Movie Review: Weapons


In another effort to stand out, the new movie “Weapons” had a starting time of 2:17 PM, to coincide with a pivotal moment in the movie. This is definitely an idea I have never seen before. For a horror movie, this one has more than its share of over-the-top, way too violent scenes, including one where an insane man crashes his head into the head of another man, way too many times. Is it necessary to kill another person several times over? We get it, this person is dead.

This story is about 17 children who ran from their homes late one night and are missing for weeks, with a narrative that is told out of order, reminiscent of the storytelling method in “Pulp Fiction” (1994). There is a very old witch-like woman, played by Amy Madigan, who casts spells using blood and old tree branches, and can put people in a coma-like state, ordering them to kill other people, or sit at a dinner table, while stabbing their faces with a fork (another scene that went on way too long). This film is insane, disturbing, crazy, and overly violent, and is not a movie for kids who are not older than 17.

Weapons stars Julia Garner as Justine Gandy, the schoolteacher whose students have gone missing, Josh Brolin plays Archer Graff, one of the parents of a missing child, who harasses the police to investigate and eventually investigates what happened to the 17 missing children himself. The ending of this horror movie involves one of the most disturbing scenes I have ever seen in any movie, once again, way too much and way over the top, unnecessary.

For some reason, the Rotten Tomatoes rating is a ridiculously high 96% for a movie that should be at best 75% only for some original ideas. My rating is 75% and a small recommendation only for the most die-hard horror movie fans who like to see an extreme gore-fest.

Movie Review: Together


The standout issue with the new horror movie “Together” is that its premise and special effects represent a brand-new idea that has never been done before in a film.

A married couple, Tim and Millie, played by real-life couple Dave Franco and Allison Brie, move to the country and on a hiking trip find themselves infected by supernatural water, which tries to physically connect them together.

The remainder of this movie is about conflicts in Tim and Millie’s relationship and horrific scenes where the two of them are like magnets trying to pull themselves apart from each other. There is a side story where another teacher in the school where Millie teaches is familiar with this water and videos are seen of ceremonies where this teacher is trying to bond with his partner, who it seems, passed away some time ago. For this part of the story, not enough is explained, suggesting that perhaps these people are aliens who might have infected the area with this body-bonding water. In the end, we never find out the origin of this supernatural water.

There are the typical gross-out scenes that are common with physical horror movies like this one; most are well done, especially when they show the combining of body parts. The ending was no surprise, and overall, I give this movie a very mild recommendation only because of some of the originality.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating of 94% is way too high, with my rating around 75% and small thumbs up.

Movie Review: M3GAN 2.0


The original “M3GAN” released in 2022, received a very high 93% on Rotten Tomatoes due to its imaginative new ideas about AI. The new sequel M3GAN 2.0 ratings are only 57%, which most likely ends this franchise at two movies. The reason is the same: nobody thought writing a great script was important enough, because they had fans of the previous movie, and the same idea of throwing special effects to fix a film that once again did not work.

This script, which initially started off well, quickly devolves into a chaotic and nonsensical story. This time, there is a new robot, identified as M3GAN, that appears much more human and is significantly more violent than its predecessor. This robot utilizes much of the stolen technology from the original model and is now being deployed as an assassin to eliminate political enemies. Allison Williams returns as the lead scientist, Gemma, with Violet McGraw portraying Gemma’s niece, Cady. This screenplay is another example of a disconnected makes no sense story resulting from three screenwriters writing one script. How do three screenwriters write one script? If they work separately, like they probably did for this story, the end result is once again a movie that is disjointed and makes no sense.

Most of the last third of this mostly bad movie is all about Karate action scenes and extreme violence that lead to a ridiculous climax that, once again, mostly makes no sense.

Too many promising movie franchises like this one fail for all of these same reasons. I agree with the low ratings on Rotten Tomatoes of 57% and do not recommend this film.