For those who haven’t been tipped off by its devilishly cool poster, some readers may see the title of Emmy Award winner Timothy Woodward Jr.’s new movie “Til Death Do Us Part” and immediately have their heads filled with images of love-struck soulmates and wedding day bliss. Beautiful brides, heartfelt vows, overflowing joy. Well, for the sake of anyone who might think that’s what they’re signing up for here, let me emphatically say that is not this movie.

It doesn’t take long to figure out that Woodward Jr. has something much different in mind for his movie. Something crazy, something violent, and something that is perhaps a little too ambitious. And that’s pretty much “Til Death Do Is Part” in a nutshell. It’s a movie that surprised me with its big aim even though it doesn’t quite hit its target.

Co-written by Chad Law and Shane Dax Taylor, this peculiar John Wick meets Kill Bill thriller mixes straight action with black comedy while sprinkling in a dash of home invasion horror. The framework is actually quite clever with the story building itself around one key reveal and playing it out across two different timelines. The problem is with the execution. Simply put, too much of what it’s trying to do simply doesn’t mesh. More on that in a second.

Woodward Jr. opens his movie in a way that makes you think you’ve stepped into a sappy romcom. The Best Man (Cam Gigandet) sits in a church pew working on his best man speech, the Groom (Ser’Darius Blain) slides into his stylish tuxedo, and the Bride (Natalie Burn) puts on her finishing touches all while the whimsical music builds up to what’s sure to be a storybook crescendo, right?

Well, not exactly. Just as she’s about to walk down the aisle the Bride gets cold feet. She leaves the church, hops in her car, and heads to a remote house that (I think) belongs to her family. The jilted Groom doesn’t take kindly to being left at the alter but still hopes that they can work things out. So he sends his Best Man and six groomsmen to see if she’s at the house and keep her there until he arrives.

Obviously questions abound. Why did she leave? What changed her mind? What is she running from? There’s actually more to it than just another runaway bride story. The road to answers begins when we’re suddenly transported to Puerto Rico where the Bride and Groom are enjoying their honeymoon. They look to be having the time of their lives. But later some pretty clear tension surfaces. Yet another layer is added after the Bride and Groom meet and hit it off with a Husband (Jason Patric) and Wife (Nicole Arlyn) who are in Puerto Rico to celebrate their 20th anniversary.

Back on their wedding day the Bride’s showdown with the groomsmen quickly turns violent and it becomes pretty obvious that these people aren’t quite who we thought they were. There’s a whiff of a cool idea especially once the bloody game of cat and mouse kicks into gear. The B movie schlock vibes are actually kind of endearing. Also, Burn makes for a compelling protagonist even if she isn’t given much that shows her range. And Patric almost single-handedly saves the film with a killer second-half monologue that brings most everything into focus.

But over time the flaws begin to add up. The movie’s bread-and-butter is supposed to be the Bride one-by-one offing her well-tailored invaders with gruesome blood-soaked precision. The problem is the action is never as edgy as it wants to be. And the fact that the groomsmen are thinly sketched dullards doesn’t help. Then you have the Best Man, easily one of the most annoying characters of the year. Gigandet seems stuck in one gear, overacting within an inch of his life (think Chris Hemsworth in “Bad Times at the El Royale” but minus the coolness and restraint). It’s a character who grows harder and harder to endure.

“Til Death Do Us Part” deserves points for subverting expectations. It certainly turns out to be something much different than it first teases. Natalie Burn eviscerating her dumbbell foes while still decked in her elegant white wedding gown can be a fun and funny sight. And Jason Patric is a hoot especially when driving what is easily the film’s best scene (you’ll know it when you see it). But those things can’t cover or cure the movie’s nagging issues. And being 20 minutes too long only makes those issues stand out even more. “Til Death Do Is Part” hits theaters August 4th.

VERDICT – 2 STARS

Thanks to A24 horror fans won’t have to wait until October for the next horror film of the year to come around. “Talk to Me” has been getting a lot a buzz since its world premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Directed by Australian twin brothers Danny and Michael Philippou (best known for their massively popular YouTube channel RackaRacka), this supernatural chiller leans on several familiar tropes yet has just enough of its own flavor to get by.

“Talk to Me” may have a small budget ($4.5 million to be exact), but it’s what the Philippou’s do within those constraints that’s so impressive. There aren’t a ton of special effects and what we get are predominately practical. But they’re also extremely effective and show how smart and crafty filmmakers can do a lot with a little. Equally impressive are three key performances from what amounts to a mostly inexperienced cast. More on them in a second.

The writing is more of a mixed bag. The story itself is inherently silly which is part of the fun. But it’s hard to overlook the gaping holes in logic. Dumb nurses, even dumber cops, shallow teen “friends” who no one in their right mind would hang out with – they all add quite a bit of head-scratching to the proceedings. But the brothers are shrewd in their presentation and it’s hard not to get sucked into the scenario they envision (even if much about it feels familiar).

The story follows a group of thrill-seeking high school friends who learn how to conjure up the dead through a ceramic-covered embalmed hand (yep, you read that right). As you can probably figure out, they soon go too far with their new favorite party game and accidentally open a gate that allows some truly malevolent spirits to cross over. Horror hijinks ensue.

While that may sound ridiculous (probably because it is), the Philippou brothers maintain a serious tone (with one pretty hilarious exception that I won’t spoil). It works well in large part thanks to their ability to not only build tension but sustain it. It’s also helped by the three central characters and the strong performances behind them, Mia (Sophie Wilde), Jade (Alexandra Jensen), and Riley (Joe Bird).

We first meet 17-year-old Mia on the two-year anniversary of her mother’s suicide. Not only is she still struggling with the loss, but it has put a strain on her relationship with her father (Marcus Johnson). But she has found comfort in the family of her best friend Jade. Along with Jade’s 15-year-old brother Riley, the three have formed a strong sibling bond that has helped Mia cope. A lot of attention is given to the trio with their relationships being a crucial part of the story. All three are well-conceived characters as is Miranda Otto as Jade and Riley’s mom – not quite as fleshed out but a great fit and a lot of fun.

Not all the characters fare as well with the worst being Haley (Zoe Terakes) and Joss (Chris Alosio) – the annoying one-dimensional dime-a-dozen horror genre “friends” who have populated countless horror movies over the years. Still, there’s enough good stuff in the film to hold our interest and the movie steadily generates a palpable sense of unease that culminates in a handful of genuinely chilling scenes and one cracking ending that makes the film’s frustrations a little easier to digest. “Talk to Me” is out now in theaters.

VERDICT – 3 STARS

(CLICK HERE to read my full review in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

Huel Taylor makes his directorial debut in the ambitious yet uneven “They Cloned Tyrone”. At its best this wild genre mashup feels like what we would get if the Coen brothers made a 1970s blaxploitation movie. At its shakiest the film has a hard time maintaining any kind of consistent tone. Written by Taylor and Tony Rettenmaier, the film is constantly bouncing back and forth between super seriousness to over-the-top absurdity. It ends up impacting everything from the story, the characters, and even the sometimes clever yet sometimes on-the-nose messaging.

Something that doesn’t miss the mark is the cracking chemistry between the film’s three stars, John Boyega, Teyonah Parris, and Jamie Foxx. All three embody their characters with a streetwise panache. Yet it’s the distinctions between them that make them an interesting trio. The writing doesn’t always help them, at times relying so much on petty profanity-laced bickering and babbling that they almost become caricatures. But Boyega. Parris, and Foxx are crafty talents and they’re often elevating the material.

The movie begins on a pretty serious note by introducing us to Fontaine (Boyega), a small-time drug dealer who has his hands full fending off rival neighborhood gangs and collecting money from his non-paying customers. One such customer is a hilariously decked-out pimp named Slick Charles (played by Foxx who looks like he stepped right out of a certain flashback sequence in “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka” – fans to that hilarious 1988 film will know what I mean).

Slick Charles runs his sleazy operation out of a dirt-cheap motel called The Royal. There he’s constantly clashing with his strong-willed worker Yo-Yo (Parris) who claims she’s ready to retire so she can go to Memphis and find her “a real man”. Fontaine goes to Slick Charles’ motel room to squeeze out some money owed. But as he’s leaving he’s brutally gunned down by a rival gang member.

So Fontaine is dead right? Well not so fast. Suddenly we see him wake up in bed and once again start his daily routine (ala “Groundhog Day”). But when he shows up to collect his money from Slick Charles, he scares the self-proclaimed “1995 Players Ball Pimp of the Year” who witnessed Fontaine’s murder the night before. Slick Charles tries to explain what happened but Fontaine doesn’t buy it. He finally convinces Fontaine to go find Yo-Yo who can corroborate his story.

Without giving too much away, the three become neighborhood gumshoes, eventually uncovering a nefarious (and utterly ludicrous) plot against their predominantly Black inner-city community being carried out by an evil white extension of the US government. At least that’s the best way I can describe the film’s baddies. It’s hard to say for sure because the secret “scientific” agency is never explained all that well. Regardless, it sets up a pretty zany story that attempts to mix serious emotion and messaging with an utterly preposterous scenario that goes well beyond the cloning in the title.

To its credit, the movie does have its funny moments that work well in large part thanks to Jamie Foxx. The comedy really ramps up the very moment he hits the screen. Over time the humor does take a backseat as Taylor tries to turn his potty-mouthed Three Stooges into characters with a (somewhat) serious side. But even then we still get some inherently funny bits that flow naturally out of the story.

Yet blending and managing tone is a tricky task and frankly “They Cloned Tyrone” is all over the map. The movie clearly wants to bring together a number of obvious influences and it’s that love for genre and style that gives the movie a certain allure. But it jumps around too much and doesn’t always seem to know what to do with its characters (take Kiefer Sutherland’s paper-thin villain who’s only purpose is to dump some exposition and shoot a few bullets). It turns out to be a nagging thorn in the film’s side that keeps it from being all that it could be. “They Cloned Tyrone” premieres today on Netflix.

VERDICT – 2.5 STARS

One of my biggest regrets from this year’s Sundance Film Festival was missing out on the quirky indie comedy “Theater Camp”. There was a lot of audience buzz following its festival premiere and I was even more intrigued after Searchlight dropped around $8 million to acquire it with the promise of a theater release.

“Theater Camp” is based on a pandemic era short film of the same name created by Molly Gordon, Ben Platt, Noah Galvin, and Nick Lieberman. The 18-minute parody quickly earned the admiration of performing arts types and self-proclaimed theater geeks. As a result the four friends begin putting the pieces together for a feature film adaptation which sounds like a good idea considering their genuinely funny premise.

Unfortunately “Theater Camp” feels like a short film’s worth of material stretched out to feature film length. Written by Gordon, Galvin, Platt, and Lieberman (Gordon and Lieberman also directed), the film is a kind of self-gratifying exercise that can’t really justify its existence. Sure, it’ll click with certain audiences who have a high tolerance for the in-jokes and shaky improv. But squeezing much more out of this promising turned lackluster comedy proves to be a chore.

Admittedly I was all-in with the film early on – its wacky introduction, its mockumentary style (tired I know, but they can be funny), its gleeful embrace of self-parody. But the wackiness quickly begins to dry up, the mockumentary style all but vanishes, and the self-parody grows redundant as the filmmakers milk their one-note premise dry. It leaves the movie feeling like a Saturday Night Live skit stuck on repeat.

Platt and Gordon play lifelong codependent best friends Amos and Rebecca-Diane who teach at AdirondACTS, a struggling summer drama camp for kids in upstate New York. During the off-season, camp founder Joan Rubinsky (Amy Sedaris) and camp manager Rita Cohen (Caroline Aaron) scramble to raise money and recruit young students in order to keep the camp afloat. But things go south after Joan has a seizure that puts her in a coma (we barely see Sedaris again which is a shame. The film could have really used her). As a result it falls to her dimwitted and theater illiterate son Troy (Jimmy Tatro) to run the camp in her absence.

That sets the film’s paper-thin plot in motion. Amos and Rebecca-Diane along with the other staff (most woefully shallow and always cranked up to 10) welcome a new group of kids and begin preparing for their summer production. Meanwhile with the bank only weeks away from foreclosing, the ill-equipped Troy tries to fend off the advances of a well-to-do neighboring camp who have long wanted to gobble up Adirond ACTS for their property.

While there are stray gags that land throughout the movie, it doesn’t take long before it runs out of steam. The high-strung theater sessions, ludicrous acting exercises, and the utter lack of camp cohesion will have you believing you’re watching a disaster. Yet it all culminates in an ending you’ll see coming a mile away – an absurdly picture-perfect stage production that’s so implausible due to the absolute chaos that has preceded it. But to be honest, I’m not sure the film is all that worried about stuff like that. It’s much too busy laughing at its own jokes and wearing out its welcome. “Theater Camp” opens in theaters July 21st.

VERDICT – 2 STARS

It seemed like the once lucrative Transformers franchise had reached its end after 2017’s abysmal “The Last Knight”. It was the fifth film in the series and easily the most expensive. But it flopped at the box office, losing the studio over $100 million. Not long after director Michael Bay would step away and the future of the Transformers on the big screen was in doubt.

But then came “Bumblebee”, an unexpected hit with fans and critics. The film was a spin-off prequel that didn’t come close to cracking the $1 billion mark reached by the Transformers films during their heyday. But it also didn’t cost nearly as much. Even better, it told a smaller scaled and more intimate story that revolves around human characters that audiences could genuinely invest in. The results were pretty great.

Now five years later we have a new Transformers movie called “Rise of the Beasts”. The film is a standalone sequel to 2018’s “Bumblebee”; one that continues the prequel storyline which leads up to the original 2007 film. The film is directed by Steven Caple Jr. (“Creed II”) and is written by a team of five screenwriters. That’s not always a good sign but the script is actually pretty good and their story definitely follows closer to “Bumblebee” than the final Bay film.

Set in 1994, Anthony Ramos takes the lead human role playing an ex-military electronics expert named Noah Diaz. He lives in Brooklyn where he struggles to help support his hard-working mother, Breanna (Lauren Vélez) and his 11-year-old brother, Kris (Dean Scott Vazquez). Making things tougher, Kris is fighting sickle cell disease and he risks losing his access to much needed healthcare because of mounting hospital bills.

Elsewhere in the city, Elena Wallace (Dominique Fishback) works at a museum as a researcher of newly discovered artifacts. She’s good at her job. Unfortunately she works for a boss who is always taking credit for her hard work. Elena begins studying a falcon statue, taking a special interest in the unknown insignia engraved on its chest. In doing so she accidentally cracks it open revealing a mysterious glowing shard.

After Kris is turned down for treatment, Noah turns to his streetwise friend Reek (Tobe Nwigwe) who convinces him to steal a shiny silver Porsche for some quick and much-needed cash. It goes about as well as you’d expect. The Porsche is actually a Transformer named Mirage (voiced by a hit-or-miss Pete Davidson) and he’s answering the call of his leader Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen). We learn Optimus has summoned his fellow Autobots after picking up the signature of the Transwarp Key – yep, the very shard Elena has discovered inside the Falcon.

We learn the Transwarp Key can open a portal between time and space. The few Autobots hiding themselves on earth want to use it to get back to their home planet of Cybertron. But a planet-devouring entity named Unicron (Colman Domingo) also wants it as it would give him access to an unlimited number of worlds to consume. So Unicron sends his ruthless henchman Scourge (Peter Dinklage) to earth to retrieve it.

Of course that leads to a series of battles between Scourge and the Autobots. We’re also introduced to an ancient group of Transformers long hidden on earth called Maximals. And then there’s Noah and Elena who find themselves thrust into the middle of a war with their planet’s survival on the line. All fit nicely into the story and there are some surprisingly interesting storylines that play out. Better yet, the human characters have some emotional weight. Solid performances from Ramos and Fishback are a big help.

Of course you also have the action sequences, most of them well staged and with just enough restraint to keep from boiling over into mind-melting excess. And even though everything culminates in a sprawling king-sized CGI showdown, the action as a whole has a smaller and more focused feel to it – again, more like “Bumblebee” and less like the five Bay films.

I doubt “Rise of the Beasts” will win over the franchise’s more hardened detractors. And to be fair it’s not without its flaws. Davidson’s comic routine wears thin after a while. Some of needle-drops are laughably bad. And the movie does something with Ramos’ character during its big climax that is beyond goofy. Still Caple Jr. proves to be a sharp and capable filmmaker who does a good job balancing humanity with that big robot entertainment many audiences want from a Transformers movie.

VERDICT – 3.5 STARS

The rollercoaster ride that is the Transformers franchise is truly mind-boggling. It’s a series of surprising highs and aggravating lows. It’s a series that can deliver exactly what you want from big popcorn entertainment in one film and then turn around and repeat their earlier mistakes in the very next movie. Take 2014’s “Age of Extinction”, a terrific installment (despite a lot of jaded criticism) that dialed back a lot of the noise to tell a silly yet fun and action-packed story.

But then came “The Last Knight”, a box office disaster that lost over $100 million for Paramount Pictures. And it’s easy to see why. Unlike its immediate predecessor, “The Last Knight” is a confounding mess. It’s a movie plagued by so many bad choices in front of the camera but mostly behind it. The outcome was clearly unforeseen as the film ends with obvious aspirations for another sequel. As it stands Bay has stepped down from directing Transformers movies and it looks like Paramount may be abandoning this storyline and latching onto the “Bumblebee” arc instead.

The bulk of the film’s problems can be easily traced to the screenplay. Gone is Ehren Kruger who wrote the previous two films. This time writing duties are handed to the trio of Art Marcum, Matt Holloway, and Ken Nolan. Their biggest issue revolves around their desperate attempts at being funny. But rather than good humor, they gave us the same maddening banter that made 2009’s “Revenge of the Fallen” so hard to sit through. Here they cram in the juvenile and often potty-mouthed wisecracking which makes much of the film feel shallow, pubescent, and at times insufferable.

Even if you can wade through the mind-melting bickering and brutally bad slapstick that’s mostly prevalent in the first half, it doesn’t get much better from there. The breakneck storytelling features one narrative shortcut after another. Even worse, the movie never slows down to breathe. It never stops to let the characters have actual meaningful moments. We’re just rushed from point to point as Bay and company drown us in nonsensical mythologizing that never reaches any kind of satisfying conclusion. It’s all excess and overload that quickly devolves into a grind.

Mark Wahlberg returns as Cade Yeager, a single father and inventor who helped Optimus Prime and the few remaining Autobots save the planet in the previous film. In “The Last Knight” he owns a massive junkyard which he secretly uses to hide Transformers from the still aggressive United States government. Cade encounters and takes in a young orphaned scavenger named Izabella (Isabela Moner in a paper-thin role). He also crosses paths with a dying Transformer who gives him a mysterious talisman that immediately connects to his body.

Elsewhere yet another government special ops unit pops up – this one called the Transformer Reaction Force. The group is ran by General Morshower (played by Glenn Morshower) and is reluctantly led in the field by Colonel William Lennox (a returning Josh Duhamel). The TRF (dumbly) joins forces with Megatron and his Decepticons upon learning that Cade has the potentially powerful talisman. As you can probably guess, a clash ensues.

And even further elsewhere we meet an aging historian named Sir Edmund Burton (Anthony Hopkins – how they got him onboard is still a mystery to me). He’s the last living member of a secret society who has long protected the ancient history of the Transformers and their connections to earth. Burton sends his hopelessly annoying robot butler Cogman (Jim Carter) to bring Cade to his villa in England. He also brings in Oxford professor Viviane Wembly (Laura Haddock). Both are key to stopping a goddess (of sorts) from Cybertron named Quintessa (Gemma Chan) who has a convoluted master plan that involves (or course) destroying earth.

All of those things attempt to come together in the film’s draining 149 minutes but making sense of it proves to be a chore. Bay blitzes through from one exposition dump to the next at ridiculous speeds. The human characters monopolize most of the runtime with the Transformers often feeling like an afterthought. Meanwhile none of the human drama is that interesting and none of the characters earn our emotional investment. They’re never given time to. And all of it is peppered with this unfunny humor which the screenwriters eventually tone down but never fully put away.

To its credit the film does look good (as all of them do) thanks to Bay’s kinetic love-it-or-hate-it style and some top-tier digital effects. But that’s not enough to save the movie from its own self-inflicted wounds. “The Last Knight” simply tries to do too much. Some of it could’ve been interesting. Other things are just too goofy to take seriously. But all of it suffers due to the relentless attempts at humor, much of it being too crude for kids and too sophomoric for adults. It’s no wonder it underperformed at the box office.

VERDICT – 1.5 STARS