I have said it before. I will say it again: Cobra Kai has no business being so damn good!
The Karate Kid franchise probably peaked all the way in 1989 with Karate Kid III. However, when YouTube Premium decided to do a TV series from the “bad guy’s” perspective, everyone thought it was going to be a dud. However, showrunners Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg knew better and put out an incredible series that not only gave us 80s babies our nostalgia overload, but also keep moving the story forward. After Netflix picked up the show after YouTube Premium discontinued their Original Series format, the show blew up even more. Now Cobra Kai is about to start its Fourth Season.
By the end of the third season, John Kreese (Martin Kove) took over Cobra Kai, leaving Jonny (William Zabka) to take his “Eagle Fang Karate” branch off to team up with Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and his “Miyagi-Do Karate” group to take on Cobra Kai at the All Valley Karate Tournament. Little do they know that Kreese is about to bring back another Karate Kid OG vet: Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) and all bets are off going forward.
Not only are the grownups trying to settle their 30-year-old disputes, but the kids (the ones doing the actual fighting) have to work out their own issues.
Here’s the official synopsis:
“Season 4 finds the Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang dojos joining forces to take down Cobra Kai at the All Valley Under 18 Karate Tournament… and whoever loses must hang up their gi. As Samantha and Miguel try to maintain the dojo alliance and Robby goes all in at Cobra Kai, the fate of the Valley has never been more precarious. What tricks does Kreese have up his sleeve? Can Daniel and Johnny bury their decades-long hatchet to defeat Kreese? Or will Cobra Kai become the face of karate in the valley?”
Cobra Kai Season 4 premieres on Netflix on December 31, 2021.
A couple of fun Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania rumors that fit together hand-in-glove, so let’s take a look at them both. They involve the villain MODOK, most recently seen in a Hulu animated series that is apparently pretty funny? I never watched it. Anyway, there’s been a lot of talk about the character showing up in the third Ant-Man film, but according to The Direct he’s actually going to play a “major role”, suggesting that Kang might not be the lead baddie.
Furthermore, any buzz that Jim Carrey would be voicing MODOK is apparently false. I had not heard these rumors, but kinda wish they were true. Carrey would be fantastic as the Mental/Mobile/Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing, as his personality is not that different from Dr. Robotnik.
So if it’s not Jim Carrey as MODOK, who is it? How about…Corey Stoll? The actor is expected to return as Darren Cross/Yellowjacket, to seek revenge on Scott Lang for leaving him stranded in the Quantum Zone at the end of the first Ant-Man movie. “Insider” Daniel Richtman now says it’ll be Cross who returns as MODOK. In the comics, MODOK is originally an employee of tech rival Advanced Idea Mechanics (AIM), who undergoes extensive experimentation and mutation to increase his intellect. So it wouldn’t take much to tweak that so it fits Cross in the MCU. I have my doubts about this one, but can’t lie that it could work.
Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania opens February 17th 2023.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A beautiful, lonely woman is holed up in her home, refusing to leave. She takes an interest in her neighbors across the way, and one day while looking out the window she sees a violent crime committed. When she tries to tell the police, they don’t believe her. Nobody does. Sound like any one of a dozen movies adapted from books over the last couple of years? Well, The Woman in the House Across the Street From the Girl in the Window is here to at least have a little fun with this overused premise.
As you can tell by the title, this is meant to be a satire of the thriller genre that has been cribbing from Rear Window for decades. Kristen Bell stars as the obsessed woman, joined by Michael Ealy, Tom Riley, Mary Holland, Cameron Britton, Samsara Yett, Christina Anthony, and Benjamin Levy Aguilar.
The eight-episode miniseries is exec-produced by Bell and Will Ferrell, the latter having done his fair share of genre send-ups, including The Spoils of Babylon and A Deadly Adoption.
Netflix debuts The Woman in the House Across The Street From the Girl in the Window on January 28th.
Perhaps no filmmaker has undergone quite the evolution as Adam McKay. From dim-witted but popular Will Ferrell comedies such as Anchorman, he started to transition with 2010’s The Other Guys, which took a buddy action-comedy vehicle and sprinkled in a message about economic inequality. That led to Oscar-winning films of a slightly higher brow such as The Big Short, Vice, and now Don’t Look Up. I say slightly, because even though these films are topical, educational, and message-heavy, they retain much of McKay’s lighthearted sense of humor. What’s that they say about a spoonful of sugar helping the medicine go down easier?
Don’t Look Up is a brilliantly conceived satire, one that, somehow, was written pre-pandemic. It’s pretty amazing considering how much it reflects our ideologically-divided reaction to COVID-19, but it fits just as well as an allegory for climate change, which is how it was intended. And to be sure, your mileage on this will definitely depend on which side of the aisile you fall on. McKay is unabashedly liberal and that comes through in his writing, but the goal seems to be to rich everyone by showing how ridiculous it is to choose sides when all of humanity is at stake.
The film starts off quickly as Jennifer Lawrence’s astronomy PhD student Kate Dibiasky makes a groundbreaking discovery. She’s found a comet hurtling directly towards Earth, and given its size, when it makes impact that’ll be all she wrote. Extinction-level stuff. Leonardo DiCaprio plays her professor, Dr. Randall Mindy, who goes completely unhinged when he sees it, too. So what are they to do? The only thing they can do. Call NASA, who give them a blase “Let’s not get dramatic here,” response.
But it gets worse once they are actually invited to the White House, where Trump-esque President Orlean (Meryl Streep) and her Donald Jr.-like son Jason (Jonah Hill) not only leave them waiting for hours, but barely listen to them at all. McKay’s targets are perfect here as he tears into politicians who’d rather score political points than, y’know, save the whole world. You’d think being the savior of humanity would earn you some points, right? But not everyone sees it that way.
McKay goes a bit off the mark, and very nearly enters into smug territory as Kate and Randall take their message to the media, only to be rebuffed because they aren’t good on TV. Ariana Grande and Kid Cudi star as a celebrity couple whose on again/off again relationship is a national distraction from the comet that will destroy everything. Kate’s freakout becomes a meme, Randall gets obsessed with his own celebrity and starts cheating on his wife with the co-host (Cate Blanchett) of a Morning Joe-esque program. As McKay lampoons what would seem to be his own audience, he comes perilously close to alienating them, as well.
The skewering of media and political culture isn’t especially nuanced, but McKay isn’t aiming for subtlety here. He’s clearly frustrated and angry and Don’t Look Up is his expression of that anger. I’ll take the passion he brings to this than some of the other milquetoast crap out there that we’ve seen, especially from films that claim to be “about the pandemic” but aren’t really about anything at all.
DiCaprio’s well-known climate change activism makes him the perfect choice to play Randall, as he’s able to poke fun at it and his own celebrity. He’s much nerdier here than we’ve ever seen him, but earnest throughout even as Randall starts reading his own press clippings. It’s a necessary facet as the film veers towards its conclusion, with McKay pressing the sincerity button furiously. If we don’t believe these characters truly did everything in their power to prevent this disaster, then none of it would matter.
Lawrence is even better, though. As the cynical one of the pair, Lawrence gets the best deadpan lines and some terrific line delivery. She even manages to have pretty good chemistry with Timothee Chalamet, who is a surprising breath of comic fresh air as a disaffected skater with interesting levels of depth. Rob Morgan, who at this point is Netflix’s secret weapon he does so much for the streamer, has a great role as Dr. Oglethorpe, who is as incredulous as Kate and Randall over the world’s reaction to the news. Grande, playing an extreme version of herself, delivers such an ingenious, knowingly absurd performance of the song “Just Look Up” (named because half the population stubbornly refuses to look up and see the comet coming) that it demands to be performed at next year’s Oscars.
It’s inevitable that Don’t Look Up will be divisive. I can see the reviews already with those saying this is the wrong movie at the wrong time because we’re already polarized enough in this country. Yeah well, trust me, that’s not going to change whether this movie exists or not, and I’d rather have it here to make light of what we have sadly become. If this is Adam McKay’s lot in life, to be a truth-teller through the use of movies as funny as Don’t Look Up, then I’m okay with that.
Don’t Look Up opens in select theaters on December 10th, followed by Netflix on December 24th.
In 2016, romance author Sally Thorne released The Hating Game. If you follow the genre at all, you would know that the book quickly became one of the most popular contemporary romance novels in recent memory. Now Vertical Entertainment is cashing in on the book’s built-in audience with the film version, directed by Peter Hutchings and written by Christina Mengert.
Lucy Hale (Pretty Little Liars) and Austin Stowell (Fantasy Island) play Lucy and Joshua, two rival assistants at a recently merged publishing company. While the former is friendly and hardworking, giving off “Zooey Deschanel school librarian” vibes, the latter is organized and cold, focusing more on results than people. The two ignore the obvious romantic tension they share in order to compete for the same promotion. However, as their feelings start to bubble over, romance becomes inevitable.
Though mostly stale with a predictable plot, Mengert’s script does have a few clever quips and bantery moments. While Stowell and Hale seem to have a tepid form of chemistry, The Hating Game’s main pitfall is characterization. For the most part, characters should be likable in romantic comedies. Instead, both Lucy and Joshua are horrible people. Lucy tries to make him jealous by going out with their co-worker Danny (Damon Daunno), who is completely into her. She essentially forced Danny to go out with her despite having plans with other people. She completely leads him on.
Throughout The Hating Game, you get the sense that despite the angry tension Joshua and Lucy have built up that they don’t know each other really well. But that doesn’t stop Joshua from painting his bedroom the same color as Lucy’s eyes. While this may come off sweet in the novel where more context can be given and inner feelings can be revealed, in a movie the whole thing feels forced and creepy.
Once Joshua and Lucy decide to put their rivalry aside, Danny’s character doesn’t go away. Instead, he shifts from a potential love interest into the “emasculated male best friend to the female protagonist” role. The change doesn’t fully work, feeling unnatural and forced.
This dynamic can also be said for Joshua’s relationships with his family. An entire subplot revolves around his somewhat estranged brother who is about to marry Joshua’s ex and his father’s resentment towards him for going into publishing instead of medicine. By the film’s end, that particular plotline feels unresolved.
Like most things in The Hating Game, the story and its execution fall flat, proving that sometimes it’s better for books not to get adapted.
The Hating Game is in theaters and on On-Demand Friday. Watch the trailer below.
*NOTE: This review was originally part of our Toronto International Film Festival coverage.*
Who doesn’t love a good twist? When a movie subverts our expectations with an unexpected swerve it can be exhilarating, but it all depends on what follows being just as interesting as what came before. That’s not so much the case for Encounter, the latest film from Beast director Michael Pearce, who casts Riz Ahmed in a bit of sci-fi sleight-of-hand that offers him the chance to play a deeply complex father role, but can’t escape that the original premise carried so much more potential.
Penned by Pearce and upcoming Gotham PD showrunner Joe Barton, Encounter begins with a crashed asteroid and what appear to be microscopic insects in the midst of a planetary infestation. We’re introduced to Malik (Ahmed), a former soldier whose skittish behavior belies his paranoia. He sprays himself with bug spray and obsesses over news reports about unknown viruses. Elsewhere, his estranged sons Jay (Lucian-River Chauhan) and Bobby (Aditya Geddada) live with their mother and her new husband, a white guy they jokingly call a “stick-up-the-butt”. She gets bitten by a mosquito and suddenly falls in. Something is happening. The camera highlights flying insets with a dangerous blue haze.
When Malik breaks into the home and steals away with his two boys, who he hasn’t seen in two years, he swears to them he’s been on a top secret mission to save the world from an alien threat. Encounter rolls out in Midnight Special-esque fashion, a father/son roadtrip with higher stakes than simply restoring familial bonds. And for a good stretch the film works out quite well on this wavelength. That the characters are all people of color and Pakistani background offers a fresh face to familiar ground, and informs Malik’s various encounters with law enforcement, who look at him suspiciously, and cashiers who are just as suspicious.
However, when Malik makes a phone call to his parole officer Hattie (Octavia Spencer), the jig is up. Encounter shifts gears into something more psychological and less satisfying, especially since the creepy sci-fi aspect was so well done up to this point. There was a genuine sense of menace about this unseen threat that Malik was determined to rescue his boys from. What follows is a conventional thriller done in unconvincing fashion. There’s Rory Cochrane who half-asses it as a cop hot on Malik’s trail, while Spencer tries to make the best of a role that is somewhat ridiculous, not just for her interactions with Malik but with the police. Both sons become increasingly annoying, making you wish Malik would just drop them off at the nearby McDonald’s or something. They’re a hindrance to the mission! Dump them brats! The action picks up, too, but it feels out of place in the context of this story. A shootout with a pair of right-wing militia types is well choreographed and helps pick up the flagging pace even if it comes out of nowhere.
It’s really all about timing. I don’t mind that Encounter turns out to be a very different movie than how it started. The problem is when the twist happens, and a Shyamalan-esque “pull the rug out” moment at the end would have had more impact. The moment we lose Malik’s singular perspective Encounter falls apart and never recovers, despite Riz Ahmed’s best efforts.
Encounter is in select theaters now, followed by Amazon Prime Video beginning December 10th.
Having seen the theatrical release of Hotel Transylvania: Transformania squashed repeatedly by COVID-19, Sony made the decision to offload the hit box office franchise to Amazon. And now we know the fourth and final film will come exclusively to Amazon Prime Video this January, with Drac, Frankenstein, Mavis, and all of the Drac Pack in tow.
A new trailer for Hotel Transylvania: Transformania reveals the topsy-turvy premise, which finds Johnny (Andy Samberg), the human husband of Dracula’s daughter Mavis, transformed into a monster by Van Helsing’s Monsterification Ray.
There have been some big changes with this fourth movie. For starters, Adam Sandler is no longer voicing Dracula, having been replaced by Brian Hull. Selena Gomez returns as Mavis, along with Jim Gaffigan as Van Helsing, Steve Buscemi as Wayne the werewolf, Kathryn Hahn as Kathryn Hahn Ericka Van Helsing, and more.
After directing the first three films and establishing their animated style, Genndy Tartakovsky will simply work on the screenplay this time. Replacing him as director is
Jennifer Kluska and Derek Drymon.
Hotel Transylvania: Transformania premieres on Prime Video on January 14th.
Drac and the Pack are back, like you’ve never seen them before in Hotel Transylvania: Transformania. Reunite with your favorite monsters for an all-new adventure that presents Drac (Brian Hull) with his most terrifying task yet. When Van Helsing’s (Jim Gaffigan) mysterious invention, the ‘Monsterification Ray,’ goes haywire, Drac and his monster pals are all transformed into humans, and Johnny (Andy Samberg) becomes a monster! In their new mismatched bodies, Drac, stripped of his powers, and an exuberant Johnny, loving life as a monster, must team up and race across the globe to find a cure before it’s too late, and before they drive each other crazy. With help from Mavis (Selena Gomez) and the hilariously human Drac Pack, the heat is on to find a way to switch themselves back before their transformations become permanent.
Magic Mike’s Last Dance is a real thing that is happening, and while the third film in Channing Tatum and Steven Soderbergh’s stripper trilogy will have plenty of shirtless guys, it can’t be all about that. Somebody has to shove dollar bills down their pants, right? THR reports Thandiwe Newton has joined Tatum in Magic Mike 3, in what is expected to be the female lead.
In other words, she may or may not be putting anything down anybody’s pants. Actually, I could see her having a similar role to Jada Pinkett in Magic Mike XXL. Or perhaps a love interest similar to Cody Horn in the first movie.
Magic Mike’s Last Dance will be an HBO Max exclusive, with Soderbergh returning to direct after sitting out the previous film. Soderbergh and the streamer have a tight working relationship, following Let Them All Talk and No Sudden Move.
Newton was most recently seen opposite Hugh Jackman and Rebecca Ferguson in Reminiscence.
Released just ahead of lockdown in February 2020, Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog movie was an unlikely success story. The live-action/CG hybrid earned $319M worldwide and received great reviews, a rare feat for a video game movie. And so it wasn’t long before a sequel was announced, with the first poster arriving now ahead of tomorrow’s trailer.
The first poster for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 features Sonic soaring high in the sky along with his new pal, Miles “Tails” Power, and being chased by Jim Carrey’s evil Dr. Robotnik, who has found a way to escape the Mushroom Planet with the help of Knuckles the Echidna. Ben Schwartz returns to voice Sonic, with Colleen O’Shaughnessey as Tails and Idris Elba as Knuckles.
The live-action cast remains mostly the same with James Marsden, Tika Sumpter, Natasha Rothwell, and Adam Pally all coming back.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 opens April 8th 2022. The trailer arrives tomorrow as part of the Video Game Awards.
While there was some question how Sony’s Venom movies would be met by audiences, two movies in and the answer is clear. Fans love Tom Hardy’s insane take on the antihero symbiote, and that shows in the huge box office for Venom: Let There Be Carnage. It’s taken a long time, but we now have a Venom that fans like, and Tom Holland’s Spider-Man who is beloved, as well. And that has fans wondering if they’re finally going to get the big-screen crossover they’ve always wanted.
There’s reason to be optimistic, especially following the Venom: Let There Be Carnage post-credits scene. There, we see Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock and Venom relaxing on a beach, only to have time and space disrupted by some multiversal madness. When things settle, Venom sees Tom Holland’s Spider-Man on the TV, and immediately wants to gobble up the superhero. The suggestion being that Venom and Spidey now exist in the same universe, but is that necessarily true? Are they saying that the Sony films and the MCU are now one and the same?
Speaking with Collider, Marvel’s Kevin Feige addressed the working relationship between Sony and Marvel Studios, and says it all started because Venom was such a success…
“You look at the obvious comic connotations between Venom and Spider-Man and it is inherent. So the minute Sony made their ‘Venom’ movie and it worked as well as it did, and Tom Hardy became as iconic as he has become as Venom, then the obvious question is then, ‘How do we start to merge them?’”
With Spider-Man: No Way Home dealing directly with the Multiverse, and the Doctor Strange sequel as well, there’s ample opportunity to “merge” these two cinematic universes.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage is available now on VOD and December 14th on Bluray. Spider-Man: No Way Home hits theaters on December 17th.
