Month: August 2021

“Hostage House” (** out of four) was an overly generic suspense thriller about a realtor (Jennifer Taylor) and her daughter (Julia Terranova) who are held hostage by a pair of hard-edged criminals (Emily Sweet and Justin C. Schilling) during an open house and have to think fast to stay alive and outsmart them and make it through the night alive. Fairly economical and compact direction and decent acting can’t make this more than a run-of-the-mill home invasion thriller. After “Desperate Hours”, “Panic Room”, “The Purge”, and too many other movies like these over the years, maybe it’s best to give this genre a rest before the audience feels held hostage.

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“Fear Street- Part Three 1666” (** out of four) was a fairly lackluster third entry in this hit series showing the origins of Sarah’s (Kiana Madeira) curse as it harks back to the early ages in 1666 and then comes back full circle to the present in which she and other Shadysiders (Benjamin Flores Jr, Elizabeth Scopel, and others) may be altered forever! As usual- film is packed with lots of great soundtrack selections and stylized direction but they fail to enrich film’s flimsy and formulaic storyline so film never really comes together. Yet another time-travel/history change movie that pales in comparison to the “Back To The Future” series.

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“Jungle Cruise” (** out of four) was a broadly silly adaptation of the Disneyland theme park ride where a group of travelers (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Emily Blunt, Edgar Ramirez, and others) travel up the river through a jungle with aggressive reptiles and animals and supernatural danger. Moves fairly fast but lacks in charm or personality and will likely only be of entertainment value to very small kids. Film has everything money can buy but still feels like an assembly-line big-budget Hollywood “product.” Even The Rock seems to be just going through the motions and him and Blunt don’t exactly set the screen on fire with their chemistry.

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