The Packers and Film

After a deeply mixed bag last week, I wasn’t sure what this week was going to give me. However, I am happy to say that this week was much better. Even though there were a couple of duds, I found the films this week to be much better, and it continues to showcase what a great year this has been with me going to the theater multiple days through the week to fit in all the releases I can. Here’s what I thought of everything I watched this week.

Forbidden Fruits

Forbidden Fruits is a campy horror comedy centered around a group of women who are all part of a cult of witches in a clothing store in a mall. However, with the arrival of a new girl, the dynamics of the women start to change.

When this film originally came out back in March, the theater showing it in my city only had it out for a week before it was pulled from theaters. Due to the release window being so short and with me being so busy, I was unable to fit it in, so I decided to rent it on Amazon Prime this past week. Man am I glad I did. Forbidden Fruits was delightful. I loved the camp humor and colors shown in the movie. It reminded me of a horror film version of the comedy Bottoms from a few years ago, which is a movie I absolutely loved. I liked all the silly fruit names of all the characters, the weird emoji talking scenes, and I thought Lili Reinhart gave a fantastic performance as the leader of the cult. All in all it was a great time and a lot of fun. However, the ending is a little wonky. The tone of the movie tends to flip flop, and it can’t decide whether or not it wants to be a fun campy ride or a brutal mean horror movie, and sometimes it works, but at other points, it makes the movie feel a little janky. Overall though, it was a good time, and I’d highly recommend it to anyone who is a fan of Bottoms or Jennifer’s Body.

Rating: 8/10

The Bluff

The Bluff stars Priyanka Chopra Jonas as Ercell, a former pirate who stole a bunch of gold and has now moved onto a tiny island and has decided to hide out and start a family. However, all that changes when Captain Conner, played by Karl Urban, her former pirate captain, comes to take back the gold Ercell stole from him.

I immediately knew I was in trouble when I saw that this film was produced by the Russo Brothers. Outside of the MCU, almost everything they have touched has been bad. Most notably The Grey Man, which is an action film so generic that they somehow make Ryan Gosling boring, which is quite a feat considering how Gosling is one of the most charismatic and easy to watch movie stars on the planet. That being said, I did my best to keep an open mind as they only produced this film, and there have been a few films that have managed to be good in spite of The Russos, including Everything Everywhere All At Once and Extraction 2. After watching this film though, I found my first instinct to be correct. This film is just simply boring. The leads have no chemistry together, the action is dumb and generic, the choreography and fight scenes are done better in most direct to video action films, and the camerawork relied too heavily on quick cuts for the action, which is one of my biggest pet peeves. This film was a struggle to get through at many points. However, I did enjoy Karl Urban. When the film was just him getting to be a pirate, it could be quite fun. There just wasn’t nearly enough of it.

Rating: 3/10

Hokum

Hokum is the new horror film from director Damian McCarthy, who directed Caveat and Oddity. It tells the story of Ohm Bauman, played by Adam Scott, a douchey author who travels to a remote inn to spread his parents ashes. While staying at the inn, Bauman hears stories of a witch haunting the honeymoon suite, which give him disturbing visions, along with a shocking disappearance, that make him confront his past.

While I have not seen Caveat, I did watch McCarthy’s 2024 film Oddity. I liked it. I thought it was a little rough around the edges, but pretty good overall. Hokum took everything I liked from Oddity and used it as a jumping off point. I believe this is McCarthy’s best film. I love so many of the shots in the film, from the opening shot of the ring of sand transitioning to the water residue left over from Bauman’s glass of whiskey, to the weird shot of the witch in the basement of the hotel. I thought the film was wonderfully written as well. Adam Scott has always been great at playing an asshole, and he does a wonderful job of it in this film. Bauman’s character is written incredibly well as a dickish author, and because of how he acts over the first 30 to 40 minutes of the film, you’re kind of excited to watch him get fucked with over the course of the film. Seeing this and Exit 8 come out the same year, with other films such as Obsession, Passenger, Backrooms, Resident Evil, and Leviticus yet to come out, it seems like 2026 is going to be a great year for horror.

Rating: 8/10

One Spoon of Chocolate

Written and directed by RZA, and from producer Quentin Tarantino, this film tells the story of Unique, a former purple heart recipient army member, gets out of prison and moves to Ohio to rebuild his life with his cousin Ramsee. However, when Unique and Ramsee are targeted by a gang of racists in the town, Unique is left with no other choice but to use his skills against them.

This film should have been a lot of fun. It should’ve been in the vein of other classic revenge films, such as Oldboy or Death Wish, but there was a big problem. There is not nearly enough revenge in this revenge movie. For about 70 to 80 minutes of the 112 minute runtime, I have to watch these racist assholes beat up the main character and some of his family and friends, kill multiple people and steal their organs and more, while hearing them say the most vile, ignorant, hateful, and horrible things and slurs over the course of the movie, and after watching all of that, I only get about 15 minutes of Unique beating them up? That’s it? It is so, so unsatisfying! The movie either needed to be slimmed down, with some of the hateful words and actions cut, or the revenge needed to be longer and more brutal. And to top it off, you’re telling me some random racist white dude could go toe to toe against a guy with army training and a purple heart? Give me a break. I love RZA, but this was a total miss.

Rating: 3/10

The Devil Wears Prada 2

The Devil Wears Prada 2 picks up around 20 years after the first one, with Runway struggling after Miranda Priestly unknowingly threw her support behind a fashion brand that uses sweatshops. Hoping to bounce back, Andy Sacks is brought in to run the features department.

As a big fan of the first movie, I was tentatively excited for this film, and in terms of legacy sequels, there is not much more I could have asked for. It is not a perfect film by any means, but it is also a lot different than I expected it to be and does a lot more than I expected. With legacy sequels, I go in knowing that there is going to be a lot of nostalgia baiting, as if the movie is saying “hey remember this? Wasn’t it great?”, and while there is some of that, there is not as much as I thought there would be, and the callbacks that are in the film are mostly subtle. I was also impressed with the tone of the film. The first one is hopeful and fun, while this one is definitely pessimistic. I thought it was really smart and interesting to see how the journalism industry is dying in the film, and seeing things like how the magazine has moved fully to digital, and seeing how the characters in the movie have changed. I especially loved seeing Meryl Streep’s character in that way. In the first film, she is scary and intimidating and holds all the power. However, in this one, since the magazine isn’t doing as well, she doesn’t have the free reign she once had, and it was interesting seeing her have to bend for other people and sometimes she even has to kiss ass. I also really enjoyed the humor of the film with her, especially in the board meetings with words she can’t say anymore. The film was much better and much smarter than I expected it to be. However, there were a couple things I really didn’t enjoy. For one, the romance between Andy Sachs and Peter. It was cute, but so unnecessary. Every time the romance with them popped up, I was ready for it to cut away from that. There is so much going on in the film and the romance only distracts from the better parts of the film. Overall, however, a solid legacy sequel.

Rating: 6/10

Mortal Kombat 2

Mortal Kombat 2 is a continuation of the 2021 film based on the action video games of the same name. The film focuses on the fighters once again in a no holds barred fighting tournament to the death.

While I found the first Mortal Kombat film to be at least passable, I found this to be absolutely dreadful. The action is terrible, the acting is horrible across the board, and the writing is even worse. The writing and directing were so bad that it seemed like it was genuinely Karl Urban’s first time in front of a camera. It was actually kind of impressive watching a guy that normally is effortlessly charming or interesting look like he has never once acted before. I was actually curious why the writing was so bad, until I discovered that the writer behind this movie also wrote the 2015 Fantastic Four movie, as well as the live action Death Note film, two of the worst written movies of the 2010’s. Even though it is stupid, I could still forgive the film if it was fun. I don’t mind turning my brain off at a movie and having a good time, but this wasn’t that. Even with my brain turned off, this movie was hard to watch. The fight scenes are incredibly clunky while being too heavily reliant on cuts. The lighting is absolutely awful as well. There were many points in the film where a death happened and I couldn’t tell how because of how dark the movie was shot. The only time over the course of the entire movie I had fun was the fight between Baraka and Johnny Cage. It was silly and funny, two things the movie desperately needed more of.

Rating: 3/10