Movie Review Red One

Red One 

Directed by Jake Kasdan 

Written by Chris Morgan 

Starring Dwayne The Rock Johnson, Chris Evans, J.K Simmons, Lucy Liu, and Kiernan Shipka

Release Date November 15th, 2024 

Published November 15th, 2024 

Red One exists in the space between an eye roll and a groan. It’s an elderly screenplay that creaks with the tropes of a late 90s to early 2000s buddy comedy/action movies. It’s also a family Christmas movie so it’s forcefully benign, as such movies are when they are intended to live forever in the background of family gatherings playing on a loop on the Superstation or the USA Network. I understand if you assume that I hate Red One but I don’t. I can barely remember having experienced Red One. It’s a dim and dying memory mere hours after seeing it. 

Red One stars Dwayne The Rock Johnson as Callum Drift, head of security for E.L.F, Santa Claus’ personal security team. They’re like the secret service but for Santa. Santa is played by J.K Simmons as a mischievous sort who likes to go to a mall in the days before Christmas to speak to kids as if he weren’t the real Santa Claus. It’s on these trips to the mall where Callum has begun to lose the magic of Christmas. Watching adults argue and bicker and steal and fight over gift items has taken a toll on Callum who has decided to resign as Santa’s top guy.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here. 

Movie Review The Last Showgirl

The Last Showgirl 

Directed by Gia Coppola 

Written by Kate Gersten 

Starring Pamela Anderson, Dave Bautista, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kiernan Shipka, Brenda Song, Billie Lourd

Release Date December 13th, 2024 

Published December 18th, 2024

The Last Showgirl stars Pamela Anderson as Shelly, a Las Vegas showgirl adjusting to the end of her career. The show where Shelly has worked for the past 30 plus years is closing, soon to be replaced by some Cirque Du Soleil style show. The end of the show is devastating for Shelly as she sacrificed just about everything to be part of this show for just over three decades. She has little savings and few career opportunities due to her age and the growing lack of shows like hers in the new Las Vegas landscape. 

As this story unfolds in the foreground, a secondary story emerges as Shelly’s daughter, Hannah (Billie Lourd) arrives in town. When Hannah was very young, Shelly gave her up to focus on her career. Hannah was raised by her aunt in another state while Shelly dedicated herself entirely to her career. Now, with the show ending, and Hannah arriving to have a very hard conversation about why her mom chose her work over her daughter, Shelly is facing crises on two fronts.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here. 

Movie Review Totally Killer

Totally Killer (2023) 

Directed by Nahnatchka Khan

Written by David Matalon, Sasha Perl Raver, Jen D'Angelo 

Starring Kiernan Shipka, Olivia Holt, Julie Bowen 

Release Date October 6th, 2023 

Published October 12th, 2023 

Totally Killer stars Kiernan Shipka as Jamie, a High School student with a typically standoffish relationship with her mother, Pam (Julie Bowen). The two fight and disagree as mothers and daughters are wont to do but when Pam is murdered, Jamie is devastated. The killer is one familiar to the town they live in, a vile serial murderer known as the Sweet Sixteen Killer. The moniker comes from the killer's M.O, stabbing his victims 16 times. The killer made a splash in 1987 when he killed three teenagers who happen to have been Pam's best friends as a kid. 

The killer left a note indicating that he'd planned on killing Pam all along though why he waited until now to get around to it is unclear. Nevertheless, Jamie is despondent until her best friend, Amelia (Kelcey Mawema), reveals that she has built a time machine for their school project. It's based on a design created by Amelia's mother, Lauren (Kimberly Huie), who gave up her inventing dreams when she became a single mom. Amelia believes that she can send Jamie back to 1987 which would give Jamie the chance to stop the killer before he's able to take even one victim, thus saving her mom in the future. 

This time travel theory is put to the test the same night when the Sweet Sixteen killer tracks down Jamie and chases her right into Amelia's time machine. Stabbing the control panel, the killer inadvertently sends Jamie back in time. Arriving in 1987, Jamie must now convince people that she's from the future to stop the murders but, she has to be careful not to change too much of the past or it could lead to her not having a future. In the past, Jamie meets her mom, played as a teen by Olivia Holt, and finds out that she's a mean girl. 

Pam was the leader of a group of bullies known as The Molly's. They're The Molly's because the four of them all dress like Molly Ringwald. It was the three other Molly's, Tiffany (Liana Liberato), Heather (Anna Diaz) and Marisa (Stephi Chin Salvo), who were the original victims of the Sweet Sixteen Killer. From here, the movie lays out several potential killers including the future school Principal, Doug, the future Gym Teacher Randy, and future Podcaster, Chris, who happens to specialize in documenting and exploiting the Sweet Sixteen Murders as a True Crime Podcaster. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media