Directors: Tyler Spindel
Writers: Ben Zazove and Evan Turner
Stars: Adam Devine, Pierce Brosnan, Ellen Barkin

Synopsis: A straight-laced bank manager about to marry the love of his life. When his bank is held up by infamous Ghost Bandits during his wedding week, he believes his future in-laws who just arrived in town, are the infamous Out-Laws.

There is virtually nothing original or even clever about the Happy Madison production, The Out-Laws. This comedy about meeting in-laws follows the genre playbook step by step to the letter, so you will know exactly what will happen before it occurs. The main character will suspect someone is a criminal, and their fiancé doesn’t believe them. You can then cue the main character to try to prove their theory, so much so that they become the person of interest. Throw in the affable male character, a carbon copy villain you’ve seen thousands of times and a plot line of a loved one in danger. You have the same generic film that’s released at least quarterly over multiple streaming platforms. Then throw the cherry on top because of the time-honored tradition of showing everyone busting a humorous boogie or two on the wedding dance floor before the end credits, and you have the same recycled material as a dull, mind-numbing case of cinematic déjà vu.

The Out-Laws follows the good-natured, super-sweet bank manager Owen Browning (Adam Devine). The loveable nice guy, your basic Brad Whitaker type, who somehow stumbled into his upcoming wedding day with the drop-dead gorgeous yoga instructor, Parker (Nina Dobrev). Suffice it to say, Owen is excited about his forthcoming nuptials, even if his parents (played by Richard Kind and Julie Hagerty) are less than thrilled and equate their future daughter-in-law’s career as the equivalent to stripping.

However, the wedding doesn’t seem complete because Parker’s parents are not in the picture, doing missionary work in Africa. Owen then tries to locate photographs of them to create a heartfelt photomontage for their special day. That’s when the owner of the storage locker where Parker keeps her belongings notifies a powerful crime boss (Poorna Jagannathan), who has been looking for the elder McDermotts (Ellen Barkin and Pierce Brosnan) for years after double-crossing her nearly a decade prior.

Yes, how can the creative genius behind The Wrong Missy, the inspired scribe who gave birth to Sherlock Gnomes and Tooth Fairy 2, not to mention a story outline of The Goldbergs, go so wrong? Sarcasm aside, I don’t know if we can blame director Tyler Spindel and writers Evan Turner and Ben Zazove for The Out-Law’s dull homage to The In-Laws. For one, they need to make a living. Two, Hollywood is demanding this from their creatives, limiting the ceiling of their potential and selling what the buyer is comfortable handing over money for. The formula is to buy low (Devine), mimic high (The In-Laws), find a beautiful woman to play the oblivious fiancé/wife (Dobrev), a popular comic actor with nothing to do (Lil Rel Howery), and a handful of beloved veteran performers that will be (mostly) familiar across multiple generations (Barkin, Brosnan, Kind, and Hagerty).

The point is, The Out-Laws is your typical Hollywood version of a marketing ploy for streaming services and selling product placement by taking better film ideas and repackaging them to maintain subscribers and keep advertising revenue high. Another factor in soulless cinematic exercises like The Out-Laws is that they are banking on the coveted young demographic to gobble these films up because they don’t know any better. The audience will recognize if the McDermotts just immediately eliminate the main crux of their problem there would be no justification for a feature-length film, let alone a sixty-minute network pilot with commercials.

That being said, films can succeed if they are similar to other movies. Here, Devine needs to be more lightweight, an actor and comedian to carry any film without significant help. Unfortunately, the script leaves him holding the bag with ramblings that aim for adorable but go on too long and land at grating. Dobrev has little to do but looks confused and distressed, not to mention her role is so underwritten; she somehow has no idea her parents were notorious bank robbers for decades of her life when all the signs are there. And while Poorna Jagannathan, so funny and poignant in Netflix’s Never Have I Ever, makes the most of her comedic villains, the character is so unnecessarily evil. It’s nothing but cartoonish fluff that doesn’t do this comedy favors. If you enjoy The Out-Laws, I admire your tolerance and ability to let trivial things roll off your back. However, you should ask more from your streaming service that keeps increasing prices and advertisements in your viewing experience.

Grade: D

Directors: Patrick Wilson
Writers: Scott Teems (Story by: Leigh Whannell & Scott Teems)
Stars: Ty Simpkins, Patrick Wilson, Hiam Abbass

Synopsis: The Lamberts must go deeper into The Further than ever before to put their demons to rest once and for all.

James Wan’s Insidious and Insidious: Chapter 2 are two of the scariest films I’ve ever seen. Full stop. I don’t get scared easily because I find most horror movie tropes to be rather predictable (the creaking door, the loud boos, the fake-outs, the characters going into places they’re not supposed to go). Still, Wan and screenwriter Leigh Whannell created an atmosphere that twisted each trope on its head. You couldn’t guess where the jumpscares were coming from, you couldn’t figure out if what they were seeing was indeed real or a part of their imagination. The most potent image of the franchise is a daylight shot of Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson) being haunted by the Lipstick-Face Demon (Joseph Bishara) standing behind him. Of course, he doesn’t see it, but Renai (Rose Byrne) and Lorraine (Barbara Hershey) do. That shot, and the incredible Lipstick demon have been ingrained in my memory.

With Insidious: The Red Door, Patrick Wilson returns to his iconic role of Josh Lambert and directs for the first time. The film acts as a direct sequel to Insidious: Chapter 2, where Josh and his son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) have had their memories of the events of the first two films erased by Carl (Steve Coulter) after Josh was possessed by the spirit of serial killer Parker Crane (Tom Fitzpatrick) and attempted to kill his family. Ten years have passed since, and Josh is now divorced from Renai and has difficulty connecting with his family, especially Dalton, who is now attending college to study art.

During his art class, Dalton’s professor (Hiam Abbass) does an exercise in which she wants her students to go deep into their memories and draw what they see. Dalton becomes haunted by the vision of a Red Door and of a man with a hammer. He doesn’t understand what’s happening, but it slowly haunts him and Josh, who also begins to experience visions of creatures from “The Further.” The rest of the movie is fairly conventional, but Wilson and screenwriter Scott Teems keep it engaging through its character dynamics.

Insidious: The Red Door works well because audiences are already deeply invested in the characters Wan and Whannell created thirteen years ago with the release of the original Insidious. Wilson develops Josh’s relationship with Dalton thoughtfully, with the first act concentrated on what went wrong between him and his son. Dalton deeply resents his father because he hasn’t been there for him in the events that transpired in Chapter 2. But he can’t blame his dad for not being here – he simply doesn’t remember what happened beyond his son’s coma in the first film.

Wilson remains in top form as Josh, with a perfect understanding of what made the character memorable in the first two movies. He may not be in the movie as much as Simpkins, but he has his fair share of memorable sequences, including the biggest highlight of the movie, set in an MRI machine. Of course, it’s the perfect setting for a claustrophobic moment, where he’s trapped inside a contraption that, predictably, loses power. What happens next will not only shock but terrify you to your core. Simpkins is also great as Dalton, who has been relatively underused in the franchise thus far. In the first one, he was in a coma, after all. In the sequel, they slightly expand on the character by making him go “to the dark place,” but he finally feels like a fully-formed protagonist.

Unfortunately, the MRI scene was about the only legitimate scare I had watching Insidious: The Red Door. Wilson doesn’t possess the same skill as Wan (and Whannell, who directed Insidious: Chapter 3) when he made the first two movies. Wan consistently subverts audience expectations and puts jumpscares in positions where you least anticipate them. That’s why the Lipstick-Face Demon appearance was effective and always turned out to be the scariest part of the non-Wan-directed prequels. That shot of the demon at the end of Insidious: The Last Key may be slightly ridiculous, but Joseph Bishara always knows how to play it in the most effectively scary way. Bishara has also composed the score for each Insidious film, bringing his arsenal again for The Red Door. It’s always effective, particularly when he has to punctuate some of the scares by toning the music down and then bringing it back up.

And while the movie devotes lots of focus to Dalton’s journey and his relationship with his father and roommate Chris (Sinclair Daniel), The Red Door, unfortunately, forgets Renai for most of the runtime and instead relegates her to being an exposition-delivery machine. All she does is spoon-feed crucial exposition to Josh that audiences already know instead of giving her the agency she had in the first two Insidious pictures. The divorce sounded like an interesting storyline in Josh and Renai’s arc to explore, but Wilson and Teems barely scratch what made the couple want to separate when they still clearly have feelings for each other. Of course, we understand why they separated, but the explanation still feels unfulfilling and instead brings more questions than answers. And with how this movie wraps up, there are a lot of questions that Wilson seemingly leaves in suspense.

Then the third act arrives and feels pitifully rushed compared to the slow-burn approach Wilson opted to adopt in the first two acts. It isn’t as strong as the rest of the movie, but we’ve got the Lipstick Demon to hold on to, and that creature is terrifying in and of itself. The movie could just have him go BOO! at random moments for 100 minutes, and it would be one of the scariest movies of all time. Insidious has the creatures and the atmosphere that made the franchise a memorable staple in contemporary horror cinema. And while Insidious: The Red Door isn’t the strongest film of the franchise (nor the weakest, that award still goes out to Chapter 3), it still feels like a satisfying conclusion to a series of films that have continuously terrified us for over a decade. That alone is worth remembering.

Grade: B-

Directors: Kirk DeMicco and Faryn Pearl
Writers: Pam Brady, Brian C. Brown, and Elliott DiGuiseppi
Stars: Lana Condor, Toni Collette, Jane Fonda

Synopsis: A shy adolescent learns that she comes from a fabled royal family of legendary sea krakens and that her destiny lies in the depths of the waters, which is bigger than she could have ever imagined.

In the vein of Shrek, Despicable Me, and Wreck-It Ralph; Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken attempts to turn a traditional antagonist into a sympathetic protagonist. In this case, it’s the mighty krakens who protect the seas from the evil mermaids. This tale also adds in the twist of a coming of age story. 

Just like every teen in a coming of age story, Ruby (Lana Condor), just wants to be normal. As she embraces her abnormality thanks to the new, super popular girl and secret mermaid, Chelsea (Annie Murphy), Ruby hits all the benchmarks of a coming of age story. She rebels, she blows off her ride or die friends, and learns about her changing body. It’s all very derivative of what’s come before like a coming of age Mad Lib to insert the unique mythological details. The reason the formula works, though, is because we’ve all been there, or are there, or will be there. This is a human monster story. 

Within the tepid four quadrant appealing story, there are some highlights, like Annie Murphy’s vocal performance. She has that beautiful blend of snarkiness and shallowness to her that comes out so well in a popular girl character. She’s the mean girl you love and hate. A perfect pairing of actor and character.

Another terrific addition to the story is the music, both score and soundtrack. With a score written by Stephanie Economou, the film is given an atmospheric and heroic mood in equal measure. Her dreamy pop that sounds like it’s coming from underwater is the perfect coming of age sound. The soundtrack also features songs from bands with fantastic front women, including Yeah Yeah Yeahs, BLACKPINK, and fabulous teen punk group The Linda Lindas. The music enriches Ruby’s world rather than forcing a feeling onto it.

What is most appealing about Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken, if you want something that will distract from the bland story, is the design of the locations and characters. From the spineless, rubbery krakens to the diverse townsfolk, the character designs are wonderful. There is something really inspiring about the creation of a unique human environment even when the humans in it feel very familiar. The town looks like something out of a Miyazaki film with its turrets, shipping container archways, tiny, zipping cars, and pirate ship duck boats. The undersea world is also rendered in gorgeous, glowing neons. If you’re going to make an animated film like this, it’s good to really pour some pizzazz into the design.

It’s also refreshing that filmmakers are not into fully blaming parents any more. There has been a spate of recent coming of age films that have had parents that treat their teens with more respect than a lot of parents in previous examples of these types of films. There’s a lovely scene of Agatha (Toni Collette) coming upon the scared, gigantic Ruby. Rather than pushing Ruby away with blame, Agatha calms her down and talks with Ruby. There’s still conflict between the two of them, but the rift never seems insurmountable after that because of how much Agatha is trying.

It’s funny to write that a story about a teenage kraken doesn’t break a whole lot of new ground, but it’s true. Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken is a very by the numbers coming of age story. The unique plot elements of the story, the stunning visuals, and a few wonderful vocal performances aren’t enough to elevate it beyond just O.K. It’s a nice palate cleanser from the tidal wave of franchise fare drowning the megaplexes right now, but that’s the only thing it offers.

Grade: C

Director: Adele Lim
Writers: Cherry Chevapravatdumrong, Teresa Hsiao
Stars: Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu, Sabrina Wu

Synopsis: Follows four Asian-American friends as they bond and discover the truth of what it means to know and love who you are, while they travel through Asia in search of one of their birth mothers.

With Jennifer Lawrence bringing the capital “R” back to “raunchy” in No Hard Feelings, coming out this Friday, this summer promises to be the return of the female R-rated driven comedy. That’s because the year’s funniest comedy comes only a few weeks later: Adele Lim’s Joy Ride! An uproarious, gut-busting, laugh-out-loud comedy that knows how to push the envelope of a conventional road trip comedy to its limits. Then, somewhat unexpectedly, locating a poignant theme of identity in the middle of such wild debauchery to tie everything together.

The story follows Audrey (Ashley Park), a kick-ass lawyer crushing the competition in a middle-aged white man’s world. Audrey has racked up over 3,000 billable hours, a statistic important in her uber politically correct sensitive boss (Timothy Simmons), who thinks a promotion is in order, which means a move to Los Angeles. A goal and career-oriented professional, a career move of this magnitude has always been her dream. The problem is Audrey doesn’t know how to tell Lolo (Sherry Cola), a free spirit and emerging “positive body image artist” (which amounts to creating miniature playground equipment in the shape of male and female sexual organs), who happens to be her best friend since they were in grade school, bonded by their Chinese heritage.

However, Audrey was adopted by Caucasian parents and has never learned to speak fluent Chinese or Mandarin. So, to close a deal on the business trip that will seal her promotion, Audrey brings Lolo along to be her translator. Everything seems to be going to plan until Lolo drops the news that she’s bringing her anomalous cousin, “Deadeye” (Sabrina Wu), a chronically online socially awkward BTS-head who joins them on their adventure. Along with the help of Audrey’s college roommate, Kate (Stephanie Hsu), a streaming soap star who doubles as a hot mess of a born-again Christian, tags along to charm Audrey’s potential new clients. Unfortunately, the potential clients refuse to sign on the dotted line because Audrey is unaware of where she comes from. The group then embarks on a road trip to locate Audrey’s birth mother and search for the identity that was left behind for her.

Joy Ride is Lim’s first feature film behind the camera, after writing the screenplays of such wonderful films as Crazy Rich Asians and the animated movie Raya and the Last Dragon. Here, scribes Cherry Chevapravatdumrong (Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens) and Teresa Hsiao (Fresh Off the Boat) work with her story treatment to create one of the year’s funniest films. I’m not sure we’ve seen a film push the envelope this far without tearing it apart since the Farrelly brothers’ comedies of the ’90s. The script is an eccentric mix of hard R-rated (Lolo), nonsensical (Wu), and even some cringe (Hsu) comedy concepts that blend famously. Including an eye-opening, jaw-dropping, raunchy comedic sex scene(s) involving all the characters that will go down as one of the raciest yet most hilarious in movie history.

While the writing is very funny and instigates some genuine belly laughs, those lines and gags are brought to life by a fantastic cast. For me, the film’s best jokes come from the amusing Wu, whose naïve, oddball, yet empathetic performance has a direct line to my funny bone and even my heart. Hsu, last year’s Academy Award nominee, has the film’s funniest scene—which brings new meaning to the phrase, “You don’t stare the devil in the eyes and come out without some of his sins”—which will probably elicit more audible gasps than laughs initially. Still, you’ve never seen anything like it. Cola, who you will see later this year in the awkwardly charming Sundance favorite Shortcomings, is Joy Ride’s wildcard yet strangely grounded best friend because she has a self-awareness that’s out of place in the group, never pretending to be anything she’s not.

Then you have Tony Award nominee Ashley Park, who starts as a straight woman, then gets to let loose as the film goes along and does a little bit of everything in the comedy. I’m not sure just anyone can show the range she has here, delivering the film’s most poignant moments while making the consumption of pounds of blow, pills, and other drug paraphernalia in the strangest of places to when being unexpected drug mules was thrust upon her, like a legend, but Park does—as I said, utterly delightful, laugh-out-loud, dirty debauchery.

Finally, at the core of the film is Audrey’s identity. To understand the themes the film touches upon, albeit incredibly briefly at times, you should check out the Amanda Lipitz Netflix documentary Found. That film follows four Chinese girls who were adopted and brought to the United States, embarking on a journey back to China in search of their cultural identity. This encompasses Audrey and is used to drive the story. Not only does it allow very funny situations to continuously top each other, which can obviously be illogical and unbelievable at times, but it also helps give the outrageous comedy an emotional connection that makes at least one of the characters three-dimensional and provides the viewer with something to hang their hat on. Yes, the film has heart, but let’s make no mistake, Joy Ride is the best R-rated comedy since, well, No Hard Feelings. However, as comedies go, Adele Lim’s road trip movie will have a hard time giving up the “funniest film of the year” accolade stamp that most critics and fans will indeed embrace. Even when some of the jokes do not work, Joy Ride unapologetically goes beyond the limits of your typical comedy, uninhibited and without regrets.

Grade: A-

Director: Daina Reid
Writer: Hannah Kent
Stars: Sarah Snook, Greta Scacchi, Damon Herriman

Synopsis: Sarah Snook plays a fertility doctor who believes firmly in life and death, but after noticing the strange behavior of her young daughter, must challenge her own values and confront a ghost from her past.

The new Netflix psychological horror thriller, Run Rabbit Run, conquers the genre if you want to judge the film solely as a visual medium. Cinematographer Bonnie Elliott successfully builds enough tension and horror goodness by incorporating a wide range of subjective camera shots, from extreme close-ups to an effective wide-angle tracking shot over the desolate Australian landscape, causing the viewer to feel uneasy about where the story is heading as it progresses. However, novelist Hannah Kent’s script relies too heavily on standard horror tropes that are repetitive, which are practically the same scenes. The result is the cinematic equivalent of knocking your head against a wall, expecting a different result.

Run Rabbit Run follows a single mother named Sarah (Sarah Snook), an obstetrician who is co-parenting her daughter Mia (Lily LaTorre) with her ex-husband, Peter (Damon Herriman). Mia is a precocious child who has started to take an interest in her family and its traumatic history. Much of that has to do with Sarah’s mother, Joan (Greta Scacchi), who has been suffering from dementia for years now. From the viewer’s standpoint, we know very little about Sarah’s past, which is where Kent’s script excels, by releasing tiny reveals, like a good mystery thriller, of the happenings that lead to their family’s dark backstory. As the film makes headway, Mia begins to refer to herself as Alice, Sarah’s younger sister who went missing when she was a small child.

Sarah has never discussed her family trauma with her “Bunny,” a pet name her parents gave Mia. How is this possible? Sarah begins to wonder if her ex-husband is telling Mia about her past as some power play or if Sarah is talking in her sleep. Either way, her adorable little girl develops a case of oppositional defiant disorder seemingly out of nowhere, frequently becoming uncooperative, rebellious, and hostile toward her mother as she continues to stake her claim as her mother’s lost sister. Mia’s teachers even become concerned, saying the child’s extreme anxiety leads to her gothic and morbid drawings on the back of her school assignments.

Daina Reid knows something about psychological horror, having received a 2019 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for her work on The Handmaid’s Tale. (Reportedly, Elisabeth Moss was set to star in Reid’s film but backed out because of scheduling conflicts.) Darkly atmospheric, with a chilling score by Mark Bradshaw and Marcus Whale, Run Rabbit Run has all the visual and auditory splendors when it comes to a compelling psychological horror thriller. Also, the obsession with putting a child in danger will naturally lend itself to the viewers easily feeling a sense of dread and uneasiness.

However, while you may think you are in for a psychological horror steeped in imagery, Kent’s script repeatedly begins to use the same scenes of Sarah confronting Mia about knowing family secrets and wanting to be called Alice. This happens at least a half dozen times and is not even used as an effective storytelling tool to reveal new information and advance the story. Every time it happens, Mia puts on her bunny mask, and Snook’s Sarah becomes agitated and accidentally injures her child. The same scenario repeats itself, which becomes monotonous and unpleasant. And by the film’s third act, the reveal is rather apparent, turning it into a generic thriller. Even a secondary reveal that can be seen as abstract is completely illogical since this would be the first place anyone would look at when someone goes missing.

Reid and Kent’s mistake is immersing the viewer in Australian horror themes and symbolism without fine-tuning the story’s plot for errors and varying the scenes involving psychological horror. For instance, the constant appearance of a giant white rabbit holds significance in the land of Down Under, as its introduction has resulted in overgrazing and devastating impacts on the country’s indigenous flora and fauna. The statement about overpopulation seems evident, as humans also contribute to overpopulation. Additionally, Australian gothic themes such as repression, being bound by secrets and lies, the conflict between nature and culture, and even elements of mysticism make appearances. While one can appreciate the filmmakers’ attempt to incorporate unique Australian cultural themes, the overall experience feels like camouflage for a derivative thriller. What Run Rabbit Run is really about is a metaphor for a child’s vicarious trauma, but that point is muddled and not at all brought to the forefront as it should have been.

The film has a small cast, and these are all fairly standard horror performances. I will say Snook’s mental well-being crumbling in front of our eyes is startlingly effective. Yet, by the film’s end, the monotonous, unpleasant repetitiveness goes from a killer creepy yarn to a mundane psychological horror thriller imitation we have seen done better in Australian horror fares like Relic and The Babadook. Run Rabbit Run would have been better off with an increased focus on the family’s dark past and highlighting the vicarious trauma angle to enhance the viewer’s experience and the depth of its themes.

Grade: C-