Prime Time: Riff Raff (2024)

I cannot recall the last time I watched a film that was SO reliant on the cast to keep viewers engaged and entertained. Of course, most movies rely on the cast. Riff Raff has nothing else going for it though. Nothing. And the cast are largely used to play popular screen incarnations of their typical personas.

Ed Harris is Vincent, married to the lovely Sandy (Gabrielle Union). He enjoys a quiet life, which seems set to get a bit quieter with his step-son, DJ (Miles J. Harvey), getting ready for college life. That quiet is interrupted, however, by the arrival of Vincent's son, Rocco (Lewis Pullman), Rocco's pregnant girlfriend, Marina (Emanuela Postacchini), and Vincent's ex-wife, Ruth (Jennifer Coolidge). Is it just a surprise visit to spend some quality time together? Or has Rocco done something to incur the wrath of two violent criminals, Leftie (Bill Murray) and Lonnie (Pete Davidson)?

This was written by John Pollono. I won't be rushing to watch anything else that he's written. It was directed by Dito Montiel. I also won't be rushing to watch anything else from him. All they have managed to do here is mash together a selection of tired and predictable tropes, made no effort to freshen things up, and then bagged a cast they assume will paper over the many cracks in their work. I like a few of these cast members, but few people would be good enough to paper over this many cracks.

The best person here is actually the one I don't know very well, Harvey. Harvey is wonderful, believably hanging around in that slight limbo between early teenage years and young adulthood. He's so good here that the film notably suffers during the scenes that he's not involved in. Murray and Davidson are often good fun in movies, but they're used here to do very little more than be Murray and Davidson. The same goes for Coolidge. Harris brings his hefty amount of baggage to his role, which helps do more for his character than anything in the screenplay, and Union tries to remain a bright spark amidst all of the murkiness. Pullman and Postacchini are both decent, even if the former is slightly mis-cast, but both deserve much better than what they're given here. 

There's nothing here to recommend this to all but the biggest fans of the cast, with the exception of Harvey's performance. The dialogue isn't as witty or weighty as it thinks it is, the plotting is tiresomely predictable and unsatisfying, Montiel doesn't bother to add any style to any scenes, and the ending puts some characters in peril without doing enough to get viewers to care. It avoids being unwatchable, mainly thanks to the competence of the performers, but it also avoids being any good.

4/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share 

Prime Time: The Pickup (2025)

There have been many movies made that show people trying to rob an armored truck full of cash. Some are very good, some are not. The Pickup makes use of the concept to give us a crime comedy that partners up Eddie Murphy and Pete Davidson. I enjoyed it, but I tend to like Pete Davidson in most things anyway.

Murphy plays Russell Pierce, a man who just wants his workday done so that he can get to a dinner with his wife (Natalie, played by Eva Longoria) as they celebrate 25 years of marriage. Unfortunately, Pierce is saddled with the young and dumb Travis Stolly (Pete Davidson). Even more unfortunately, the armored truck that they're driving is targeted by robbers who seem to know what part of their route takes them through a dead zone that renders them isolated and helpless. Pierce and Stolly won't give up without a fight though, especially when they figure that the robbers will kill them when they get inside the truck anyway. Oh, there's also a woman named Zoe (Keke Palmer), someone Stolly had a very nice night with recently. She might be able to help our leads, but the whole situation is complicated by a lack of clearly-defined morality and some unexpected and messy emotions.

While I know director Tim Story better than I know writers Kevin Burrows and Matt Mider, I wouldn't say that I would rush to see any film just because his name was attached to it. This was a film that I was sold on by the cast, but I have to give it to Story, Burrows, and Mider for playing to the strengths of their cast in a way that makes it a lot easier to accept the predictable plotting and implausibilities while being amused by the many fun exchanges between the leads. 

Davidson does his goofy thing well enough, but his nervous energy works very well opposite a more relaxed and mature Murphy, who still gets a chance to utter one or two sentences that feel like the kind of thing you would hear from him during his peak movie years. Palmer remains a consistently brilliant and valuable addition to any film she graces with her presence, and there's a palpable feeling here of her loving every minute that she gets to interact with her comedic male co-stars, but particularly when she gets to be alongside Murphy (who, despite the many bumps in his career, remains a certified legend). Longoria does well in her much smaller role, Andrew Dice Clay is a horrible boss who you know cares much more about his trucks than any of his employees, and Marshawn Lynch makes a strong impression in his couple of scenes. Jack Kesy and Ismael Cruz Cordova are a convincing threat as two dangerous robbers, but they're also shown to have a main weakness when they consistently underestimate the people they're trying to rob.

Solid entertainment from start to finish, this has enough laughs and a few decent action beats. The laughs are executed better than the stunts, but the two are blended just about to perfection. You can take points off if you dislike any of the leads. Everyone else can go to this as an easy viewing choice when looking for some new comedy. The fact that the runtime is only 94 minutes is also a plus. It might just be the little pickup that you need.

7/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share 

Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts (2023)

Although this is typical blockbuster fare, I realised that I might not have much to say about Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts when I prepared to start writing this review. The plot is what you might refer to as bunkum, there aren’t too many human characters, and certainly no complex journeys of development for them, and it jumps from one CGI-filled set-piece to the next throughout the 127-minute runtime (which actually feels much shorter, considering the bloated runtimes we’ve had from a number of big releases recently).

That’s not to say that this is bad though. It may not require any stamp of individuality from director Steven Calle Jr., and you would be right to be wary after looking at the collected filmographies of the six writers credited with the final screenplay, but this is a film that delivers exactly what people want from it, which is a number of scenes involving big robots fighting one another.

The plot involves some key that has been hidden away on Earth to protect both robots and humans from a massive terror named Unicron. Some bad robots want the key (including Scourge, voiced by Peter Dinklage), and good robots want to make it safe again. The good robots include Optimus Prime (of course, and once again voiced by Peter Cullen), Bumblebee, Mirage (voices by Pete Davidson), and some beast-bots aka maximals named Optimus Primal (Ron Perlman) and Airazor (Michelle Yeoh), as well as a few others. Two humans who end up helping the robots are Noah Diaz (played by Anthony Ramos), caught up in the action after trying to steal a very nice car he doesn’t realise is Mirage, and Elena Wallace (Dominique Fishback), a history expert working in a museum that houses part of the special key. And it’s 1994, for reasons beyond me. Maybe to help keep any canon chronology in order, maybe just to have some decent tunes on the soundtrack.

There’s a decent amount of fun to be had here, with a good voice cast doing what they have to do in between each CGI-stuffed robot fight, and this should please both fans of the series and newcomers alike. Don’t worry if you get confused at the start of the film. I was confused and I have seen every other instalment in this franchise. It ultimately doesn’t matter. All that matters is remembering who is good and who is bad, and the film makes that pretty clear throughout. Talk about nominative determinism when you have the name Scourge.

Sitting snugly in between the main Transformers movies and Bumblebee, this delivers the spectacle without feeling excessive, over-indulgent, or horribly distracted by the kind of male gaze that Michael Bay had when positioning Megan Fox alongside shiny cars. And you get a decent amount of maximal action, which will come as a relief to those thinking this might be another trailer tease amounting to very little (as happened with the dinobots in a previous instalment). And if you don’t know how it will all end then I suspect you’re completely new to big, brash, mainstream, summer movies.

Ramos is decent enough in his role, the typical good guy who just cannot catch a break after having served his country some years previously, and Fishback works very well alongside him, the two feeling very much like equals up until Ramos has to do the standard heroic move to cap off the third act. Dean Scott Vasquez is sweet, playing the younger brother of the character played by Ramos, and his presence, and the way he looks up to his older sibling, remains a major motivating factor, despite him not being onscreen for very long. There are one or two others, but those three make up the most important humans in the film. As for the voice talent, you cannot really go wrong with Cullen, Dinklage, Perlman, and Yeoh, and Pete Davidson has a brash enthusiasm that matches his robot, so I must say that I enjoyed everyone picked to portray robots in disguise. And Michael Kelly pops up just before the end credits, in a scene that may frustrate and delight viewers in equal measure.

Enjoyable blockbuster fare, good enough to help this franchise stay alive (at the very least), this is also the kind of thing you already know if you want to see or not. If you do, have fun. If you don’t, have different fun with the many other movies out there. 

Look at that. It turns out that I did find plenty to say about it.

7/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share

Prime Time: Meet Cute (2022)

If you look over the short filmography of writer Noga Pnueli then you will see that she seems to have a fascination with time travel/time loops, and how people may try to use it to change themselves, or change the people they care about. I am only going by the plot summaries here, having not seen any of her other work, but I am now keen to see how she has been working and reworking this idea for the past few years, because Meet Cute is good enough to make me into an instant fan of her.

The premise seems quite simple, and familiar. Kaley Cuoco is Sheila, a young woman who approached Gary (Pete Davidson) in a bar. She offers to buy him a drink, and they stick together for an enjoyable date night. Things aren't what they seem though. Sheila has gone through this date multiple times, thanks to a time machine she makes use of in the back of a nail salon, and she wants to keep enjoying the perfect night. While relishing the opportunity to fix her own life, because this bit of time travel came along just after a very low point, Sheila also realises that she can "fix" Gary. She can mould him into someone absolutely perfect. But maybe he's already perfect for her. And maybe she shouldn't meddle around in the past without considering "the butterfly effect".

Director Alex Lehmann also has a fairly small filmography, for anyone wanting to explore it, but this is the first film from him that I have enjoyed. Other people liked Blue Jay, but I was underwhelmed by it. Funnily enough, it's easy to see a connection between that film and this though, considering the moments in which one character is going through the motions and celebrating a complete relationship that the other character is often unaware of. Lehmann does a good job here, keeping everything lively and interesting enough while allowing the focus to remain on the script and his leads.

As for those leads, both Davidson and Cuoco are excellent. I have, for some reason, always thought I disliked Davidson, but time and time again he delivers moments onscreen (whether in his many acting roles or in his live comedy work) that really work for me. His self-deprecating manner, his ability to tap into his own darkness and discomfort, even his way of leaning fully into complete asshole mode, he's always fascinating and entertaining to watch. And he sometimes gets to be awkward and sweet, as he is here. Cuoco is someone I always liked in her TV work (yes, hate the show all you want, I was easily amused by The Big Bang Theory whenever I watched it), but she deserves to be in more lead movie roles, especially after proving her range in recent projects like this and The Flight Attendant. Meet Cute gets dark at times, very dark, and it's the winning charisma of Davidson and Cuoco that stop it from ever being too dark. Deborah S. Craig is fun in her small role, June (guardian of the time machine), and it was good to see Kevin Corrigan onscreen, even if he was in the fairly thankless role of "Phil the bartender".

Although I do love a good time loop movie, they are often quite similar to one another when it comes to the execution of the material. You see the key moments that will signify repeating time, you see many changes being made to attempt to change the end result, etc. Meet Cute has those moments in place, but they're interspersed throughout the film in a way that helps the whole thing to feel a bit different from many other films in this sub-genre. And almost none of it seems to matter by the time we get to the end, which moves away from the fantastical element to instead underline the main message about not dwelling on the past.

Funny, sweet, painful, and smart. Highly recommended.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)

Pete Davidson plays David, a young man about to hold a hurricane party for a group of his friends at his family home. He also seems to be a bit of a dick, but that becomes less of an obstacle for anyone watching the movie when David is found dead. The group immediately suspect the one other male still amongst them (Greg, played by Lee Pace), but they also turn against one another as the killer seemingly stays hiding in plain sight. Is it Sophie (Amanda Stenblerg), a recovering addict who has turned up with a new girlfriend, Bee (Maria Bakalova)? Is it Bee? Maybe David’s girlfriend, an actress named Emma (Chase Sui Wonders), was just tired of his shit. Podcaster Alice (Rachel Sennott) seems to be desperate enough to create such a drama. And then there’s Jordan (Myha’la Herrold), a badass who definitely seems the most capable of killing someone. 

Written by Sarah DeLappe, majorly reworking a more straightforward slasher movie screenplay by Kristen Roupenian, Bodies Bodies Bodies is a comedy that is looking to have people love or hate it. There will be very few people who end up in the middle, thanks to the relentless parade of negative character traits displayed by everyone onscreen. Nobody here seems to have many (any?) redeeming features. Which doesn’t mean they deserve to die, but it is certainly more fun to watch this group self-implode due to the consequences of their own attitudes and actions. The dialogue isn’t as sharp as it could be, but you get some superb lines that will make you laugh while reminding you of how awful the characters are, and it’s a shame that things seem to take a bit too long to really get going. Thankfully, the third act is so good that it’s easy to forgive the rest. And there’s an ending that ranks up there with one of the best I have seen in the past few years.

Director Halina Reijn does a good job with the material, and she has a team that works well in shooting most of the movie in darkness. The house is big enough for people to wander off to various parts of it while hunting for a killer, there are plenty of accessories that you would expect these characters to have to hand, and there’s a general level of consistency and care taken with the developing tensions and the placing of potential victims within the geography of the house.

Having Davidson as the first murder victim is great casting. He can quickly make a strong impression, good or bad, and his presence/character casts an appropriately large shadow over everything. Although very much an ensemble piece, and everyone does well with the material, Amandla Stenberg is an excellent nominal lead, sharing most of her scenes with a very good, and suitably bemused by the people around her, Bakalova. Sennott is a lot of fun, and Herrold revels in the strength of her character throughout. Pace is good, but gets less screentime than most of the women, and the only one who barely makes any impression, seemingly due to being almost forgotten by the script, is Wonders. 

I liked Bodies Bodies Bodies, but I was apprehensive during some of the earliest scenes. I didn’t like the characters, didn’t know who to root for, and struggled to even enjoy the “whodunnit?” aspect. Then I realised that was the point of the movie. As the situation starts to get worse, it is easier to see the characters all being hampered by their narcissism and selfishness, which makes it easier to just sit back and enjoy. And you have that ending, which is good enough to lift the whole movie up a notch.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

The King Of Staten Island (2020)

Pete Davidson, in case you are unaware of him, has established a persona of being a lovable asshole. He's been doing some fun work on SNL, and is almost equally well-known for being someone who lost his firefighter father when he was only a young boy (during the work to rescue people trapped in the rubble of the attack on the Twin Towers on September 11th).

In The King Of Staten Island, which Davidson co-wrote with Dave Sirus and director Judd Apatow, he plays Scott, a young man who has never really managed to get over the fact that his firefighter father died in the line of duty when he was a young boy. He acts like it doesn't bother him, most of the time, but it clearly does. And it bothers him even more to see his mother (Marisa Tomei) become involved with another firefighter (Bill Burr). Will this affect his desire to be an inconsistent tattoo artist, get stoned, and maintain a far-too-casual relationship with the lovely Kelsey (Bel Powley)?

A lot of how you feel about The King Of Staten Island will depend on two factors. First, how you feel about Davidson. I get that his schtick isn't for everyone, but he has a nice line in self-deprecation mixed in with his attempts to get a gasp or laugh from people. Second, how you feel about Apatow movies. Yes, this runs for just over two hours. Of course. At least Stephen King used to remember how to churn out slim and exciting stories. Apatow has needed an editor on every one of his comedy features. Having said that, The King Of Staten Island doesn't feel overlong, thanks to the way it is structured. It has four main acts, and each one develops nicely from the one preceding it.

The central performances are great, and Davidson's character works with everyone that he's alongside. He's a sweet son used to pushing his luck with his mother, he's constantly antagonistic towards Burr's character, he cares for a girl he is also scared to commit to, and he goofs around with friends who allow him to stay comfortably in his state of arrested development. He also works well with the two youngest main cast members, Luke David Blumm and Alexis Rae Forlenza, maintaining that cool and messed-up older brother vibe he gave off in Big Time Adolescence. It's very much a two-way street though, with Davidson surrounded by top talent. As well as everyone mentioned, who are all on absolutely great form, you get some nice little turns from Steve Buscemi, Pamela Adlon, Maude Apatow, Ricky Velez, Lou Wilson, and Moises Arias.

There aren't any major set-pieces here, nothing that stands out as the easiest scene to use in selling the film, and some may want more laughs from it, but The King Of Staten Island is one of the best comedies I've seen in the past couple of years. And it also turns into something surprisingly sweet without feeling untrue to the nature of the central characters.

9/10

https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews