Bonus Features: Read This So You Don't Waste Time on Some of These Movies
Catching up on things I watched and other interesting bits around the industry this week
It’s been a rough week at the movies.
Hopefully you read my review of Mortal Kombat II, which I ended up enjoying way more than I initially anticipated, earlier this week, and in addition to that I’ve watched four other movies this week. One I caught up with on VOD, two were straight to streamers, and then I finally got to one in theaters I had been waiting on for a minute.
Overall, not the best week but hopefully things bounce back soon with a pretty promising upcoming slate of releases as we start getting into the summer schedule.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie
dir. Aaron Horvath & Michael Jelenic | Currently in theaters
Went to the theaters on Tuesday to finally catch up on The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, and after really enjoying the first movie from a few years ago this one felt like just a bit of a step down. It undoubtedly looks great, we get some cool character animations, and it does ultimately give you mostly everything you’re looking for going into an animated movie meant for children and fans of the Super Marios Bros. games.
But it feels like they really just tried to jam a lot into this movie. What that leads to a ton of bouncing around quickly to different characters, different cameos, different story beats, and what that gives you is a lot of that fan service you expect but it also really makes it tough to find any depth to the story or even get you all that interested in the plot.
Very similar to Mortal Kombat II, this is a movie that is best to meet on its level and not try to overthink it. Again, I do think the animation looked fantastic — particularly in the moments where it would jump from the 3D animation to the classic 8-bit style of the game. I will also say it kind of made me way more interested to see what a Star Fox movie would be like rather than eventually getting a third Mario movie.
Of the four movies I’m writing about today, this is the one I would definitely recommend to go see, especially if you can make it out to see it on the big screen.
Grade: 3 out of 5
Apex
dir. Baltasar Kormákur | Currently streaming on Netflix
We get a few movies like this every year from Netflix where they take a concept that sounds fascinating and interesting for an action/thriller, and they put a few interesting stars behind it, but then somehow it just ends up feeling so generic and bored by the end of the runtime that you ultimately feel like you’re going to forget you watched it in about a month.
Apex is led by compelling performance by Charlize Theron, who always does a pretty decent job with a movie like this. There was a point in this movie about 30 minutes or so into it where there’s a pivot in the story you don’t really expect, and that was where I was fully bought in and ready to see where things were going to go. Then unfortunately, all the lively energy from the first half of the movie slowly begins to dwindle until we limp to the finish line.
Definitely a mixed bag overall, but it’s fine enough for a decent little streaming thriller. Certainly are worse things you could watch, but it for sure wasted some of the potential that it builds early in the run time.
Grade: 2.5 out of 5
undertone
dir. Ian Tuason | Currently available to own/rent on demand
I was so intrigued by undertone after seeing the initial trailers. A horror movie that seemed to be so all in on sound design and playing with a concept like that in regards to a person recording a horror podcast felt like a fairly original spin on things.
And while the sound design is good and was a standout aspect of the film, this just was not anywhere near as effective as it could have been. Maybe that’s a product of watching at home rather than in a theater? This came and went pretty quickly from our local theaters here, so I had to rent it and watch at home so maybe the creepy nursery rhymes played backward a bunch would have been scarier with the big sound in a pitch-black room. But this mostly didn’t deliver on much of the tension it spent time trying to build.
As a side note: What is this podcast they are hosting in the movie? They record for maybe 10 minutes at a time, only after midnight, over the course of several days … and they still have enough built up to release new episodes every Friday?
Grade: 2 out of 5
Balls Up
dir. Peter Farrelly | Currently streaming on Prime Video
It’s not that I’m profoundly disappointed in just about every aspect of this movie because it is coming from an Oscar-winning filmmaker. It’s so much more due to the fact that it’s from the person who directed movies like Dumb and Dumber and There’s Something About Mary.
A lot of very tired jokes, some of the worst green screen I’ve seen in a long time, and really just felt pretty phoned in from just about everyone. Paul Walter Hauser is the standout and seems like he’s trying to make the most of the material he’s given, but it’s a real uphill climb. Not an ideal way to spend an afternoon.
Grade: 1.5 out of 5
Vin Diesel showed up at the NBCUniversal Upfront presentation in New York this week, and announced that there were FOUR TV series set in the Fast & Furious universe that would be heading to Peacock.
Variety then immediately reported that someone close to the situation said that despite what Diesel said it is, in fact (unfortunately?) just one show with others said to be in various stages of development.
It’s been a big week for people like myself who are still standing behind this big, dumb franchise. Members of the cast were in France earlier this week as the Cannes Film Festival celebrated the 25th anniversary of The Fast & the Furious, which launched the franchise that now sits at 11 movies with an upcoming Fast Forever seemingly approaching on the horizon.
But here are what I think the four Fast & Furious TV series should be on Peacock (this is mostly not serious, but if NBCUniversal would like to hit me up to expand on any of these, I’m open for offers).
Tokyo Underground: If they’re actually doing a Fast & Furious TV series, it actually needs to/should be based around street racing. Let’s set it in Tokyo, a new group of drivers come up against crime groups. This is the general theme of a show that would make the most actual sense.
Young Toretto: An origin story of Dom and Jacob Toretto where we see how they started and their family relationships leading up to where we are. Sort of a Fast & Furious meets The Bear type of thing. Can have it run to where the series ends on a note that tees up Fast Forever perfectly or something, idk.
Diplomatic Immunity: Hobbs and the DSS recruits some new person to lead a task force these high-level threats we come across in the Fast universe and they have to stop them. Basically turns this into a new villain-of-the-week crime procedural.
Roman & Tej: Buddy comedy where Ludacris and Tyrese run a high-tech security operation and things constantly spiral out of control.
These have all been sent to Vin Diesel via direct message on Instagram as well, so I will let you all know when he replies.
I haven’t gotten to write or talk about it much with people, but Adidas dropped a 5-minute short about a week ago to really kick off its promotions for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
It starred Timothee Chalamet, along with some of the biggest names in soccer including Lionel Messi, Trinity Rodman, Lamine Yamal and Jude Bellingham. And it’s one of the best ads I’ve seen in a really long time, to an extent that it feels weird calling it an ad because it’s actually a very good short film.
Backyard Legends was directed by Mark Molloy, who it seems has mostly directed shorts and other videos like this for other major companies like Apple. But he did make his feature directorial debut a few years ago, directing Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F which went straight to streaming, and I remember showing some flashes of interesting filmmaking even if it was just a mostly OK rebirth of the iconic Eddie Murphy franchise.
But it’s cool seeing something so interesting and lively coming from a filmmaker who is not very established in Hollywood yet. Feels similar to the 1990s and 2000s when a lot of directors who are now household names got a jumpstart to features from doing major music videos.
Anyway, watch the short. Excited to see where they continue to go with it as the World Cup gets closer.