Movie Review: The Bride!

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The movie “The Bride of Frankenstein” was released in 1935, directed by James Whale, starring Boris Karloff as Frankenstein and Elsa Lanchester as the Bride. This new version, written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, is much different from the original and has way too many “let’s be different, strange, and crazy” dialogue, action, and acting scenes, which is the unfortunate new direction for too many movies released in the last few years.

“The Bride!” stars Jessie Buckley as Ida, who will definitely win the Best Actress Oscar next week for “Hamnet” and is now in great demand due to her great performance. However, in my opinion, this was not a good role for a film scheduled to release right before you win an Oscar. While there are moments that require great acting ability in this film, the story is too insane, weird, disturbing, and in too many areas disgusting, making it surprising that anyone in this well-known cast agreed to act in this movie.

The Bride! also stars Christian Bale as Frank, Annette Bening as Dr. Euphronius, with Penélope Cruz and Peter Sarsgaard (Maggie Gyllenhaal’s husband) as two police officers who are searching for Frank and Ida during the second half of this movie. Why these well-known actors read the script and agreed to act in this movie is a mystery. This is simply not a good movie.

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s brother Jake Gyllenhaal plays a 1930’s famous actor/singer, Ronnie Reed, who is a favorite of both Ida and Frank as they attend several movie musicals starring Reed, adding another dimension of weird and strange to this already crazy enough movie.

The low Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this movie of 60% are both understandable and correct. This was a hard 2-hour film to sit through, and looking at my watch was a big part of this experience. I agree with the mostly bad critical reviews and do not recommend this film. I hope that the weird and different new trend in movies eventually goes away and things get back to normal.

Movie Review: Scream 7

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The Scream movie franchise is now 30 years old, with the release of the original “Scream” in late 1996. All of the movies in this series are about the same, horrific stabbings and death, with the victim often running for their lives until finally caught and stabbed more times than is ever necessary to cause their demise. The plots are often idiotic, with a huge surprise ending, “who is the killer or killers?”, that are always ridiculous and illogical based on the entire plot of the movie.

While the new “Scream 7” movie is better than the last one, it is still very stupid, with some death scenes that will remind some of the “Final Destination” movie franchise, which is famous for its imaginative death special effects. This movie has a few death scenes at the crazy level of a Final Destination, with an overkill ending involving two pistols that has to be seen to be believed. There are once again too many scenes where a character should definately be dead, but either does not die, or comes back from the dead.

For this new edition, Neve Campbell is back as Sydney Evans, after missing Scream 6, because she was insulted by the amount of money they offered her. Considering her ambitious acting career that started with the TV series “Party of Five”, over 30 years ago, she has to be embarrassed to be so well known from a horror movie series this idiotic. However, when it comes to money and the precarious profession of acting in Hollywood, nobody can be blamed for cashing in when a money opportunity comes along.

After being almost killed in the last Scream movie, Courtney Cox is once again playing the reporter Gale Weathers, and is the only cast member to have appeared in all seven Scream movies. Relative newcomer Isabel May plays Tatum Evans, Sydney Evans’ daughter, and is most likely the actor who will take over this series, unless this whole movie franchise mercifully dies after seven stupid films. In the end, if one of these movies makes enough money, they will make another one.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings are an accurate and very low 33%. I agree with this rating and do not recommend this movie, even for the most die-hard Scream fans.

Movie Review: How to Make a Killing

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It is never a good sign for a new movie release when a key fact on the poster does not match the movie. The main character, Becket Redfellow, can inherit 18 Billion Dollars (from the movie), not 28 Billion Dollars (from the movie poster). From ChatGPT, this could be about movie marketing, but for me, this looks like a glaring error right from the start.

After one of the women in a wealthy family marries the wrong man, whom she later divorces after having a son, she is barred from having anything to do with the family or their money. What doesn’t make much sense in the movie’s main premise is how her son could have any claim to the 18 billion dollar family fortune after she was banned from the family, and later dies. Why would her son somehow be able to kill the seven relatives in the family who are the remaining heirs, and then be somehow unbanned from the family because he is the only remaining relative? It also does not appear that the son or his mother are the kind of people who would consider mass murder for money. Why would anyone think they could kill seven people in a row and get away with it? From the start, this logline or movie concept should never have been greenlighted.

“How to Make a Killing” stars Glen Powell as Becket Redfellow, Margaret Qualley as Julia who is a former insane girlfriend of Becket, Jessica Henwick who plays the love interest in Becket and Ed Harris as Whitelaw Redfellow, who is the head of the family and the subject of a hunting rifle and bow and arrow scene with Becket at the end of the film – one of the few impressive scenes in this below average movie. Unfortunately, this movie does not work on several levels, including the rare attempts at humor or irony.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings are a correct and very low 48%, and I agree with this rating and do not recommend this film.