JCARTER_ThatReviewGuy

Weapons is the same writer/director as 2022's Barbarian and where I felt that Barbarian was fresh and inventive for the horror genre, Weapons falls in areas that it should excel in. Weapons follows an elementary school teacher whose entire 3rd grade class disappears one day randomly. Thats about as much of the plot I can say in this review without spoiling anything, and it's best to go into Weapons knowing as little as you can. From that singular mystery, Weapons takes you on an insane rollercoaster of a ride.

Weapons is not a sequel to Barbarian, but writer/director, Zach Cregger, almost treats it as if it is. By this I mean, sequels are known for building and expanding upon their original films by normally going into "bigger and better" type of storytelling. While Weapons is not a Barbarian sequel in any way shape or form, so much of its story elements are ideas taken from the script of barbarian and amplified tenfold. For example, Barbarian had two different points of view to its story, where Weapons has almost three times that many. This, for me, is where Weapons doesn't come together as seamlessly as Barbarian did. It feels like it's wanting to do too much, without saying anything.

The first 75% of Weapons is an incredible film that works on so many different levels. It's intense, it has real genuine scares to it, it's oddly funny, and the movie has this thick layer of mystery at its central premise. I was glued to the screen for 3 quarters of the film. Unfortunately, the last 25% of the film did not land for me.

A movie that has mystery story elements is not going to please everyone with its end reveal, but I feel that more thought could've gone to the revelation behind the mystery. Again, I won't say what the main reveal is. The film starts to drag by the end, and most of the plot beats are unsatisfying. While majority of the film is very solid, the last part of the story stumbles where it should have soared. There are also so many different points of view in this story, that not a single character has a full character arc.

Fantastic four: first steps is literally fantastic. While you can tell they edited a lot out of this movie to keep the runtime short, it is still an incredibly enjoyable film about family. The Fantastic Four are finally represented on screen as a true family that love each other, care for each other, and also push each other's buttons. All four leading actors turn in phenomenal performances, and every member gets a moment to shine, but the two stand outs here are Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm and Joseph Quinn as Sue's brother Johnny. I can't go much further without talking about the action, specifically Galactus. Galactus is terrifying, imposing, and larger than life. He demands the audience's attention and steals every scene he is a part of, the same goes for The Silver Surfer. Not every joke lands (there is still some forced marvel humor), and the movie might feel quaint by the end, but that doesn't stop it from being a very enjoyable time. The MCU is back on track.

Who exactly is this movie for? Thats not to sound rude, I'm just not sure who asked for a legacy sequel for a movie where the last entry came out in 1998 and even that movie wasn't very beloved.

I know what you did last summer follows a group of young adults that accidentally cause a terrible accident that claims someone's life, and this said group swears to never tell anyone about the accident. What follows is an hour and a half of boring, uninspired, and mind numbing kills from a dull horror movie villain. As we watch this group get hunted down one by one by this mysterious killer out for revenge, the movie falls into horror tropes of characters making terrible decisions, splitting up instead of staying together, not running away when they have the chance, etc etc. Characters are interchangeable, and this is some of the cringiest dialogue and line delivery I have seen this year.

This movie attempts to emulate the revival of the Scream series, but the issue here is the Scream movies at least have a very strong cult following...I'm not sure who was asking for a new "I know what you did last summer" entry.