by Ferrell) being infuriated by the alpha male biological father (Dusty, played by Wahlberg) swanning back into the lives of his children and disrupting their lives.

This sequel finds the extended family living a fairly harmonious life, even if there are still some resentments that hide below the surface. Brad and Dusty take turns with activities, Linda Cardellini (playing Sara, mother to the children, and Brad's partner) seems happy with the situation, and everyone seems settled. Except for the fact that they're not, something that becomes evident when young Megan (Scarlett Estevez) decides to tell people that she hates moving back and forth for Christmas festivities. This leads to one big Christmas being planned, a day with everyone in the same place and the kids not having to move from one family to another. And it's going to be even more special, because Dusty's father (Kurt, played by Mel Gibson) is going to join them. As is Brad's father (Don, played by John Lithgow).

Most of the main players return here, with director Sean Anders also co-writing the script once again (also with John Morris, but no Brian Burns this time around), and it's clear from the early scenes that this is an easy, comfortable, comedy sequel for all involved. You won't find any real depth here, and you won't find anything plausible, but you will get a cast having fun, and a number of amusing moments.

Gibson is there to be an even more toxic male than Wahlberg was in the first film, while Lithgow seems to be, for the most part, even more sensitive than Ferrell's character. This adds plenty of friction, which creates more comedic situations, and then leads to a third act that features both John Cena and plenty of horrible, unearned, attempts at emotional manipulation. All of the male leads get to have lots of fun. Cardellini, on the other hand, is simply left to witness an unfolding sequence of catastrophic events while doing nothing but feel insecure when positioned close to Alessandra Ambrosio (playing Karen, the woman now with Wahlberg's character).

Daddy's Home 2 is a rather weak film, in terms of the art of cinema. It's clumsy, painfully obvious, and suffers even more during the times when it tries to turn Brad into Clark Griswold. It kind of works as a sequel, it fails as a Christmas film (mainly because a lot of the better moments feel as if they have been cribbed from better movies), and it's the worst one yet to pair up Ferrell and Wahlberg.

Oh, I still laughed though. There were quite a few times when I laughed aloud. Hard. For all of its failings, and there are oh so many, it still manages to get the comedy right on many occasions. And that's a good thing for a comedy film. Which is why I still rate this as above average. Fans of Ferrell will find enough to enjoy here. Everyone else should avoid this like a spiked bowl of eggnog.

6/10

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