Carved 2024 – JenEric Movie Review

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Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2024 film Carved.

Story

The story is ridiculously simple and follows the usual teens being hunted by supernatural creature. Instead of the older obsession with vilifying sex, POC, or queer characters, it has a heavy handed message about cannabis. Other than the deaths and violence, this is Disney PG with nary a kiss. Oh and the Black queer characters do die fairly fast. The ending also seemed too easy.

Score: 0

Characters

Overachieving theatre writer who’s in charge of her little brother with a disability. Hunky boy and various other tropes. The characters are flat and the majority of the actors are obviously going through the motions. Peyton Elizabeth Lee, DJ Qualls, and Wyatt Lindner do an excellent job with what they were given, but the rest of the cast felt like they were in a different movie.

Score: 0.5

Dialogue

The dialogue is terrible. Trying to be serious but quip like Bruce Campbell, and failing at both.

Score: 0

Visuals and Music

The death scenes and special effects were okay but not creative. Lots of carving people like pumpkins.

The music was okay but derivative.

Score: 0.5

Fun

This was terrible and I almost gave up. I think if the main actress wasn’t so good I would have.

Score: 0

Overall

Some horror movies are so bad they attain cult status but this one can’t even manage that. It deserves to be forgotten for simply being boring and formulaic. Save yourself the trouble and watch anything else.

Final Score: 1 Stars out of 5

Chicken Little – JenEric Movie Review

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Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2005 film Chicken Little.

Story

This is three shorts in one poorly transitioned and linked by nothing but characters. Instead of transition scenes to bring us between family drama, baseball, and aliens; we get fat, fart, ugly, and useless jokes.

Score: 0

Characters

Someone threw darts at a board filled with clichés then picked the ones with the best mock-able attributes. I have never seen so many jokes at the expense of the main characters in any Disney movie before.

The parent who doesn’t believe their child trope needs to go away forever.

Score: 0

Dialogue

There was a lot of clever meta-jokes about the genre. From jokes about the movie Aliens, to Indiana Jones, some were clever, others not so much.

Score: 0.5

Visuals and Music

I’m not sure what style Disney was going for, but the visuals are average to mediocre for the time and abysmal for now. The character design was poorly thought out and the scaling was odd.

The music was a lovely nostalgic hit of the mid-aughts.

Score: 0.5

Fun

The urge to scream at the screen was hard to push down. So much about this annoyed me. The kids liked it enough, although the two year old wasn’t all that interested after an hour.

Score: 0

Overall

This is one of the movies people forget is Disney. I think we should just forget it completely. Abysmal jokes with no connections between the sections. Its writing is more concerned with insults both to its characters and its audience’s intelligence.

Final Score: 1 Star out of 5

The Sleepover – JenEric Movie Review

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Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2020 film The Sleepover.

Story

The main plot seemed to be that the kids needed to save their parents… except they didn’t need to nor did they save them.

Someone took a bad “I’m a secret spy” movie and mushed it with a decent Adventures in Babysitting ripoff.

There’s nothing I dislike more than having competent kids end up being useless.

Chekhov would be very disappointed in the laser pen and alarm underwear.

Score: 0

Characters

There were two characters out of 7 that actually got a story arc and growth. The rest were just there to prop up the plot and make jokes. Mim started out as an amazing and fun character but had to be toned down to make the main girl look more awesome. The dad was goofy and fun and then he became a complete idiot.

Score: 0

Dialogue

The dialogue wasn’t bad. A lot of over acting, but that was a bonus in this genre. It wasn’t particularly great but not bad.

Score: 0.5

Visuals and Music

This movie was stylish and had some impressive action scenes. It also had a significant amount of vomit which loses it points in my book.

The music was good and had a small moment of great, but overall was derivative.

Score: 0.5

Fun

There were times I enjoyed the movie, but the complete lack of agency in the kids at the end and the vomit scene really took my enjoyment away.

Score: 0

Overall

This movie wanted real hard to be a spy movie and then forgot to do anything like a spy movie. The excellent actors were underused, characters were changed for plot, and the awkward bodily humour wasn’t much fun.

Final Score: 1 star out of 5

The Wedding Planner – JenEric Movie Reviews

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Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2001 movie The Wedding Planner.

Story

I’m not sure what was going on in the early 2000’s that this was considered a romantic comedy. There was very little comedy and very little romance. The most jaded love story I’ve ever seen. It’s interesting that it has a similar love story to Enchanted but a completely different feel.

It’s the early 2000s but the amount of sexism, ableism, and racism is disturbing.

Score: 0

Characters

Jennifer Lopez manages to make a narcissistic, vapid, and whiny character be sympathetic. Beyond that I disliked almost everyone in this movie. I hated that she suddenly stopped caring about her career the minute a pretty boy blinked at her, I cringed at the love story, I yelled at the screen about how disrespectful her father was, and overall wished I could slap some sense into everyone.

Also can we talk about the inherent racism of making Lopez an Italian? I’m all for casting anyone in any role but it would have taken 2 lines to make her mixed race Italian-Latina.

Score: 0

Dialogue

The movie is pretty standard dialogue for it’s time and avoids a lot of slang by being mostly about rich people. There are a few lines by McConaughey that should be uncomfortable but he manages to make almost sweet. This is massive feat considering the dialogue is terrible.

Score: 0

Visuals and Music

The movie was well shot. It had solid angles and the locations are beautiful. They didn’t try to use any weird colour filters and let the beauty of the locations and the clothing shine through. I feel like they could have increased the saturation a little.

The music was well done, adding emotion and guidance where the movie lacked any idea whether you should be cooing or screaming in horror.

Score: 1

Fun

I like my romantic comedies with more comedy and more sweetness. I don’t like to cringe and I really don’t like it when a powerful career woman is made out to only be the product of a loveless life.

Score: 0

Overall

This type of movie is the reason rom-coms started to die out. It’s jaded, creepy, and overall offensive. The main actors are fantastic at what they do and manage to make the characters almost likeable but the writing gets in the way.

This is the kind of movie that would be fun to watch without dialogue where you make up your own story.

Final score: 1 star out of 5

Spy Kids 3 and Spy Kids 4 – JenEric Movie Review

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Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2004 and 2011 movies Spy Kids 3: Game Over and Spy Kids 4-D: All the Time in the World.

I reviewed Spy Kids 1 and 2 in a previous post

Story

Spy Kids 3

Villain captured in a cyber prison turns that prison into a game in order to enslave kids minds and …? Spy organization sends kid spy into game to find his sister and shut the game down.

It has serious potential but there was so little story and what there was, was confusing, ableist, or just boring. I spent most of the movie shaking my head or yelling at the main character. The first two were all about family but this one barely makes a cameo out of everything.

Score: 0

Spy Kids 4

It took seven years for people to forget about the last one. This one brings in new kids, new parents, and a very updated OSS. The time manipulation was utterly unbelievable and made my head hurt.

The story did go back to it’s roots and become all about family. The cameos by the original kids was great.

Score: 0.5

Characters

Spy Kids 3

They really tried to make Juni the sensitive outsider here and it failed completely. He’s basically a bumbling idiot. While in the others he and his sister bumble together and solve the problem, in this one the villain is helping him win and his sister is only in a tiny part of the movie.

Stalone is fantastic at chewing the scenery but his character is confused, confusing, and barely above useful. And don’t get me started on the one girl character.

Score: 0

Spy Kids 4

The characters in this were much better and less insulting stereotypes. I like that the boy being hearing impaired doesn’t make him weak, I like that the mom kicks ass while pregnant, I like that the kids are smart again. That being said, they were all a little bland as characters.

Score: 0.5

Dialogue

Spy Kids 3

There’s a scene near the beginning where the main character is talking about family and another character says, “Everyone is family Juni.”

His reply is, “That doesn’t any sense.”

That’s the best description of this movie. Nonsensical drivel followed by insipid dialogue.

Score: 0

Spy Kids 4

It wasn’t great but it wasn’t terrible. There are a few good puns and a lot of clock or time jokes. It’s ok.

Score: 0.5

Visuals and Music

Spy Kids 3

I thought 2 had a lot of 3D gimmicks and stupidity. This one practically based the entire movie on it. It’s cheesy pseudo computer game graphics for the entire movie. It looked bad sixteen years ago and looks worse now. The music was better.

Score: 0.5

Spy Kids 4

It took a few movies but they finally moved back to the hyper-saturated cartoon look of the first one. The action well done and the scenery is great. The music wasn’t fantastic but it was pretty good.

Score: 0.5

Fun

Spy Kids 3

The beginning and the end are a lot of fun and the middle parts are interesting if non-nonsensical and dumb.

Score: 0.5

Spy Kids 4

This was my daughters favourite of the four. She said it’s cause there was a dog and a baby. I liked it because it was a fun kids action movie. It doesn’t hold up to the original, but it was ok.

Score: 1

Overall

Spy Kids 3

Taking out the sibling dynamic from this series was a mistake. This movie doesn’t live up to the first and frankly is one of the worst movies I’ve seeen. It’s not offensive (Except the honeypot, nerd bashing, and ableism) just boring.

Final Score: 1 Star

Spy Kids 4

This movie tried to recreate the whimsy and awesomeness of the first but doesn’t quite get there. It’s bogged down by fart jokes and 3D gags along with a premise that makes my head hurt if I think about it too hard.

Final Score: 3 Stars

Trolls – JenEric Movie Review

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Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2016 movie Trolls.

Story

The basic concept for this movie is that the Trolls are being hunted as food by Bergens. The unreliable narrator tells us that it’s the only way the Bergens can experience happiness. This is a dark concept that had me extremely interested. It’s probably the best part of the movie.

The theme of happiness runs throughout the movie with the inevitable, “Happy was inside you the whole time,” ending.

The humour is fun when they go a little psychedelic, but mostly relies on fat jokes, fart jokes, and a super awkward romance.

The film’s message ends up falling flat in it’s complete disregard for diversity and blatant misunderstanding of depression and trauma.

Score: 0 (I can’t believe anyone sober could approve this script.)

Characters

Ripped straight from an 80’s high school drama, these characters manage to have less depth than the dolls they’re based off.

Sad geek/loner/weirdo pines for beautiful/vapid/popular girl. His entire journey is to realize it’s okay to be happy. He’s finally accepted when he changes colours and starts to sing, effectively conforming to the group.

The king Bergen and scullery maid love story is so shallow they need four separate romance tropes to prop it up.

Score: 0

Dialogue

Overall the dialogue is pretty bland. A lot of, “Be Happy,” and the music is mostly used as reinforcement of the themes.

Forgettable overall.

Score: 0

Visuals

The visuals are pretty decent, even though they looked ripped from Little Big Planet and Kirby. They’re used to great effect to show the contrast and texture of this horror world, where there’s always a bigger fish to summon.

Score: 0.5

Fun

At the ten minute mark after the 3rd fart joke, I started to get worried.

The movie was fun when it concentrated on the contrast between joy and horror, but mostly I found myself wishing I was watching the new Cats movie instead.

Score: 0.5

Conclusion

This movie is offensive, awkward, and downright boring. Save yourself the pain and watch something else.

Final Score: 1 Star