Tag Archives: Tim Story

Movie Review ~ Dashing Through the Snow

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The Facts:

Synopsis: An Atlanta social worker takes an unexpected Christmas Eve journey with his estranged daughter to help him remember the joy and magic of the holidays.
Stars: Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Teyonah Parris, Madison Skye Validum, Lil Rel Howery, Oscar Nuñez, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Ravi V. Patel, Gina Brillon, Kevin Connolly, Zulay Henao
Director: Tim Story
Rated: PG
Running Length: 90 minutes
TMMM Score: (6.5/10)
Review:  ‘Tis the season for every cable/streaming service to release a Christmas film. Some, like the Hallmark Channel, don’t know when to hit the stop button, so the movies keep churning out with little quality control, while others, like AppleTV’s scant offerings, make you yearn for more festive fare like they had with 2022’s Spirited. Then you get to one still finding its feet in original feature-length programming like Disney+, and it gets trickier. While Disney+ has achieved inroads to Christmas cheer with original scripted serialized programming like the continuation of The Santa Clause movies with Tim Allen, actual movies are as rare as a reindeer’s red nose.

Director Tim Story (The Blackening) and producer Will Packer hope to change that with Dashing Through the Snow, premiering with a prime release date directly before Thanksgiving.   A bauble of a Santa story from screenwriter Scott Rosenberg (Con Air, Venom, and the Jumanji films from 2017 and 2019), the script is rudimentary paint-by-the-numbers stuff. It feels like it’s been around for a few decades but fits right into the programming Disney+ could use now. Moreover, it’s deceptively entertaining and splendidly plays into the talents of its two appealing leads, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges and Lil Rel Howery. 

Ever since he was disillusioned with Christmas as a child, Eddie Garrick (Bridges, Fast X) has tried to avoid celebrating the holiday at all costs. Now a social worker who has a knack for spotting the good in people, Eddie has a rare day off on Christmas Eve and is asked by his estranged wife (Teyonah Parris, The Marvels) to watch their 9-year-old daughter Charlotte (Madison Skye Validum). An innocent trip to the neighbor’s next door puts Eddie face to face with Nick (Howery, The Mill), a jolly man with a taste for cookies that sweats glitter, passes cinnamon-infused gas, and is having trouble finding his transportation. 

Nick is also pursued by three dopes working on behalf of a crooked politician (Oscar Nuñez, Disenchanted). At first, they think he’s made off with essential information that could implicate their boss in a crime. However, eventually, when it’s clear that Nick is the Santa Claus he claims to be and has confused their naughty list with his nice list, they spend most of the movie attempting to regain it while Eddie and Charlotte almost unknowingly keep Nick out of harm’s way. There’s more trouble to worry about: the longer that Eddie doesn’t believe in Nick or his powers, the harder it is for Nick to find a way to continue making his important deliveries worldwide.

We’ve seen this type of film countless times. Person claims they are someone that others struggle to believe, and most of the run time is spent on said person trying to convince the doubters who must be touched on a personal level to have their eyes and hearts opened. So, it’s not precisely a spoiler to say that Rosenberg is plowing no new terrain with Dashing Through the Snow. What sets this one above the cookie-cutter others is the energy Bridges and Howery bring to the screen, playing off one another while creating memorable moments for themselves within their own lanes. After countless Fast & Furious films, Bridges is used to playing with a team, and Howery’s a seasoned pro at spinning the most mundane phrase into a golden laugh line.

If there’s something to complain about here, it’s that Story doesn’t do much creatively aside from getting Bridges and Howery together on screen. There’s a laziness to the filmmaking that feels like resting on laurels when we know that everyone behind the camera can push themselves to do more. The effects are often sloppy, and aside from Validum’s sweet turn as Bridges’ inquisitive daughter and an underused but still welcome Parris, the supporting cast fades quickly. Even Nuñez misses the mark on several easy laughs. I would rather see head goon Mary Lynn Rajskub (The Tomorrow War) switch roles with Nuñez because the dry Rajskub has better instincts regarding snarky comic asides.

Audiences are coming to Dashing Through the Snow for holiday happiness, though, and I think they’ll get a healthy dose of it courtesy of Bridges and Howery, who make an excellent team. This could quickly spawn a sequel (or two) and be a good gig for all involved. Harmless entertainment can co-exist with serious blockbusters, and while this sincere family comedy would never have worked as a theatrical release for a Disney+ exclusive, it would make a funny and appropriately joyful addition to your watchlist.

Movie Review ~ The Blackening

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Seven friends go away for the weekend, only to find themselves trapped in a cabin with a killer who has a vendetta. They must pit their street smarts and knowledge of horror movies against the murderer to stay alive.
Stars: Grace Byers, Jermaine Fowler, Melvin Gregg, X Mayo, Dewayne Perkins, Antoinette Robertson, Sinqua Walls, Jay Pharoah, Yvonne Orji
Director: Tim Story
Rated: R
Running Length: 96 minutes
TMMM Score: (6/10)
Review: As a moviegoer, is there anything more rewarding than sitting in a theater and being a part of an audience that is participating, really participating, in a film? Yes, I’m talking about laughing when it’s a comedy and screaming when it’s a horror film, but also actively listening during a drama and sniffling appropriately during a tearjerker. I’ve come to appreciate these moments and missed them when we didn’t have them during the pandemic. That shared experience is largely back in full force, and audiences are apt to get a dose of laughter and screaming with the release of The Blackening, and it’s the chief reason I would suggest seeking it out. 

Now, is The Blackening a good film? That’s another question I would have to qualify based on your expectations. In the grand scheme of all things horror related, The Blackening is a weaker entry in the larger horror canon. Its cheap production values and quickie filmmaking suggests a fast shoot and even quicker editing. On top of a severely miscalculated performance, the script from Tracy Oliver (Girls Trip) and co-star Dewayne Perkins starts strong with several meta jokes that land with a bang but wimps out quickly with a series of lame diversions that aim to distract but merely mask an unwillingness to make bold moves. 

Morgan (Yvonne Orji, Vacation Friends) and Shawn (Jay Pharoah, The Mitchells vs. the Machines) have organized a weekend away for a handful of their college friends, most of whom haven’t seen each other for years. They’re all connected in various ways. Some are besties, some are frenemies, and some are rekindling romances that had gone south. There could also be a killer among them because once they arrive, a hidden room is revealed, one with a profoundly offensive board game that will test their knowledge of black history and pop culture. Get the answer right, and you advance toward safety. A wrong response yields deadly consequences.

The opening of The Blackening gets the film off to a neat little start, a nifty tip of the hat to several horror flicks from the late ‘90s without being a direct copy. There’s a fine line between parody/spoof, and the kind of comedy being employed shows that thankfully the screenwriters know the difference. The audience has room to breathe, get comfortable with the world Oliver and Perkins have created, and become familiar with the comedy-horror tone used throughout. These early scenes work because the cast is incredibly engaging, and that immense charisma helps to carry The Blackening through some of its third-act stumbles. 

Without revealing any spoilers, I’ll say each cast member gets their moment in the spotlight, for better or worse. The betters would include Antoinette Robertson as Lisa, the would-be Final Girl, if it wasn’t for Grace Byers as Allison, sticking by her side and evading the killer. Perkins plays Lisa’s gay best friend, who is shocked to learn she’s gotten back together with Nnamdi (Sinqua Walls, White Men Can’t Jump), a himbo that had previously broken her heart. It’s disheartening that Jermaine Fowler (Coming 2 America) goes so far over the top as Clifton. While everyone else is playing grounded (as grounded as one can be in this kind of niche film), his performance is so outlandish that it feels like he’s been entirely graphed in from another movie. It stands out for all the wrong reasons.

Director Tim Story (Shaft) is experienced with doing commercial projects, so The Blackening has a slick, professional look. It’s clear that the budget was limited for this one, and I would have loved to see what a little more time and money could have been spent to tweak it a bit more. Perhaps a sequel would provide more of that amped-up experience, burgeoned by the goodwill this initial outing built. If you can overlook the finale’s lack of creativity and energy that starts to deplete around the halfway mark (and how many horror movies have you seen that began with 0% of both?) The Blackening is one to investigate, especially in theaters with a packed audience.

Movie Review ~ Shaft (2019)

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The Facts:

Synopsis: John Shaft Jr., a cyber security expert with a degree from MIT, enlists his family’s help to uncover the truth behind his best friend’s untimely death.

Stars: Samuel L. Jackson, Jessie T. Usher, Alexandra Shipp, Regina Hall, Method Man, Richard Roundtree

Director: Tim Story

Rated: R

Running Length: 105 minutes

TMMM Score: (6/10)

Review: I usually keep a good ear to the ground for movies that are in the pipeline but I was surprised to see a preview and poster for another Shaft film pop up earlier this year.  What started in 1971 as a blaxploitation classic gave way to two sequels, a handful of television movies, and a modern-day follow-up twenty seven years later.  Now, 19 years after the last Shaft film played to middling reviews and a decent box-office, Warner Brothers and New Line Cinema are trying to reignite the franchise by taking a different approach to the material.  While the first films had a darker edge to them (the 2000 version was an all-out thriller) this one would combine those crime elements with comedy in the hopes of attracting a new audience.

After narrowly avoiding the bullets of a drive-by shooting, Maya (Regina Hall, Vacation) walks out on her private eye husband John Shaft II (Samuel L. Jackson, The Hateful Eight) and takes their baby boy with him.  Aside from the occasional birthday and Christmas present, J.J. (Jessie T. Usher, Independence Day: Resurgence) grows up not knowing his father and doesn’t care to seek him out.  Graduating from MIT and joining the FBI as a data analyst, J.J. has managed to stay out of the same trouble his dad got into but finds himself plunged into a crime he can’t solve when his war veteran friend turns up dead.  Blocked by his work in investigating the death, he asks his dad for help in finding out what happened to his best friend, finding that the crime may be tied to a figure from his father’s past.

Working through numerous Avengers films over the last decade, I haven’t felt like we’ve gotten a real true “Samuel L. Jackson” performance in quite a while.  I finally saw some of that energy he originally brought to his roles spark back to life with his uncensored performance.  He’s foul-mouthed, un-PC (points off for the script’s strange fixation on gay jokes), quick to action, and stubborn and that all works in the films favor.  Whenever Jackson is left to his own devices, he positively commandeers the movie.  He’s got some competition from Hall as his no-nonsense ex-wife who isn’t afraid to call her husband on his crap and keep her son on the straight and narrow.  Usher is a mixed bag as the third generation Shaft.  Not quite nerdy but not quite leading man, he feels like an authentic MIT grad but isn’t always convincing when he has to slip into action mode.  As J.J.’s love interest, Alexandra Shipp (Dark Phoenix) begins the film as a strong female only to disappointingly turn into the damsel in distress standing in awe of the men in action later on.

Those unfamiliar with the Shaft films don’t have to worry about catching up before seeing this because director Tim Story (Ride Along) works in scenes from the 2000 film into the credits, yet strangely totally ignoring the earliest films that gave this franchise its genesis.  At least we get original John Shaft Richard Roundtree (What Men Want) showing up as J.J.’s grandfather, finally clearing up a strange twist introduced in the previous movie.  If only he had more to do and a more interesting storyline to be involved with.  When the three generations team up and go after a drug king-pin, the movie should be hitting its apex but by that time it has plateaued.

The set-up of the new Shaft is nothing you can’t piece together from any mid-range run-of-the mill crime thriller and most of the time that’s exactly how the film plays.  Writers Kenya Barris (Girls Trip) and Alex Barnow have largely written for television and their hammy dialogue that is pure exposition just barely gets us from one scene to the next.  While the film is arguably entertaining and even fitfully funny at times, it’s a disappointing and flawed finished product.  The 2019 Shaft feels like a good try by all involved, and a sign that the producers might be headed in the right direction.  If there’s another Shaft to be had, a tighter script and stronger performances are a must.  Just let Samuel L. Jackson do his thing, though.

Movie Review ~ Ride Along

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Fast-talking security guard Ben joins his cop brother-in-law James on a 24-hour patrol of Atlanta in order to prove himself worthy of marrying Angela, James’ sister.

Stars: Ice Cube, Kevin Hart, John Leguizamo, Bruce McGill, Tika Sumpter, Bryan Callen, Laurence Fishburne

Director: Tim Story

Rated: PG-13

Running Length: 100 minutes

Trailer Review: Here

TMMM Score: (3/10)

Review: Throughout the latter half of Ride Along I’ll admit to being totally zoned out and not paying attention.  Random thoughts kept floating through my mind….

Ride Along is asleep at the wheel.

Ride Along needs a jump start.

Ride Along?  More like Move Along. Nothing To See Here.

Where to begin with this one?

The buddy-cop comedy genre has taken a bit of a beating lately with 2013’s The Heat the latest casualty of writers that don’t know from funny and stars that trust those same writers to do a lot of the work for them.  On paper, I’m sure Ice Cube and Kevin Hart looked like a good combo to put together but in the poison pen of four (count ‘em FOUR!) screenwriters there’s less goodwill toward funny men and more musty cop jokes than you cake shake of box of powdered doughnuts at.

I’m not a huge fan of Kevin Hart to begin with which could have played a role in my feeling about the teeny-weeny comic’s manic energy threatening to vaporize everything left in his wake.  With many scenes winding up feeling like an extended set from his B-side comedy routines, Hart doesn’t have the instincts of the similarly wired Eddie Murphy at his age.  Murphy at least had several moments of silence in each of his films but Hart is non-stop – I halfway wondered if he kept on going so the editor would have trouble cutting away from him.

As Ben, a going nowhere security guard that spends his off work hours playing interactive videogames in a tony loft apartment he shares with his stunning girlfriend Angela (Tika Sumpter, Sparkle), Hart hits the ground running.   Though it’s never explained what Angela does, it has to be a high paying job in order for the two to afford the kind of rent the spacious brick faced dwelling would demand…because Hart’s low paying job isn’t cutting it.  He finds out he’s been accepted to the police academy and decides to kill two birds with one stone and impress Angela’s wary brother James (Ice Cube) who happens to be a hard-scrabble cop himself.  Make nice with the brother and get some advice…a good plan

James, on the other hand, sees an opportune moment as well…he can get Ben off his back and out of his sister’s life by giving him the kind of ride along he’ll never forget.  Over the course of the day they ride around Atlanta, assigned to 126’s…the most annoying cases no cop wants.  Each run in Hart has with a goofy cuckoo gets less and less funny…and it only makes him try harder and louder.

Ride Along has one scene in my new favorite movie location: The PG-13 strip club where no one is naked, everyone wants to get into, and women in bikinis have hundreds of one dollar bills stuffed in their get-ups.  Actually, the filmmakers don’t even fill their club inside with a lot of people…it looks like the kind of crowd that was recruited from a local dentist office.

Due to the fact that the one joke premise of James terrorizing Ben on a day long look into the life of a cop can’t last forever, the brilliant screenwriters toss in a taxing crime case for James that just happens to see a development on the very day that he’s potential brother in law is accompanying him.  Early on we see that a mysterious figure named Omar is involved with something really big (could be guns, money, drugs…who knows, I forgot) but since no one has seen him, no one can locate him.

The only thing they have to go on is a picture of Omar in the eighth grade…at which point director Tim Story makes the brilliant move of panning to a picture that looks so much like Laurence Fishburne (Man of Steel) that it’s not a spoiler to say…well…guess who plays Omar?  It’s these kind of dunderhead, “we’ll help you figure it out” hand-holding moments that make Ride Along not only not funny but mildly insulting as well.  The comedy is shoved in your face and then your good will is tossed aside until the film needs you to laugh again.

If Kevin Hart wanted to make a cop film about a guy going to the police academy…why not attach himself to the Police Academy remake that’s been talked about for years?  This movie is just incredibly lame, half-hearted, and clearly aimed to make a quick buck and pave the way for a sequel (it’s already been announced) rather than having any strong ambition to just make something funny.

The Silver Bullet ~ Ride Along

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Synopsis: Fast-talking security guard Ben joins his cop brother-in-law James on a 24-hour patrol of Atlanta in order to prove himself worthy of marrying Angela, James’ sister.

Release Date:  January 17, 2014

Thoughts: Though the mismatched buddy cop formula has been done to death in countless films (most recently in 21 Jump Street), I guess there’s always room for one more.  The unlikely combo here finds Kevin Hart (Grudge Match) trying to impress his fiancé’s policeman brother (Ice Cube) by spending some time with him on the job.  While I find that a little of Hart goes a long way, this seems to be a nice fit for the wise-cracking comedian and one that will play nicely against Ice-T’s more deadpan style.  I’m not expecting much from this one and that’s usually the best way to go into a formula film…because you may wind up liking it more than you thought you would.  Here’s hoping.