Prime Time: Upgraded (2024)

A misunderstanding that leads to someone trying to maintain an unrealistic image of their life, a number of coincidences making everything more complicated on the way, and one or two supporting characters doing their best to trip up our lead. Yes, we’re firmly in rom-com territory with Upgraded, a film that I saw someone else cannily sum up as a standard rom-com mixed with more than a hint of The Devil Wears Prada. 

Camila Mendes plays Ana, a young intern struggling to make the right impression in front of her boss, a hard taskmaster named Claire (Marisa Tomei). While heading to the UK to close a deal that will gain them a hefty commission, they are in the business of evaluating and auctioning art, Ana is mistreated at the airport so appallingly that she is upgraded to first class by a kind ticket agent. It is in this unfamiliar environment that Ana meets Will (Archie Renaux), getting on so well that she is befriended by his mother (Catherine, played by Lena Olin). Which is all well and good, until she starts to develop a busy social life that might create a clash with her work duties.

Writers Christine Lenig, Justin Matthews, and Luke Spencer Robert’s don’t have the most extensive filmographies, but it quickly becomes clear that each member of the team knows the formula needed at the heart of this film. There are some quirky supporting characters and some surprisingly funny lines of dialogue in the first half of the movie, but we all know where it needs to end up. The truth needs to come out, and at least one big romantic gesture is always welcome.

Director Carlson Young has a similarly small body of work, certainly in her directing role, but has been acting, mainly in TV shows, for a number of years. She is arguably best known for her role in the Scream TV series, where she played Brooke Maddox, but the skill and polish on display here bodes well for her future as a helmer of slick popular entertainment.

Mendes is perfectly fine in the lead role, and Renaux pairs up well enough with her. The two of them are as cute and safe as expected, but they actually feel like they have chemistry as their meet-cute turns into something more. Tomei has a lot of fun being the super-mean and super-demanding boss, Olin also seems to enjoy being a quirky and loving socialite/ex-model/actress, joined at times by a carefree and spirited artist (played by Anthony Head), and two “mean girls” are played well by Rachel Matthews and Fola Evans-Akingbola. There are also enjoyable supporting turns from Andrew Schulz, Saoirse-Monica Jackson, and Thomas Kretschmann.

Easy to enjoy, as long as you’re in the mood for this kind of thing, this is the kind of film that should manage to force a smile out of even the most resistant of viewers. You get a good mix of characters, the cast all seem to be enjoying themselves immensely, and the third act delivers one or two very satisfying moments. It’s not sophisticated, it’s far from perfect (I have already forgotten any of the score/soundtrack, for example), but it’s a bloody good time while it’s on.

7/10

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Netflix And Chill: The Package (2018)

The Package is a comedy directed by Jake Szymanski. The last comedy I watched that was directed by Jake Szymanski was Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates, which did not make me a fan, but I liked the sound of this one, and had heard some good feedback from a friend who had already enjoyed it.

Donnie (Luke Spencer Roberts) is looking forward to a weekend away with his friends, Sean (Daniel Doheny) and Jeremy (Eduardo Franco). It's going to be all guys together, maybe their last chance before Sean heads away back to new pastures.That was the plan anyway. But Jeremy ends up inviting his recently-made-single sister (Becky, played by Geraldine Viswanathan) and her friend (Sarah, played by Sadie Calvano), who just happens to be the ex-girlfriend of Donnie. Anyway, they get to their destination, start to drink and have fun, and then Jeremy accidentally slices off his penis while playing around with a butterfly knife. The rest of the film concerns the loyal group of friends trying to get Jeremy and his penis reattached to one another.

The Package is silly, very silly indeed. It had the potential to be downright awful but writers Kevin Burrows and Matt Mider make some good choices, not least of which is spending an equal amount of time on the characters and the moments of standard teen angst in between the penis-centred set-pieces. You get a number of times in which the dismembered member is in peril, or needing handled by someone who really doesn't want to be handling it, but you also get a potential budding relationship between Sean and Becky, and plenty of barbs exchanged by Donnie and Sarah.

Szymanski directs everything well enough, walking a thin line as he chooses to put the package front and centre in a number of scenes without always making it laughable or squirm-inducing. It's gross, yes, but it's also just a part of Jeremy that his friends want to get back to him safely. The most obvious "gross" gag - a snake bite that has to be dealt with - is outrageously funny enough to at least make viewers smile, and also leads to some fun lines later in the movie. A lot of this is down to the script, of course, but Szymanski makes the right choices when it comes to what to show and what to hold back on.

The cast, all largely unknown to me, all seemed to be having a good time. Franco may be separated from the group early on, but he has plenty of fun moments while in a hospital, Doheny is a perfectly acceptable, albeit slightly bland, lead and Roberts works best when being put in his place by Calvanoe. But the star is Viswanathan (who also stood out in Blockers), a young actress who I already look forward to seeing in any role, thanks to her ability to work equally well with comedic and more (brief) serious moments.

The Package is not a film to watch if you are already rolling your eyes at the main premise. And it's not a film that, aside from that core idea, does anything new with the teen comedy subgenre. But it's better than you might expect, and an amusing enough way to spend 90 minutes.

6/10

Here's a very different film with the same title.
Americans can collect a package here.

Phoenix Forgotten (2017)

Phoenix Forgotten is awful. I couldn't contain myself. I couldn't even pretend for one paragraph, or sentence, to like this film. It is like an immediate Full House in a game of awful found footage movie bingo.

You get the character who just has to keep recording everything, without good enough justification for his habit. You get horrible visuals because it's supposed to have been recorded by an amateur. You get a selection of lead characters that don't have any actual depth. And you get nothing happening until the final 15-20 minutes, which inevitable feature a night-vision sequence and a build up to what is supposed to be something resembling a bit of a finale.

Directed by Justin Barber (this is his feature directorial debut, unsurprisingly), who also co-wrote the script with T. S. Nowlin (who at least also has The Maze Runner movies in his filmography), the format of Phoenix Forgotten is a documentary being made that investigates the disappearance of three young adults. The trio had decided to see what they could find out about an incident involving some mysterious lights in the night sky. They then disappeared, with no bodies ever found.

I could spend longer detailing the failures of this film than the creators seemed to spend on crafting it and making it entertaining from viewers. This is seriously embarrassing at times, often smacking of that lazy attitude that you can sense in the worst found footage films. You know what I mean. The whole "oh, we can knock this out cheap and make a good bundle" attitude.

The best movies in this style can make you uneasy throughout. They can dripfeed interesting details to help viewers create an entire storyline in their head that may or may not play out onscreen. This doesn't do either of those things. It simply has three people getting lost and then shows their situation worsen. Swap the desert area for some thick woods and you have The Blair Witch Project, but only if that was made by lazy incompetents who didn't know how to create superior scares. In fact, one moment here is such a blatant nod to the finale of The Blair Witch Project that I thought I was seeing things. Because why would you reference something that would remind viewers of the inferior nature of your material?

That's the word that may stay in your mind as you watch this film. Why? Why, why, why? So many decisions, from the plotting to the editing and shooting, just don't make sense. I almost made this review nothing more than a list of twenty questions, which would have been an equally valid response to my time being wasted.

Cast-wise, Florence Hartigan is the main documentary "presenter", and the three main subjects are played by Luke Spencer Roberts, Chelsea Lopez, and Justin Matthews. None of them are very good. And I don't mean that they're that bad either. They're just there, unable to overcome the dull and dire script, and also just sometimes being . . . okay, they're sometimes quite bad.

My generous rating below reflects some of the technical aspects, although I still begrudge anything that raises this up from the very bottom of the barrel it belongs. Especially as this production had some weight behind it.

Avoid. There are at least half a dozen better films along the same lines that I can recommend, if you're ever curious. Just ask.

3/10

Phoenix Forgotten can be bought here.
Americans can pick it up here.