Well, I had a stretch of about 5 movies I really enjoyed. It was too good to last because now we have 3 more that I did not. At least none of these 3 I was super anticipating so the disappointment isn’t very high but it’s still more movies from 2024 that aren’t good and I begin to wonder why I decided to make being a critic part of my job…
Anyway, here are the reviews.
FIND ME FALLING-
Naturally everyone knows I love romances and am rooting for romances to succeed. In fact, check out my recent video rant about the state of current rom-coms:
Like most films these days marketed as romantic comedies Find Me Falling is really more of a drama than a comedy. In fact, it deals with some pretty weighty themes like suicide and depression.
In the film Harry Connick Jr stars as an aging rockstar who is trying to recluse to a beach home in Cyprus. Unfortunately he doesn’t know that his house is a well-known suicide spot (see it’s heavy stuff.) While he is in Cyprus he has a second chance encounter with a love from his youth and the story goes from there.
I really enjoy Harry Connick Jr both as a singer and actor and he can be very charismatic in the right role. I also love pretty locals and the ocean so this should be right up my alley. Unfortunately the film forgets to have any fun and is morose and slow and fails to make us care about the characters. It all becomes quite a bit of a slog and it took me a couple days to get through this Netflix offering.
Frown Worthy
TRAP-
I have a theory about M Night Shyamalan’s new film Trap. I think he was looking for a vehicle to feature his daughter Saleka’s singing and he grabbed a Lifetime thriller script and through in some long singing scenes and boom you have his latest thriller. It has all the touchpoints of a made-for-TV schlocky type thriller but it tries to take itself too seriously in the last act to successfully be such cheesy escapism. It even stars multiple former child stars like a movie of the week thriller usually does. It’s all there!
In Trap Josh Hartnett stars as a man taking his daughter to a big pop-star concert when he learns the whole setup is a giant trap for a serial killer. This is a problem for him because he is said killer. I certainly wouldn’t want to be a citizen of this city because the police force and FBI are so incompetent it defies logic but if you can accept this stupidity the opening act of Trap is entertaining enough.
The problem comes when they leave the stadium after about 45 minutes and it becomes small, cheap, ridiculous and not that interesting. Plus Saleka is expected to carry much of the drama in these scenes. Maybe if it was 80 minutes like a Lifetime movie it might work better but as it is it just became tedious and far too generic for its own good. You can skip this one or watch it on streaming if you feel so inclined.
Frown Worthy
A movie like Trap is just kind of generic bad but relatively inoffensive. Harold and the Purple Crayon, on the other hand, is a painful experience and one of the worst movies of the year. Going into it I thought I might enjoy it more than most because I am not super attached to the children’s book of the same name by Crockett Johnson. However, it’s another movie from 2024 reporting to be about imagination containing very little of it to entertain or enjoy.
Zachary Levi stars as Harold who comes into the real world to try and find the narrator of his story. He’s not given much to do and so when he gets to New York he just kind of ambles about the city for an hour occasionally making purple tinged items with his crayon. What’s especially frustrating is Zooey Deschanel is in this to remind you of Elf, a movie with a similar premise that is better in every way (he actually has a clear motivation to find his Dad and get him off the naughty list in that movie. Plus it’s actually funny…) There’s so little that happens to any of these characters I sat there stupefied that anyone in Hollywood greenlit this script.
Jemaine Clement becomes a Power Rangers-style villain towards the end that’s a little bit fun but it’s all too little too late. I was so unengaged I couldn’t wait for it to be over. This is a definite skip.
Frown Worthy
Make sure you check out the patreon for perks, exclusive reviews and to be part of our monthly events and watch alongs. Find out more here.