Firstly, The Book Of Henry, which has such an odd premise that it is almost impossible to believe that it's a real movie. It follows a young, gifted boy (Jaeden Lieberher) who finds out that the cute girl next door (Maddie Ziegler) may or may not be getting abused by her step dad (Dean Norris) who happens to be local law enforcement. Without getting into too much detail, it ends up being up to the boy's mother (Naomi Watts) to assassinate the step dad. This is all done with a Lifetime movie of the week tone and score, which makes the movie seem even more messed up than it already is. I actually don't hate this movie as much as a lot of people seem to. I respect director Colin Trevorrow and screenwriter Gregg Hurwitz's combined ballsiness to absolutely go for it. However, it all ends up being way too much and it's never as campy or laughably amateur as it should be to make a true so bad it's good movie. A large part of the reason of why this movie fails, weirdly enough, is that there is major talent both in front of and behind the camera. Lieberher, Norris, Watts and Jacob Tremblay (who plays the younger brother) are all terrific actors, Ziegler shows the makings of a future star and Trevorrow directed Safety Not Guaranteed, one of the best films of the past couple of years. Because of this, the movie doesn't stumble enough to make it truly funny. It looks too professional, the actors are giving too much of their all, you can feel Trevorrow trying behind the camera. If a group of people who had never made a film before made this, then they may have had something. As is, it's not funny bad enough nor is it well done enough to be taken seriously. Still, I respect its effort and the way Trevorrow and Hurwitz clearly dived into this premise head first.
The Bad Batch is a post apocalyptic thriller about a woman (Suki Waterhouse) who, missing an arm and a leg, looks after a little girl (Jayda Fink) while trying to reunite her with her father (Jason Momoa) in a wasteland looked over by a Jesus-like figure (Keanu Reeves.) This film is written and directed by Ana Lily Amarpour, who previously did the fabulous A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, her debut film about a feminist vampire. That film was slow moving for the sake of building up extreme tension and making the audience really care for this vampire. The Bad Batch is slow moving with no real purpose. In fact, the premise is so wacky that the ungodly pace of the film ends up not mixing at all with the rest of it. As well, every actor is trapped (except for Reeves, who continues to show that he can still be amazing in his later years.) Momoa is hunky and charismatic as always but also feels completely wrong for the role while newcomers Fink and Waterhouse both feel like they don't know what they're doing in the film to begin with. The story is also muddled and confusing, with characters who are truly despicable as our heroes and the aforementioned Jesus-like figure who is trying to help everyone out as our villain. Perhaps this is an allegory or satire or both but Amorpour doesn't know how to deliver that idea. Amorpour brilliantly mixed genres in A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night but with The Bad Batch, she throws guacamole and pizza on top of ice cream. In other words, it's a lot of different solid films mixed into one huge, unsavory mess. I will still be first in line for Amorpour's next film, however.
Beatriz At Dinner is a social satire about a massage therapist (Salma Hayek) who gets invited to a dinner party being held by a wealthy client (Connie Britton) and who ends up feuding with the guest of honor (John Lithgow) over their political differences. Hayek, Britton, Lithgow and the rest of the cast bring their a-game, delivering a group of top notch performances. However, the Beatriz character is not the least bit believable, behaving in a manner that no one in her position would behave, the elites are way too over the top (and this is a satire about elitists) and the movie never has the courage of its convictions, pretending like it's doing something sharp and brazen before petering out every time it has the opportunity to do so. This is especially disappointing coming from the team of director Miguel Arteta and writer Mike White. Separately, Arteta has directed two truly wonderful character based comedies---Cedar Rapids and Star Maps and White has written two similarly wonderful character based comedies with School Of Rock and Orange County. Together, White and Arteta did Chuck And Buck and The Good Girl, two hilariously cringe worthy comedies. Here, however, they seem to wimp out at every turn.
Colossal follows Gloria (Anne Hathaway) who moves back to her hometown and catches up with old friend Oscar (Jason Sudekis) who now owns a bar. Both of them are alcoholics and after one crazy night of drinking, Gloria discovers that when she stomps around in a local park, a monster appears in Tokyo and does whatever she does. Soon enough, Gloria finds herself trying to save the forces of Tokyo against herself and something more evil than even she can create. Directed by Nacho Vigalondo, who did the excellent Timecrimes, this is a potentially fascinating premise that throws too much else at the screen. An annoying and needless subplot involving Gloria's ex-boyfriend (Dan Stevens) is clearly there just to pad the running time and there are too many extended sequences that add up to nothing and have no consequence to anything else in the film. There is a really good movie in here somewhere but Vigalondo needed to focus solely on the main premise and cut the rest out.
So there you have it...four films not based on any previous material that could have easily worked and just didn't. Obviously, everyone involved in these films are incredible talents who have it in them to do wonderful films. Hopefully, they will come across this and take my advice on why their films didn't work this time around.
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