Hey everyone! One of the happiest recent developments for me as a film critic is a return to my normal film-watching schedule. This of course means watching some good movies, some bad movies and some mediocre films. I don’t always review those films on this blog. Sometimes I cover them on my podcast both Rachel’s Reviews and Hallmarkies. In fact, you can find my reviews for Marry Me, The Book of Love and I Want You Back at Hallmarkies.
All that said, here are my quick thoughts on 2 recent releases.


Dog
If my readers could have seen my face while watching Dog they would have seen looks of bafflement and exhaustion. I’m not entirely sure what I expected in a veteran and his dog movie but it definitely wasn’t this.
As I was watching I asked the question- who was this made for? Aren’t most people going to a see a movie like this expecting a sweet and sentimental story that will make them cry? Instead we get a bizarre movie that has sexual innuendo, drug use, impersonating a blind man, racial profiling and more. The humor is broad and over-the-top, which was so off-putting when combined with the more emotional moments.
The dog Lulu is cute (I guess played by 2 dogs) and the ending is effective but most of the road trip was very badly done. Channing Tatum tries his best but he can’t save Dog from its bizarre, muddled, and tone deaf script.
2 out of 10
Frown Worthy


Uncharted
It will be no big surprise to my readers I have never played any of the Uncharted games. Nevertheless, I heard from many friends of its potential for a movie adaptation. From what I’ve gathered it’s similar to Tomb Raider but even more cinematic in its approach.
Now after much delay we have the movie version with Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg and it is…thoroughly average. It’s not an awful adventure film but it’s nothing special either. I’d put it below the recent Tomb Raider movie and that was just ok.
The main problem I had with Uncharted is everything is too easy for our protagonists. For example, in a long treasure hunting sequence under a city they stumble upon each clue quite easily. They always have the key, that key always works, and in one case the lock is hidden in plain daylight inside a Papa Johns!
There’s another instance where a cave loaded with treasure is clearly visible for all to see off of the coast of a Filipino island. We are supposed to believe nobody has been in that cave for 100s of years. In these kind of adventures you want the quest to at least be challenging to our heroes.
Most of the casting in Uncharted is also wasted. Wahlberg and Holland are fine but Antonio Banderas, Sophia Ali and Tati Gabrielle are all under-written. The special effects are fine but there is some green screen work that takes us out of the big action scenes.
I don’t want to be too critical because there is fun to be had in this movie. It’s just all something you can find in a million other films, which is disappointing. I’d say stay home and watch one of those or go see the latest Spider-man movie again. You can wait to see this latest video game adaptation on your console at home when it goes to streaming.
4 out of 10
Frown Worthy