Review by Camden Ferrell

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run is the third full length feature film about everyone’s favorite sea sponge and his friends. Tim Hill, a frequent writer for the SpongeBob franchise, both wrote and directed this film. Even though it tries to shake up its style, this film is a repetitive mess that doesn’t live up to the standards of the franchise.
 
When a plot finds SpongeBob’s beloved pet snail Gary abducted, he must go on a journey with his friends to the Lost City of Atlantic City in order to find his lost friend. This story is simple, but it rehashes very similar plot points that have been used elsewhere in the character’s history.
 
Unfortunately, the jokes and visual gags from this film are just as repetitive and recycled as its premise. Most of the humor in this movie is limited to purely slapstick that gets old very quickly. Otherwise, many of the jokes and punchlines are unearned and lazy. There are a handful of genuinely funny moments, but it’s severely outweighed by the less stellar parts of the film.
 
The voice cast is adequate as always. However, there does seem to be a subtle lack of enthusiasm from a cast that has been in these roles for multiple decades now. It’s not too distracting, but it lacks a lot of the charisma of its glory days. There are some really interesting celebrity cameos, but they don’t factor prominently into the film. 

The animation style is also an aspect that weighs down the film. This new 3-D style of animation is interesting, but it’s a little gratuitous and flashy. It’s harder to take in certain scenes due to this style, and it feels like the movie could have been less visually distracting if they stuck to their typical 2-D animation.
 
A lot of the movie feels very inconsequential which makes it hard to care about the characters and their journeys. It’s first act is decent and charming, but it’s final two acts, don’t do much to build on its foundation to tell an emotional story. It’s shallow, and a lot of the film seems to serve as an appetizer to the new series for the Paramount+ streaming service.
 
In addition to this movie, they are also releasing a new show, Kamp Koral: SpongeBob’s Under Years. This show is alluded to significantly in the movie; but sadly, it’s less engaging than the film. Its 22-minute episodes feel too long for the lazy writing and storytelling. It may appeal to die-hard fans, but it’s a disappointing endeavor into a spin-off show for SpongeBob.
 
The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run may be a great film to keep the kids occupied during the weekend, but it will underwhelm fans looking for a movie that lives up to the standards of the series. It feels lazy and repetitive, and it pales in comparison to the other films.
 
The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run will be streaming on Paramount+ and will also be available on VOD March 4.
 
Rating: 2.5/5

Review by Dan Skip Allen

Live-action/animation hybrids have been around for a while. Disney has done quite a few of these types of films through the years: Pete's Dragon, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and most notably Mary Poppins. Arguably the most popular of this genre is the 1986 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, directed by Robert Zemeckis. This was a perfect mesh of live-action cinema and animation. Tom & Jerry almost lives up to this lofty benchmark.

Chloë Grace Moretz plays a woman who, having just been fired from her job, goes to a local hotel and bamboozles her way into a new job by posting as another woman. When the hotel realizes it has a mouse infestation — Jerry, to be specific — she embarks on a mission to get rid of it, enlisting the help of Tom so that she can save the wedding of a famous couple. 

With live-action/animation amalgamations comes the live-action portion of the film. The cast in this one is quite famous. Michael Peña plays a snooty hotel concierge, Colin Jost of Saturday Night Live fame plays the groom of the wedding, and Ken Jeong plays the uptight hotel chef. Pallavi Sharva, Rob Delaney, Patsy Ferran, and Daniel Adegboyega all are nice additions to the cast as well They offer a few laughs and a contrast to the animated stars of the film, Tom and Jerry.

These two characters are brought back vividly to life by the Warner Brothers animation team. The animation is amazing in this film. The mix of set traps or playing the piano is seamless. Tim Story does these two iconic characters justice from beginning to end. Their angst is an anchor for all the fun and action scenes. That's exactly what was needed to bring these characters to life.

These types of films have to have a story that begins and ends in the time the film takes place in. That's a necessary evil of these films. The story was quite contrived, to say the least. It was just created to have these characters and actors come together. In that effect, it worked, but it was still a contrived story. That said, it was fun seeing Tom & Jerry back on any screen, even on a streaming service like HBO Max. I was just happy seeing all this craziness unfold in front of my eyes.

All in all Tom & Jerry was fun and entertaining. It wasn't trying to do anything special. It was just a nice time machine for me to when I was a kid watching these two characters go at it time after time. The animation was very solid and it was combined well with the live-action portion. It didn't distract from my enjoyment of the film at all. The story was a little contrived, but that was a small issue in an otherwise entertaining film. Mel Blanc should be happy with the end product, and so should those watching in theaters or at home.

Tom & Jerry is now in theaters and streaming on HBO Max.

​Rating: 3.5/5

Review by Sean Boelman

Winning her first Grammy Awards at the age of eighteen, Billie Eilish undeniably has one of the most astronomical rises to stardom in recent memory. The documentary Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry offers some strong performance footage and behind-the-scenes access, but filmmaker R.J. Cyler’s questionable approach keeps this from reaching its potential heights.

The film follows Eilish as she prepares and releases her first album, trying to cope with her newfound fame while still being a teenager. Cyler is known for his documentaries that peel back the curtain on tragic figures, but the issue with this is that Eilish’s story doesn’t feel tragic, especially with how young she is.

There is something to be said here about the exploitation of youth for entertainment, but Cyler seems unwilling to commit to say anything too hard-hitting about his subject. Throughout the movie, Eilish voices doubt in herself, but it’s just brushed off as stage fright rather than the genuine manifestation of anxiety that it seems to be.

Ultimately, a majority of viewers are going to come into the film already being fans of Eilish, so it won’t take much for them to respect her music. However, in developing her personality off the stage, Cyler treats her like a fully-realized adult, and while this respect for her is welcome, the immature moments caused by her childhood coming to an abrupt and early halt end up being frustrating.

One of the movie’s other problems is that it is nearly two and a half hours long. Although a significant majority of that runtime is made up of concert recordings that fans will certainly want to see, some of the other material begins to feel a bit repetitive after a certain point. It feels like this could have been cut down to less than two hours.

That said, Cyler does impress in the way he uses Eilish’s music. Unlike a lot of music documentary subjects, Eilish doesn’t have an extensive catalog of songs to pull from since she is so new to the scene. Yet despite this (and the relatively bloated length of the film), Cyler manages to create an effective enough rhythm with the variety.

He also brings a really infectious energy to the movie through the cinematography and editing. Eilish’s performances are naturally very enthusiastic, but the way in which Cyler shoots them makes them even more entertaining. Many of them are presented in the way a thriller would be, simulating the experience of Eilish’s nerves.

Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry tries to take an interesting approach to its subject, but it doesn’t always pay off. Maybe one day down the line after Eilish’s career has progressed a little further, we will get the in-depth portrait of her life she deserves.

Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry hits Apple TV+ on February 26.

​Rating: 3.5/5

Review by Dan Skip Allen

​Brothers Joe and Anthony Russo could have chosen to direct any film project after their huge successes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. They chose to direct a film based on the best-selling book by Nico Walker about his life growing up in Cleveland and going off to fight in the Iraq war and what happened when he got back from the Middle East.

Niko Walker (Tom Holland) is a kid from Cleveland who is struggling with life. When he meets a young girl named Emily (Ciara Bravo), he starts feeling better. Eventually, he decides to go into the Army and ends up in the Middle East fighting a pointless war. He sees a lot of horrors over there and comes back and ends up with PTSD. This causes him and Emily to become drug addicts. Their whole life starts spiraling down around them.

The Russo Brothers chose to tell this story in chapters with title cards and all. It helps with the passing of time and the different phases of his and her life. They also use a different style of filmmaking to tell this story. It's more of a visceral style of storytelling. The camera work is shaded and shadowy. It has a faded look to it which mirrors the world that these characters live in. They are definitely on a downward turn that they may not come back from.

This story is an ugly one. A lot of people in the country have gotten caught up in the opioid crisis in our country and this is the typical result of what happens when people are addicted to drugs. They ruin their lives and those around them. Until either they get help or they die. It's a tragic tale that happens to thousands of Americans every day and year. It's a sad state of affairs what these people are going through.

Tom Holland is a young actor who has had quite a good stretch of success in his young career. Playing Spider-Man in the MCU has garnered him great praise from the film community and critics alike. The role of Niko Walker is quite a different turn for him, though. This character has multiple layers to him and facets of emotion. He goes through many different states. His life has taken a lot of twists and turns. This is a character any actor would want to play because of all layers he has in him. Holland just doesn't take him to the places he needed to go to be completely effective in getting the story of this character across.

The Russos and Holland try to do their best with this material. It's not an easy story to put on the screen. The decisions they take with the story, acting, and filmmaking styles should be applauded. They all just don't work at times. They just come across as desperate and inconsistent. Maybe a more seasoned actor could have done more with the character.

Cherry hits theaters on February 26 and Apple TV+ on March 12.

Review by Sean Boelman

Religious themes are nothing new in the horror genre, as there is often no better source of scares than a seemingly unstoppable supernatural evil. Yet despite having a lot of promise, Keith Thomas’s The Vigil often feels like it doesn’t know how to expand upon these good ideas in a way that is satisfyingly suspenseful. 

The film follows a man who is paid to keep watch over a dead body in an Orthodox Jewish tradition, soon finding that there is also a malevolent entity present. Although the uniquely Jewish angle gives the movie a somewhat fresh spin, the otherwise very familiar storyline is paint-by-numbers in a way that quickly becomes boring.

Perhaps the most effective aspect of Thomas’s film is the mystery element. Had Thomas went all-in on the psychological aspects as opposed to the more comfortable supernatural chills, this would have been a lot more compelling. The contrast between the ambiguity of the mystery and the obviousness of the movie otherwise is frustrating.

Even the atmosphere of the film is pretty inconsistent. There are some interesting shots, but other portions of the movie are poorly-lit in a way that makes it hard to watch. And while there is some very cool visual symbolism, particularly related to the use of religious iconography, it’s not used effectively enough to be as impactful as it should have been.

Additionally, the film doesn’t really go into the protagonist’s arc with particular substance. There are some very clear messages here about doubting one’s faith, but Thomas’s movie feels very much like a feature debut in that it asks a lot of questions and answers almost none of them, resulting in the film feeling rather scattered. 

This is particularly troubling when the movie is predominantly a one-man show. Although the protagonist does interact with some side characters at different points throughout the film, there are significant portions where his isolation is the driving force of the conflict. Sadly, he just isn’t developed enough to carry the movie on his own.

Dave Davis’s performance is strong enough for what it is, but he isn’t able to take the character to a deeper level. The subtext is there for Davis to bring out the emotion in his turn, but for some reason, be it bad direction or a failure to translate the script, he settles for being a basic horror leading man. Recognizable actors like Fred Melamed and Lynn Cohen show up in the supporting cast but offer glorified cameos.

On paper, Keith Thomas’s The Vigil should have been the next big thing in the genre, but in execution, it’s disappointingly generic. Thomas’s interesting ideas and voice fail to shine through in a film that feels too content with settling for the lowest common denominator.

The Vigil hits theaters and VOD on February 26.

Rating: 3/5