Novocaine (2025)

Novocaine (2025)

 

6/10

Starring

Jack Quaid

Amber Midthunder

Ray Nicholson

Betty Gabriel

 

 

Directed by Dan Berk and Robert Olsen

 

What I like about the movie is the way it captures your attention from the start. The story pulls you in and keeps you interested in how this relationship on screen will go. And having seen only the movie posters (not the trailer), you’re left wondering when the action will start.

I have to say, the main attraction in this movie is the character dynamics and acting between the two leads, Jack Quaid and Amber Midthunder. They made me love the movie and had me smiling every time I saw the way they interacted.

This movie has a nice story, that fails to land perfectly, you can tell from which point the writers lost inspiration, and the movie just went off the tracks. The plot is about a man named Nathan Caine (Quaid), a well-behaved, keep-to-himself type with congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis (CIPA). This condition has made it hard for him to experience things most people take for granted, especially when it comes to women. At his workplace, there’s a girl he likes, and she likes him too, and her name is Sherry (Midthunder). She convinces him to hang out, and they connect, and there was a brief something brewing between them.

Then there’s a bank robbery at their workplace, and Sherry gets kidnapped, and it was at this point some of the movie’s flaws start to show. Some predictable elements creep in, along with very cliché moments we’ve seen before—like when someone who shouldn’t be in an action situation ends up right in the middle of it and behaves in an unrealistic way. But the movie is an action comedy, so it tries to laugh these things off. Nathan feels it's his job to go after the kidnappers and save Sherry, and when a man who can’t feel pain goes after people, some interesting stuff is bound to happen.

That said, I didn’t like the comedy during the fight scenes, I get it, he can’t feel pain, but he can still die, so there should be some sense of danger, not just banter while getting hit.

Even though I mentioned the movie has predictable elements, there’s a flip in character intent that I did not see coming at all. We learn there’s more to the bank robbery than we thought, and that twist had me glued to the screen—I was more hooked than ever.

Like I said earlier, the final act, went completely off the rails, the movie just went too violent for no reason—too much shooting, too much rage, and way too many broken bones. That kind of brought the movie’s appeal down a notch.

Would I recommend you see this movie, yes, I would. In the end, it was still a nice movie to see.

Mickey 17 (2025)

 

Mickey 17 (2025)

 

7/10

Starring

Robert Pattinson

Naomi Ackie

Steven Yeun

Toni Collette

Mark Ruffalo

 

 

Directed by Bong Joon Ho

 

 

The movie has an exciting premise and the idea of Mickey (Robert Pattinson) being just a disposable human, cloned again and again each time he dies, is very captivating. This is one thing the movie does so absolutely well. We are introduced to Mickey 17, and we see him wishing to be killed once, swallowed by this creature. But then, things didn’t happen like that.

He explains to us that we are in space, on a planet colonized by Earth in the year 2054. He tells us how he is used as a disposable human lab rat, based on Earth-banned technology that clones Mickey and restores his memories after he dies from the lethal assignments he is sent on.

The movie then shifts to how he got here, here as in Mickey 17 wishing to be killed by the creature. We are taken on about a thirty-minute journey showing how Mickey Barnes did not fully read or understand the application form he signed when he applied to be an “Expendable” just to get off Earth and escape his problems. At this point, the pacing slows down a bit. The explanation of how he got to Mickey 17 and how he met Nasha felt like it could have been summarized. It’s not just here, the movie has uneven pacing in certain areas, where you either wish they’d get through a moment quicker or feel like they rushed past something before you fully grasp it.

Before I dive into other parts of the plot, I need to let you know that you are about to experience acting on a masterclass level from Robert Pattinson. He delivered such an amazing, standout performance that I couldn’t help but acknowledge and appreciate it. The other cast members, too, delivered A-level performances, but Pattinson went above the rest.

The movie is based on Mickey7, a 2022 science fiction novel by Edward Ashton. And so as not to drop any spoilers, let’s just say that the moment the creature didn’t eat Mickey but instead dragged him out to the surface and abandoned him there, everything took a turn. That’s the magic of this movie—the way everything flipped when Mickey 17 got back to base and saw that there was now a Mickey 18. The problem? Mickey 18 is a bit of a psycho and very violent.

Now, both Mickeys want to live and have to find a way to navigate this problem—because by law, there cannot be multiples. But Mickey 18, as I said, is unstable, and he made sure nothing went as you’d expect. This shift happens fast, as the movie picks up pace the moment Mickey 17 returns to base.

Fantastic movie and I recommend that you should see it.

Bong Joon Ho directed and adapted this book, and he did a wonderful job. I do hope many get the opportunity to see and appreciate this movie for the masterful work it is.

 

Paddington in Peru (2024)

 

Paddington in Peru (2024)

 

4/10

 

Starring

Hugh Bonneville

Emily Mortimer

Julie Walters

Jim Broadbent

 

Directed by Dougal Wilson

 

This third addition to the Paddington Bear movie franchise is not as amazing as the previous two. The acting is still good from the adults, the voice casting is still on point, but the story feels dragged out. The first ten minutes of the movie are so boring that I was begging for something to happen. There’s a long talk about how things in the Browns' house have changed because the children are older. But that could have been done in a better way, instead of the ten minutes of screen time to know that the kids have grown up and are now acting like teenagers.

After this comes the letter, which kicks off the whole idea of the family going to Peru. Paddington 3 follows the Browns on their trip to Peru after they receive a letter from the Reverend Mother of the Home for Retired Bears, saying Aunt Lucy has been acting strange. Most of the original cast reprises their roles, except for Mary Brown. Sally Hawkins is no longer playing her, and Emily Mortimer takes over the role. It’s a noticeable change, but from my perspective, I’m not sure how other viewers will feel about it.

So, the Browns and Paddington arrive in Peru and head to the Home for Retired Bears, only to discover that Aunt Lucy has gone missing as the Reverend Mother informs them. Distraught, Paddington searches her room and finds a map and with guidance from the Reverend Mother, they conclude that Aunt Lucy has set off on an adventure, marking a specific location on the map as her starting point.

Oh my gosh! This movie does not draw you in. It drags its feet so much before anything actually happens that you feel like you’re being punished. The only highlight is Antonio Banderas, whose character and performance are memorable, other than that, the whole movie is a forgettable journey. Its badly paced and, at times, very predictable, for an adventure about finding the city of gold Eldorado, which is tied to the absence of Aunt Lucy, you would have expected better.

I can tell you nothing actually happens, even when you have gone halfway into the movie, and the lighthearted fun we usually get from Paddington’s antics, which are innocent but always wildly disruptive, is drowned in the boredom of this movie. And since the writing is poor and every character’s intention is exposed from the start, there’s no suspense to make up for it. The previous movies also didn’t rely on suspense, but they worked because of good writing. Here, without that, the whole thing just feels like a chore.

If you have the time to see this movie—don’t because it’s not worth it.

 

The Parenting (2025)

 

The Parenting (2025)

 

4/10

 

Starring

Nik Dodani

Brandon Flynn

Parker Posey

Vivian Bang

 

Directed by Craig Johnson

 

I like the way the movie starts and how it tells you upfront not to expect it to be anything more than a comedy.

The Parenting is a horror-comedy movie with a very good premise, and all six characters we meet have very distinctive behaviours. Right from the get-go, you can see there are going to be clashes. Each actor brings their A-game, and the distinctiveness of their characters shines through in the way the cast portrays their characters. You’ll love watching Liddy, played by Lisa Kudrow, because she plays the role exactly like she played Phoebe Buffay in Friends.

The movie starts in 1983 when a family is (implied to be) killed by a creature in their house, now fast forward to the present, and a couple, Rohan and Josh, decide to host their families at this same house, which they rented from a certain lady. When the parents arrive, you can immediately see the personality clashes as Rohan’s parents are uptight, while Josh’s are not, and Rohan himself seems like a completely different person when his parents are around.

Then, during the family dinner, the horror starts when a creepy hand grabs Josh, startling him and making the whole family look at him oddly. Soon after, the movie shows us a faceless, creepy figure (resembling one of the people killed in the house in 1983) banging its head against a beam all night. Everyone mistakes the noise for one of the other couples having sex. To add to the chaos, one of Rohan and Josh’s friends, Sara, unexpectedly shows up at the house, to join the six people already there.

From here, the movie fully embraces the horror-comedy genre, but not in a good way. When Rohan’s dad, Frank, starts acting strangely because he was possessed, they decide to get help, and call for a snow plough because they’re snowed in. When Sara tries to get a shovel from the shed, another creepy figure, which was we know is also one of the victims from 1983, tries to grab her.

So now they’re trapped, seeing these creatures, and trying to find a way out. Meanwhile, Frank has attempted to kill Josh and his wife, before locking himself in a room.

At this time, I was starting to wish I was watching something else, because I did not find anything funny again happening and even though I didn’t fine the movie predictable, I was not excited to discover what will be next. And the pacing didn’t help things, because it moves quick and drops, quick and drops, I was just tired. Another issue I have is how the characters react to Frank’s behaviour, this is someone actively trying to kill them, and yet, they act way too cool about it. All these issues, negate all the positive things I had initially felt when I started watching the movie.

I don’t think the movie is okay—I wouldn’t recommend it and aside from everything I’ve already mentioned, the way it ends is so convenient and anticlimactic that it’s actually annoying.

Fight or Flight (2025)

 

Fight or Flight (2025)

 

4/10

 Starring

Josh Hartnett

Charithra Chandran

Julian Kostov

Katee Sackhoff

 

Directed by James Madigan

 

I give the movie one thing, it knows how to throw mixed feelings around, which is good. I wasn’t particularly pleased with the way it started. It was vague, and there was some bravado-filled, annoying agent behavior at the beginning that almost made me walk. But I was curious to see the link with Josh Hartnett. Then, when I saw how he was presented, it didn’t help keep me glued, and I started wondering if I’d last more than twenty minutes into this movie.

The acting performances were mixed, some actors delivered, others didn’t but it didn’t take away from the movie’s overall idea or the tension it was building.

The plot is simple. There’s a character called The Ghost that the Americans are trying to catch. They track him to Bangkok, where he’s going to be on a plane. So, they activate an agent (Reyes, played by Hartnett) in Bangkok to get on the same flight and capture him.

The problem is, information about The Ghost is all over the internet, and other countries also have their own people on the same plane trying to do the same thing.

The movie’s tension comes from how all these characters, stuck on the same flight, plan to get the job done while also stopping each other. Another twist—which you could have guessed is, no one knows what The Ghost looks like.

As usual with action comedies, most have the same drawbacks like, the protagonist is unkillable because he knows martial arts. And not just any kind, he somehow has the exact skills needed to take down anyone who comes after him. Add luck to the mix, and he always seems to have just the right objects nearby to kill whoever comes for him, all within this confined plane. Things get worse when Reyes cover is blown and his picture is sent to everyone else on the plane, he too has to be captured, from here the movie dives into absurdity in the way it handles the situations on the plane.

The movie, of course, struggles with confinement, which is expected since all the action has to take place on the plane. But at the very least, they could have made the whole covert thing actually covert. From around minute thirty onward, bodies were dropping like flies. You’d think there would be panic with all the noise and fighting, but somehow, this movie found a way to make a plane feel massive and the dividers between classes so airtight that people on the same flight couldn’t hear a thing.

This isn’t one of those run-to-the-cinema movies. For what it’s worth, it’s an okay film, but you’re better off waiting to see if a streaming service picks it up. You might not enjoy being stuck in a theater for this one.

Love Hurts (2025)

 

Love Hurts (2025)

 

2/10

Starring

Ke Huy Quan

Ariana DeBose

Daniel Wu

Mustafa Shakir

 

Directed by Jonathan Eusebio

 

There was this feeling of being out of place when I saw Ke Huy Quan going through the motions of acting like a real estate agent. The performance wasn’t strong enough in this role to draw me in. Then came the moment he starts fighting martial arts, and suddenly, it felt alright. The movie was just ten minutes in, and I was captivated by the sudden shift from out-of-place real estate agent to secret martial arts fighter. We now see that he has a secret life, but sadly, that tone shift was the only exciting thing that happened in this movie.

Love Hurts has really good action scenes, but that’s it. There’s a lack of chemistry, and the dialogue between the cast doesn’t always flow as neatly as you’d expect.

This movie has bad comedy—the scenes where the jokes are meant to land aren’t funny. It’s not that the joke flew over your head; it’s just actually not funny at all. The writing is poor, and the first-time director—well, it’s obvious he’s just starting out because the movie’s tone jumps all over the place, thanks to the uneven pacing.

The thing that annoys me the most is the unrealistic way the characters behave around one another or how they react to situations, it’s just odd. You don’t step into a room, see a man you presumed dead on the floor, then pick up his notebook and start reading his poetry out loud like it’s a casual afternoon. You don’t even call the police—you call your boss, whose office you just found the dead body in. And guess what she does on that call? She tells him how amazing the poetry is (after briefly mentioning the dead guy) and then starts reading it to him over the phone. Where is the urgency? You just saw a presumed dead guy on the floor—where’s the call to the police? Where’s the panic?

The movie plot is about a retired hitman named Marvin (Ke Huy Quan), who is now hiding out as a realtor. But his past resurfaces when his brother hunts him down, sending an assassin to his office to ask about the whereabouts of a woman named Rose. Marvin knocks out the assassin in his office and runs home, only to be attacked by two more goons, also looking for Rose. When the movie actually starts, we see a woman defacing Marvin’s realtor signs all over town. It’s not hard to figure out that she’s the Rose everyone is looking for.

The first twenty minutes keep things vague, never making it clear whether Marvin actually knows where she is—but you can guess that he does. My biggest question is this: the movie tells us that Marvin was supposed to kill her but let her go instead, which is why everyone is after him for her whereabouts, because they know she is alive. How did they come to that conclusion, you may ask, well she stirred things up by sending letters to everyone when she was supposed to be in hiding.

Do you want to see this movie? I’d advise that you don’t.

Demon City (2025)

Demon City (2025)

2/10

Starring

Tôma Ikuta

Masahiro Higashide

Miou Tanaka

Directed by Seiji Tanaka

 

We may have to wait a long time before movie producers decide to stop rehashing the same old hitman-retiring plot.

There has to be a new way to get the protagonist angry enough to go after people for revenge. This is why I liked John Wick (Part 1—before the plot got convoluted with too many sequels). The whole revenge story was simple: You killed my dog, embarrassed me in my own house—now I’m coming after you.

But this movie didn’t bother coming up with a fresh reason for the protagonist (Sakata) to seek revenge. Instead, it stuck to the same old, predictable setup. He met a woman, started a family, and decided it was time to get out of the game. So, he did one last job and walked. But, of course, the people who hired him weren’t just going to let him go. So, they decided to kill him and his family, and in this plot frame him for killing his family, making it look like after the act, he tried to kill himself.

The acting in this movie is not spectacular and definitely not memorable. The silent, brooding protagonist trope is overplayed and, at times, just plain annoying. The first fifteen minutes are filled with horrible dialogue and weak performances. The movie was so predictable that I could guess what was going to happen within those first fifteen minutes.

One of the other issues with the movie is the unrealistic nature of the action scenes. For example, Sakata woke up from his vegetative state and—conveniently and briefly, I might add—was able to fight like he had the powers of the Hulk.

The plot picks up ten years after the incident with his family, where he was shot in the head. But luckily for us viewers, he didn’t die. Instead, he was in a vegetative state. His friend and former partner from his hitman days is now taking care of him. Sakata somehow manages to recover, and at this point, the movie takes a nosedive, challenging itself to deliver even worse acting, worse planning, worse writing, and worse fight choreography than what we had already endured.

So, Sakata is back, and he wants revenge on the people who killed his family. From here, the movie makes it ridiculously easy for him to track them down—it felt more like the writers were mocking us than putting in any real detective work.

All the usual betrayals and surprise survivals happen, and by the end, I felt like I had completely wasted my time and existence watching this. Here’s a movie you should not see for any reason at all. I can’t even think of a single strength worth mentioning.