Movie Review: Elio

 

Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome back to my Movie Review.

Last year, I covered Inside Out 2, while im kinda nitpicky on this sequel for being similar as the first one, but in fairness, at least its a pretty good movie with nice message and even new characters that we enjoy and it made a Beaucoup bucks at the box-office that it became the Number 1 Highest-Grossest Animated Film of All Time, right up until it got destroyed by Ne Zha 2 by doubling box-office result less than a year later. (Ouch…!) I know it sucks for both Disney and Pixar, but hey, at least Pixar made a comeback to get back on their feet for more projects, once of which happens be… Another movie about alien abduction since like 3 months ago?

“Elio” is a 2025 Sci-Fi Action movie that was written/directed by Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi and Adrian Molina, produced by Mary Alice Drumm and co-written by Julia Cho (both screenplay and story), Mark Hammer and Mike Jones.

The idea of this movie came from the mind of Adrian Molina, after worked as a co-director with Coco, he was highly anticipating for making his project as a sole director (and story writer) and Mary Alice Drumm teamed up as a producer. Molina said the idea of his movie came from his childhood when he used to live in a military base, but being there isn’t so easy when he was young due to dealing with social isolation before he was enrolled at CalArts (California Institute of the Arts) to befriend with students, as one of director Madeline Sharafian called Adrian’s experience “he felt like he'd found his people there, he'd found his world”. While Adrian working his passion project, but he wasn’t be able to keep going halfway through development, thus leaving him bowing out of project to working on “Coco 2” (Aw come on, is that really necessary after a perfectly emotional ending??), thus the Chief Creative Officer of Pixar, Pete Doctor, announced that, while Adrian Molina still credited, the aforementioned Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi (yup, the same director who gave us Turning Red) stepped in as both writer (for story) and directors continue the project (Am I start noticing a pattern since the making of Brave?).

So, with all that said, is discovering aliens from different planets will be a fun trip, or is this film we’d rather stay in home planet with isolation?

Well, lets find out.

The Story

For a movie about a kid who wants to be abducted by aliens to see something cool outside of Earth, you think the story of this movie would be something adventurous to learn something outside of Earth along with dealing with serious issue? Well… Kind of…

The movie begins in a flashback where we introduced our main kid Elio Solis, who lives with his Air Force major aunt Olga after his parents tragically died. While he’s living with her after the unfortunate moment, he wandered on his own to curiously see space probe Voyager 1, which left him both surprised and curious that he wishes to going out in outer space, much to dismay to his aunt when she gave up her dream to becoming an astronaut for the focus of family. Fast Forward to couple years later, now aged 11, Elio becomes obsessed not just wishing to going in outer space, but also wanting to be abducted by aliens, by laying on the beach with message in waiting, but to no avail, that is until when everything going down from getting bullied by two boys that left Elio a left eye’s injury for two weeks to sneaking in emergency meeting room in his attempt to sending message to the discovered proof of aliens (due to Voyager 1 got captured), which his message sent ended up causing a power outage, which it nearly losing Olga’s job, which she punished him by sending him to the youth camp, much to dismay to Elio when the same bullies are there. But one night, Elio is running away from the bullies who’re trying to beating him up, but then, his dream comes true when he witnessed the light that he got abducted by aliens in a planetary ship called “Communiverse” as an “Ambassador of Earth” to welcoming the other aliens. But at the same time, he also noticed the emergency about an evil warlord named “Lord Grigon” who’s posing a threat against Communiverse because of being rejected due to his menace, hence his invasion with against Communiverse, its up to Elio to find the way stop the intergalactic warlord to bring peace.

I find the story to be… Alright, while it feels just like one of those movies about a kid discover an alien (name a single film that has that), but the execution is actually nice to do the opposite, instead of alien lands on Earth, here, its the kid lands on aliens’ planetary ship for his dream of being abducted. While its fun to see this moment in the second half of his first discovering aliens, but later on, it goes into trying to prevent the invasion on Communiverse in attempt to bring peace, which while it maybe nice, but the execution felt underwhelming with obvious cliché. But despite my nitpick of cliché, the movie does have a heart moment due to the subject of the plot element, its to dealing with social isolation problem, which is not hard to see why Elio’s struggle came from Molina’s idea from his childhood struggle with same subject, which il give a credit what they came up and its probably relatable, especially when its even more difficult without the parents when they died, even if it felt like they took the similar development from Lilo and Stitch, but with different plot. Despite some copycat, at least il give a credit what they’re trying for the mix of caring of be like a family and share the struggle of social isolation, even if some of the writing can be good, but other times it could get underwhelming. As for the humor of this movie? Well, I find the jokes to be… Trying too hard. Sure, I did have a chuckle with some good joke, but most of them are trying, like a little too hard that, again the writing is a mixed bad that it can work, but others, didn’t work that well.

While I may like the story to be similar but with the opposite, along with nice message to gave a heart moment and some okay jokes, but its just that the execution is underwhelming from obvious cliché and felt like its kind of done before.

The Animation

I think its safe the say that the budget is more gearing towards the presentation than the writing. Anyway, the movie’s budget costed $150M, which is kind of high for development, but holy Christmas, the movie’s presentation looks so amazing what they gave.

For starter, the background went from simply to beautifully well-crafted presentation of the world building. In Earth, It looks pretty nice and simple from small town to the forest with camp youth, its a nice and fresh air in Earth’s presentation, along with the setting in Olga’s workplace. But when we’re leaving planet Earth… Oh man, it shows its true color, while going in space is simple, but beautiful at the same time, but that’s just an appetizer. But when we entering Communiverse, this is where the creativity and the beauty show us, the planetary ship itself is amazing that it has colorful settings in which rooms like the fountain room (despite its cheaply joked that its a toilet, because of flushing), the cloning room and many others, giving them a unique life-like design of the sets in this ship. There’s also Grigon’s ship, while it looks nice design for dark and deadly from each rooms or death traps, but its more of a pass.

What makes this movie also amazing its the effects and the quality, mainly for going into space with lighting of bright stars and fade quality, especially with the presentation of space and planets during the opening’s flashback. But like I said, the Communiverse is even more fascinating, not just the ship itself, but the effects like the fountain water, a cloning with obviously made in squash and stretch (which makes sense) and even unique quality effect from either ship or some of the alien designs.

Speaking of the latter, the character designs and the animation are also nice and creative. While the human designs are there (though perhaps the same design style from either Turning Red or even Luca), but they’re not bad to say the least (yeah yeah, go ahead, laugh at me all you want just because we keep bringing up CalArts design since 2010s, but not everything is bad). But the alien designs are a new level, for starter, they proclaimed that the alien designs are based on microscopic plants or animals to capture both oddity and believable vibe, some examples like Grigon’s species are made in a difficulty balance of cute and creepy, which il give a credit where one of them could be terrifying to giving them in a robot suit, but outside of it, its probably cute, even if creepy at the same time. Another creative design they made is OOOOO, which is made of liquid shapeshifting supercomputer, which I find it both cute and creative, but animating is also a challenge based on its effect from 2D facial to shapeshifting effects, especially when the facial rigging and technique were brought up from Pixar’s first series “Win or Lose”. Finally, the animation is still pretty good for humans being normal and realistic movements (for the most part) to smooth, creative and unique for the aliens.

Its no stranger that the animation is the highlight for pretty cool and creative designs and even a beautiful world building and the quality.

The Characters

While the world both in Earth and outside like Communiverse, we expecting to have some promising, cute and likable characters in this movie? Well, based on the writing, yes and no.

Lets start off with our title character, Elio Solis (voiced by Yonas Kibreab), the main kid who’s struggled with social isolation ever since his parents died that he has to live with his aunt, that is until going into space, mainly abducted by aliens in his dream, despite some people (like his aunt and the bullies are questioning his dream. But once he does get abducted, he went from struggling kid and dreamer to overly exciting, but also naïve to thinking himself as the ambassador of Earth, which his pretending as a big deal from Earth would be a huge risk, the fact that he’s probably too young to understand about many things in space and aliens, even if he likes to hanging out or even helping them. I find him to be fairly descend, he’s more of dreamer and naïve that he should’ve learn a reality check, despite he’s trying of get off his head of tragic past and his isolation. While I find him to be an okay character, despite we can relate the struggle, but il give a credit for the young teenage Yonas for his good performance.

Next we have Olga Solis (voiced by Zoe Saldana, aka Gamora in MCU and aka Uhura from Star Trek reboot), she’s Elio’s aunt who works as a major in Air Force, who’s once originally going to be an astronaut, but dropped the plan in the name of FAMILY. The best way to describing her is she’s somewhat similar to Nani from Lilo and Stitch, a struggled aunt who’s trying to stay in the business careful because of her nephew that could cause trouble. Except the difference between Nani and Olga is that when Elio was abducted and replaced by the clone version of Elio, it feels like his regret of being heard on his nephew is thrown out of window (perhaps she’ll apologize, but not going to the SPOILER detail), while Nani is struggling to taking care of her little sister Lilo in difficulty connection of “Ohana” (aka FAMILY). But then again, I understand the movie is focusing on Elio, but it would be nice to give a little more chemistry between Olga and his nephew, making her the poor man version of Nani. Though im not gonna take personal on Zoe, cause once again, she did a good work of her performance, since I mentioned her in couple of my reviews like two Guardians of the Galaxy and the third installment of Star Trek reboot.

Then we have Glordon (voiced by Remy Edgerly), an alien worm who’s the son of Lord Grigon who’s left alone bellow the ship before eventually befriend with Elio. I think he’s meant to be a comic relief in the movie from curious and fun fella that he likes to know about Communiverse when Elio met him. Though I find him to be pretty cute in the movie when he’s a young work, but as a comedic role, its a “meh”, I did have a chuckle of his moment, but others are low-brow. But like Yonas, il give a credit for nice performance to a new young actor Remy.

And lastly, we have Lord Grigon (voiced by Brad Garrett) the main antagonist of the movie who’s trying to taking down Communiverse because of the rejection from his threatening appearance with his high-tech armor, which it drive him made for his threat. I find him to be an average villain in the movie, he’s just a typical villain who’s angry for being rejected for being a menace for the way he develops or he looks, though one thing that he should’ve pay attention is his son, its as if he treats his son like nothing happened when he’s planning for a war at Communiverse. While he looks pretty cool, but the way he’s written is average at best, but again, not gonna blame on Brad, I think he did a nice work of his role.

As for the rest, they’re just there for small bit of developments, there’s Helix (voiced by Brandon Moon) the ambassador of Falluvinum who’s curious but welcoming in his party nature, there’s Questa (voiced by Jameela Jamil) the ambassador of Gom who’s surprisingly an enjoyable character for me, due to being kind-hearted and learner from her ability of mind reading, Tegmen (voiced by Matthias Schweighöfer) the ambassador… Whichever the planet he came from (yeah, totally forgettable one…), Bryce and Caleb (voiced by Dylan Gilmer and Jake Getman) who’re the bullies toward Elio, and OOOOO (voiced by Shirley Henderson, aka Moaning Myrtle from Harry Potter franchise) who’s a shapeshifting supercomputer who gives Elio (and viewers) to show us Communiverse, she’s another memorable character for creative design.

The characters in the movie have some fun moments and the actors did a good work of their voice performance, but when it comes to the characters how they’re written, they can be good one, but some are forgettable.

And now for my final opinion of this movie

Overall, Elio is a somewhat above average film at best.

Il give a credit for the idea of this movie, the message of struggling of social isolation, the world building of space and Communiverse, the animation look amazing, creative and colorful, some characters are alright and the voice acting are pretty good.

Though im aware some people may like this movie like high positive, but for me, while il give a credit, but the movie is suffered with numerous problems from story is good, but downhill afterwards, the writing could’ve gone better, the jokes are trying too hard and some characters like one villain just didn’t worked out for their potential or just a copycat.

Again, I know some people said its a recommend to watch this with friends, family or some who’re fans of space and aliens, that’s for those people, but for me personally, I recommend to watch this movie once and il let you draw your conclusion if its worth to watch or is it Pixar’s forgettable film. Even Disney themselves didn’t even bother to marketing this movie, making this as Pixar’s worst opening weekend’s box-office ever, and an early flop (Jeez, they went from comeback with Inside Out 2 and then this?? It feels like we’re going back to Pixar’s downhill).

For my rating, im gonna give this one a 6/10.

So this ends of my movie review, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on KO-FI.com/blackevil.

Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out.

Movie Review: Friday the 13th Part 5: A New Beginning

 

Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome back to my Movie Review.

Last year on September 13th, I’ve covered Friday the 13th Part 4, the so-called “Final Chapter” that, as I said before, it was originally intended at the final installment of the franchise and moved on, whether because of rise of slasher genre was declining or perhaps its due to resulting of many filmmakers are obsessed to making trashy slasher movies, ever since slasher was a huge trend in the 80s. But you know what they said “Money Talks”, hence when Part 4 made more money at the box-office, they killed off the “final installment” to make another one in today’s review, because hey, we’re in Friday The 13th as I recently posted.

“Friday the 13th Part 5: A New Beginning” is a 1985 slasher and the 5th installment of the franchise that was written/directed by the late Danny Steinmann, produced by Timothy Silver and co-written by Martin Kitrosser and David Cohen.

As I said before, since Part 4 made a lot of money at the box-office, its no stranger that they scrapped the final installment to make another Friday the 13th movie to making it as a new beginning for new story, as the title implies with the executive producer, Frank Mancuso Jr., appreciate for the title. Once its time to preparing Part 5, the director Danny Steinmann threw his hat in the ring when he did his low budget slasher film “The Unseen” (even though the budget costed $2M). Though unlike Part 4 was horniest and the behind the scene left a lot of questions on Joseph Zito’s involvement from bad attitude and/or negligent, Part 5 on the other hand is probably the most sleaziest that i’ve ever heard upon doing research (though the history the behind the scene is rather hard to find nor knowing), it wasn’t just a kills or horny campers, but this one has a lot of sexual tones with sexing and bunch of revealing nakey bods from ladies, especially with a lot of revealing boobies. This was all because Danny Steinmann was also been making porno movie called “High Rise” in 1973. And to add more sleaze, Danny was also flying high with cocaine when making the movie, pretty much means, the director is so coked up that he liked to see titties and sexing with zero control of his direction to letting actors do whatever they went, whether to just follow the script or making their own delivery, its almost like a free-for-all whether some actors can improvise while the director enjoyed himself with nose candy for sex and nudey scenes, leaving this movie had no direction from the get-go and it was Danny Steinmann’s last film he ever directed in his career. And from what I’ve noticed, Part 5 was meant to be the new trilogy of Friday the 13th franchise with some new characters and new villain without Jason.

But when this movie came out, it was widely regarded as one the worst film in Friday the 13th franchise due to its questionable directions, the tone and the movie that it’s almost barely followed from the previous installment, and the biggest criticism of all is the absent of Jason Voorhees himself, while Tommy Jarvis is left as a backseat character. The same can be said for the box-office, whereas the previous films were a success, Part 5 is a complete opposite that it was a box-office disappointment by earning $21.9M, sure it bypassed the budget of $2.2M, but still, the movie’s earning was a downhill. As time went on, Part 5 is still considered the weakest one of the franchise for many people, but there are some considered a “Guilty Pleasure”, whether you like it or not, I guess its not hard to know why Part 5 is regarded as the Friday the 13th version of “Halloween 3” for similar reasons.

So, with all that said, will I find this movie to be misunderstood, or is this film really that bad that it’ll be left forgotten?

Well, lets find out.

The Story

Since this the new chapter, you think the writing are trying to make something new while we have a killer on the loose? Well, yes and no.

The movie begins where our familiar main boy Tommy Jarvis who’s walking in a banana raincoat to see the gravestone of his nemesis that he killed him five years ago, Jason Voorhees. After the two idiots dig out the grave that they got killed by Jason, the dream ends when we see grown up Tommy in his late teen, who’s been in psychiatric hospitals from his personal traumatic nightmare from a familiar hockey masked killer. After been in hospitals, he’s brought into a new institution called “Pinehurst Halfway House” to meet the owners of this apartment, Dr. Matt Letter his assistant Pam Roberts, along with new teens like teens like serious blondie Robin, goth music-lover Violet, an awkward fella with stutter Jake, a lumberjack Vic (though they never met), a fatass chocolate eater Joey and two sexing teens named Eddie and Tina, the latter of two are brought back by the cop when they’re caught sexing in the wood, which happens to be property from madness neighbor Ethel and her son Junior, but at the same time, Tommy meets the reckless boy Reggie who’s also involved in institution thanks to his grandpa George. But while this is going on, Joey goes to annoying other patients for give chocolates, which pissing off both Robin and Violet, to in a brutal final straw, Vic, where after harshly refused to take a chocolate, he KILLS Joey with his ax (Jesus dude!!), which it quickly call 911 for cops to arresting Vic and ambulance to get rid of dead Joey, much to shock for Roy Burns, minus his partner Duke Johnson doesn’t give a crap about it. What we didn’t know is that a new killer is out there after killing off two greasers Vinnie and Pete, which is up to Tommy and perhaps some others in the institutions are find out where the killer is, so we think.

Yeah, its a same old, same old who’s involved of killing anybody on the way, except this one is a follow up with Tommy Jarvis is struggling to get over his traumatic past ever since he killed Jason five years ago, its like nothing new that what we expect. But in this movie, the horror feels like its forgotten, cause like I said at the film’s origin, because the director loves sex instead of horror slasher, the movie plays on its own crazy antics, especially with the dialogue and even their own character developments, otherwise, it feels like Jarvis is gonna be in the backseat from the craziness it has. This left the writing feels like an afterthought that it nearly has no story, but rather go crazy on it from, again, the lack of direction. Which I think its safe to say that because of the lack of direction, it left some actors going improvised and slightly follow the script, which its understandable because of director’s been busy enjoy sex and coke, but despite the craziness from behind the scene, I enjoy some actors to having their own fun to improvised developments or fun dialogues, which I find t them to be both fascinating and even chuckle worthy, I know it sounds like im turning off my brain to have fun with it, but then again, without the direction, the actors can make their own fun and their ideas, ranging from greasers hilarious broken down relationship while their car is jammed (“Crap my ass!”), Ethel’s going full on Karen about horny teens in the prop, Reggie and his bestie Demon or other stuff going on, which I feel like im watching a sleazy comedy movie than a slasher movie because of… Obvious reasons from behind the scene. Not to mention, since the slasher in the movie is lacking, we never be able to see more with Tommy Jarvis, again, this left Jarvis in the backseat until the 3rd act.

While the story felt like no originality and no direction means no story til the 3rd and final act, the writing is pretty much a mess from the get-go, but at least it has a fun moment that I was chuckling from fun moments, even if it could get over-the-top.

The Presentation

The movie’s budget happens to be shared the same number as Part 4, mainly the $2.2M of budget. Despite the same number, the presentation looks nice and standard as what we expect, except the movie is downhill compared to Part 4.

For starter, instead of taking place in the camping spot, this one takes place in the institution Pinehurst, though we can see the extra location like the restaurant and the farm, which some fans theorizing Pinehurst takes place close to Camp Crystal Lake due to similar presentation spot and possibly the similar pattern about Jason Voorhees, it can be true since its like in the forest spot, even if Pinehurst is like a small town next to the forest, which is why this movie was filmed in Camarillo, California.

While the presentation looks nice, the lighting quality is lightened a bit, which I can easily tell the quality is somewhat bigger than Part 4, which I appreciated a bit, but I find it be a bit ambitious for the lighting and flat, which is bigger budget of the previous films, but only forcible to look bigger and better, but in fairness, some filming shots are pretty nice as always, even if, like always, there’s plenty of nude revealing shots from Lana’s exciting to hanging with Billy by showing her bewbs in front of mirror, which Rebecca Wood (who played Lana) came up her performance idea as a reference from “All that Jazz” from 1979, I never seen it, but touché, or the most gratuitous of all, is when Eddie and Tina going out in the woods to, in typical slasher fashion, smoking dope and sexing, but outdoor and indoor, which it probably explained why the director, Danny Steinmann, is way too excited (probably in nose candy) for this as the first day of production of this film, which he wanted it to be explicit and extensive, along with wide shot of Tina’s birthday suit, again, only for showing her Ts, which it felt like we’re watching porn film, much to both uncomfortable and asked so much questions from the crew members and the aforementioned executive producer Frank Mancuso Jr. But on the bright side, at least its not as negligible as Part 4’s behind the scene.

But you know what’s negligible? The kills. While I like to see the kills in many slasher films, but in case for Part 5, its sadly the weakest of all, we never be able to see the action kills for what’s going on from POV butcher knife to the face, a camera bellow the bed of copy-paste Kevin Bacon’s death in Part 1, slit throat with zoomed to the face and the blood feels rather minimal, making it rather the least gory film in Friday the 13th film which will unfortunately suffered the same way in the later installments, all because once again, MPAA are constantly threatened the movie to be X Rated, forcing them to cut or edited to be safe to be an R Rated film. Again, its easy to blame MPAA for their sensitive rules. Though the makeup of dead bodies are not bad to say the least, but again, its the least gory when the director is interest of skins instead of gore.

As for the body counts, like always, based on watching Dead Meat’s Kill Count (I know im cheating, but I love watching this show on Youtube), it has 21 dead bodies. If I have to pick which one is my favorite kill in this movie is when Eddie got wrapped in the head and crushed to death by a belt from behind the tree, pretty painful to look, but also creative kill. But the weakest will be almost everything, though il go with Duke’s death which is we never see how did he died along with kill and blood makeup is about to washing away due to fake raining.

The presentation of this movie looks alright at best, but it felt more like we’re in a soft-core porn with less gory kill because MPAA said so.

The Characters

I think its easy to say that unlike the previous films, the characters in this movie have their personalities, a pretty crazy personality based on actors’ improvisation, I guess I can say the actors had fun with.

Lets start off with Jason Voorhees. Though I know you’re like “Really Anthony? Why bring Jason in Part 5, he’s already dead in Part 4.”, well yeah, I understand that, though in this movie, we only see Jason as a jump scaring ghost in Tommy Jarvis’s mind when he’s trying to clearing his head. However, Jason is played by two actors instead of one, some moments (commonly) that he’s played by stuntman Tom Morga, while the opening dream was played by unknown John Hock when Morga was unavailable. Which Im assuming Jason is meant to keep looking at Tommy that if he wants to get off his mind is to be like Jason Voorhees, more on that later.

And as for Tommy Jarvis, he’s played by both John Shepherd and reprised by Corey Feldman in cameo. In this movie, Tom is no longer being a fun artistic kid of creating monster mask that we all know from the start, here, his fighting and killing Jason is hunting his mind that Tom is been struggling. Not to mention, he’s also feeling uneasy to be social with other patients around that whenever he’s mocked or put to blame, he flat out fights them in a threat in his minded trauma, especially some of his attack feels like he learns from either MMA or pro-wrestling. I think its safe to say that Shepherd’s Tommy is less crazy, but rather both struggled and disturbed, which probably explained John Shepherd is going into method to taking his own role seriously from doing research in mental institution in Camarillo and buying monster masks from various stores. While its a damn shame that Shepherd’s role is minimal that he’s meant to be the main role, I think he did a nice work for playing as Tommy, but then again, he’s pretty much into a backseat character than others.

So lets get to the survivors/victims in this movie.

First up is Pam Roberts (played by Melanie Kinnaman), she’s the main final girl in the movie as Dr. Matt’s assistant. She’s almost like a chaperone in the institution that she’s always watching over people, even if there’s some moments she constantly calling her own name and as far for her… She’s just a forgettable final girl in the movie, she constantly trying to surviving herself or even fight back at “Jason”, like any clumsy victims in any slasher films for all of cheap build up or clumsy purposes. While il give a nice credit for her performances, but she’s just a lame final girl compared to some previous final girls that I like.

Next up with with Reggie Winter, or Reggie The Reckless (played by a then 13 year old Shavar Ross), he’s another surviving kid like Tommy Jarvis, but unlike Tommy, Reggie is such a memorable kid, being fun, energetic and surprisingly charming, especially that I like his either dialogue or delivery whenever he interacts with patients or even some other characters, which makes Reggie, for me, the best character in Part 5 and Shavar did a fun work of his role, as long as he doesn’t swear what he promised to his parents. Aw well, understood, but still fun work for him.

Next, we have Roy Burns (played by Dick Wieand) who’s a lone paramedic who seems to be an average and awkward man when we saw him in the introduction with his A-hole partner Duke Johnson (played by William Caskey Swaim), not before when he sees dead Joey, this left us fishy what happens next to him, but again, more on that later.

Last but not least for talking about is Ethel Hubbard (played by the late Carol Locatell), she’s basically a local Karen in Pinehurst, but at least she’s a lot memorably funny than real life Karens, being quickly pissed whenever it didn’t go on her way or possibly crazily have fun in the kitchen. While I enjoy Reggie, but when it comes to Ethel, man she’s like all over the place for her delivery with the dialogue from she’s got a bomb on herself to pissing off at anybody or even her son Junior (played by Ron Sloan), when her son is a lunatic fat kid with her motocross. As I said before, she took improvised performance in fun way from her delivery from the script that she thought its funny (which I can’t blame her that she’s probably had fun with), along with her method that she bought her own wig since she’s been in “Sharky’s Machine” in 1981 and doing her own makeup by rubbing her face with dirt from the side of the road to make her look like an angry dirty old lady, which again, il give a credit for her idea. But its a damn shame that she’s tragically passed from dealing with cancer on April 11th 2023. Rest in Peace Carol, you were both great and funny in this movie.

As for the rest, most of them are obviously shown for potential body counts, but then again, they had their own unique look and personalities, but like always, some are just… There.

There’s Matt Letter (played by Richard Young) is the manager of Pinehurst institution, Robin Brown (played by Juliette Cummins) a patient who takes it seriously to do the chores and kinda didn’t seems to care, Violet (played by Tiffany Helm), a music loving gothic girl, with one scene that she does a fascinating robot dance with the song “His Eyes” by Pseudo Echo (while she did a fun performance, but I heard when it was premiered, Tiff admitted for being a party girl by tripping on acid. Yeesh…), Jake Patterson (played by Jerry Pavlon) is an awkward stutter patient, Vic Faden (played by the late Mark Venturini), Eddie and Tina (played by John Robert Dixon and Deborah Sue Voorhees, I like your name, Sue) are obvious sexual patient for illegally sexing in the woods, Joey (played by the late Dominick Brascia), a fat patient from eating disorder, and lastly is Demon (played by Miguel A. Núñez Jr.) another memorable character with his also fun personality and being best pal with Reggie with his babe Anita (played by Jere Fields), especially with the outhouse scene.

While most of them have their fun acting for their improvisation, but the characters, while they’re pretty good to have their own personalities, but they’re pretty minimal for their appearance for either just.. There or potential body counts.

SPOILER ALERT for those who haven’t seen it or didn’t care.

The third and final act felt like a copycat from some previous installments, but has an underwhelming twist and one of those BS cliffhanger that’ll never happened in later films.

After almost everybody died, along with Tommy Jarvis disappears from his emotional beat down at the late Junior as his own defense mechanism, Reggie goes back to the second floor to checking in after sleeping in the couch, he discovers dead body in the room in a shock, right before Pam shows up with shacking and question him to reminding she’s Pam Roberts with “What’s the matter? Its me Pam! What is it?? What is it???” (Like chill out missy, there’s couple of dead body in the house!). But once she sees the dead bodies, its a perfect time to panic when “Jason” breaks the door down for rainy forest chase! Upon arrive at the ambulance (along with weirdly different shots when Pam either has a pink sweater or others not), they see Duke died from throat slit by “Jason”, this resulting Reggie disappears in running away, leaving us forced to see Pam act like a klutz as a final girl (along with her buttoned shirt being wet with see-through with bare chest nips, because the director wants it), as well as seeing more dead bodies like her partner Dr. Matt is killed by stabbed in a head by a railroad spike and Grandpa George being tossed in the building with no eyeballs from his sockets. As she left the building and tripped in the mud (again, because the director said so), Reggie finally shows up to driving a tractor to knocked down “Jason” (which yes, the young Shavar said he did drove the tractor for his own stunt). This led to the copycat battle in the barn from Part 3, also Part 2 when Pam uses her chainsaw, but at least “Jason” blocks it with his machete like a duel swordfight. But the chainsaw fuel has ran out, but she decides to drop it instead of keeping like a sword like a F(OOF)ING Coward! That is until Tommy Jarvis FINALLY shows up for help, but he’s frozen of fear in Vietnam Flashback when “Jason” slash him opened (though not suffering, though he did fightback with his pocket knife, but not good enough), but he did follow Pam and Reggie up to chasing away from “Jason” to the loft of the barn. As “Jason” tries to kill Pam, Reggie jumps out to body check at the masked killed off the loft, but “Jason” holds the ledge in attempt to kill Reggie, but Tommy gets back up to dismember the killer’s hand, leaving “Jason” fell flat into spike tractor parts with mask flopped off, revealing to be… Roy Burns!

Yup, that’s right, Roy Burns, the paramedic from minutes ago, was the killer by copying what Jason did before. “But for what reason?”, you asked yourself, its all because from before, Roy was devastated over Joey’s death, who happens to be Roy’s lost son, taking his own revenge as knockoff version of Jason Voorhees, based on a different shape and color from his hockey mask compared to Jason’s mask. Yeah, I find this one to be underwhelming, mainly because Roy didn’t know about his son’s death since… Well, they never see each other again for a long time (I guess…?), and not to mention, Mrs. Voorhees did first when she did a personal vendetta to killing anybody just because they never checked Jason when he was “drowned”, which is a memorable plot twist and understandable why she did this before Jason do the same what her late mother did. Roy on the other hand, just came off as out nowhere without proper development and again, a pretty underwhelming twist. Though I kinda give a credit for the idea of copycat killer, mainly when someone took inspiration for what they saw, though the idea of slasher reference wouldn’t be until we have Scream for about the next decade, but, hate to say to bring in real life, some killers decided to do a “life imitates art”, by doing a real life copycat slasher, which I do NOT recommend this, otherwise you’ll get yourself into a serious legal trouble for killing real life people like what some people did for being inspired from slasher movies. So if you love slasher movies, just do a cosplay or doing a role play instead of doing a real life killer, again, I do not recommend. Though I should also mention Roy’s killer appearance just didn’t match accurately between from the aforementioned Tom Morga (yes, he played Roy under disguise as Jason) and Dick Wieand

After giving us the most underwhelming twist ever, Tommy has a hallucinating dream of killing Pam, but only wake up to see ghostly Jason one more time, but this time, Jason (in my imagination) is all like “You know what you must do… Make them suffer, make then wish they were dead…! First, we attack their hearts!” before vanishes, leaving Jarvis grabbed Roy’s hockey mask, starting to imitating what Jason has done in a plan to kill Pam in a cliffhanger.

But as we all know, it was all BS cliffhanger that the next installment won’t followed up from Part 5’s ending, like completely thrown in the bin like all nothing happened in a similar fashion as Halloween 4 (yes, I saw it, even I knew when I watched the reviews, the ending is BS) to having a protagonist becomes a killer, but never happened in the later installments. But the final act itself, while it may have some fun attack, but the rest felt like its been done to death, unoriginal, underwhelming twist and the ending might well said “Everything what you seen the ending is all Bullcrap!”.

And now for my final opinion of this movie.

Overall, Friday the 13th Part 5: A New Beginning is a very mediocre film at best to describing it.

In fairness, il give a credit for giving us some characters making their own personality and some acting are fun for their own ideas along with some dialogues or deliveries that made me laugh, almost like something out of parody movie, except this is Friday the 13th movie, which it felt like a missing identity compared to previous installments. Though it has a nice filming locations and the idea of copycat killer is not bad, if the execution could’ve done right.

Because everything else is a mess with bad writing, lackluster story, some characters are lackluster and the final act is just underwhelming of how unoriginal it is, and even the ending is all left to nothing.

I know many people called it the Friday the 13th version of “Halloween 3: Season of the Witch”, due to some similar concept and even no focus of our familiar slashers. Im very mixed for this movie, I maybe recommend to watch it for once, mainly if you like to see the characters and probably ignore the third and final act. Though perhaps there are some may like Part 5, that’s fine for their own, but for me, its okay, but it doesn’t feel like a Friday the 13th film. Again, just watch this movie ONCE, whether you like it or not.

For my rating, im gonna give this one a 4.5/10.

Next time, we’ll be back to check out Part 6, aka “Paramount’s apology” to bringing Jason back from the dead. But I hate to say my friends, when I checked in 2025’s calendar, we never have the 2nd or third real Friday the 13th, which means il come back to see Jason again next year as always.

But as always, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on KO-FI.com/blackevil.

Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out.

Movie Review: Karate Kid Legends

 

Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome back to my Movie Review.

Back in the 1980s, movies about martial arts became a huge deal for action movies to show us real physical fights and dangerous stunts since the 70s martial arts became a trend. So much so when the 80s rolled in, many Western filmmakers wanted to making their own martial arts movies. One of them that we all know and love is “The Karate Kid”, the 1984 martial arts drama film that became a big deal when it came out, it has nice story with good heart, a nice choice of music, fascinating fight scenes and even good actors with memorable characters. Sure it plays like a main character meets a sensei to learn the skills for the tournaments like any Asian martial art films, but this movie is surprisingly well translated to the West. I saw it and its a pretty good film, and I can definitely see why Karate Kid was a big deal, and much like Rocky (which is coincidence both the first Rocky and Karate Kid were made by the same director), with the movie success, there’s always gotta be a cash grab to spawning sequels, but they’re rather… Mediocre. The second one is okay, but the third one is pretty much a copy-paste from the first. There’s also “The Next Karate Kid” and the 2010 remake with Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith, but they’re pretty much forgotten (especially the remake one is misleading that its all about Kung Fu than Karate). But then we have “Cobrai Kai”, even though I never seen this series, but I heard it was a big deal since the good’ol days, which is all about Johnny Lawrence’s redemption to reuniting Daniel LaRusso to bring back the dojo in a positive note. It seems that many fans of Karate Kid/Cobra Kai believed that this show is the return to glory that we’re hoping to be something good when we have today’s review with my curiosity risen up.

“Karate Kid: Legends” is a 2025 martial arts drama film that was directed by Jonathan Entwistle, produced by Karen Rosenfelt (instead of Jerry Weintraub since he unfortunately passed away in 2015 after making five Karate Kid movies), and written by Rob Lieber.

The idea of this movie isn’t taking place after Cobra Kai was done, but rather shortly after the 2010 remake came out, it was announced that they wanna make a sequel of the remake with reuniting Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan. Unfortunately, by the time they hired the new writers, the draft is turning into a development hell when they had to hiring some new screenplay and the director was hired, but went into a ping pong of leaving to coming back, leaving the sequel plan became hopeless, even Chan felt dissatisfied about the development. But then in 2022, they’re planning to make a new Karate Kid to bring back to the old franchise, but this time, they came up the idea to having the remake shared the same universe with the original, which it may sounds questionable concept, but this left a curiosity for having both the original and the remake merging together to have a movie about Karate vs Kung Fu. As well as pushing movie’s release on late May due to avoiding conflict with Cobra Kai’s season finale that ended in February this year.

So, with all that said, will this movie worth of return to have a rivalry of two fighting styles, or is this concept came off as questionable?

Well, lets find out.

The Story

For a movie merging between the original and the remake, you think the story could be the same as they went? Well, yes, but its more like the opposite role in the movie and has some fun moments, most of.

The movie weirdly begins with the flashback with then young Daniel LaRusso and our old friend Mr. Miyagi when they’re in Miyagi’s town Okinawa, Japan, where our late sensei shares his story when he had a young memory about himself and one part of family relative, Mr. Han. But when Mr. Miyagi’s ancestor was tragically washed ashore, this left both Miyagi and Han in separation, Miyagi stays in Japan for his Karate style, while Han is in China to learning about the ancient art of Kung Fu, though secretly branded as Karate upon ancestor’s return to Okinawa. Fast forward to present time, Mr. Han is now the Shifu (Chinese master) of the Dojo of Kung Fu in Beijing, China. We introduce a new student and Han’s great-nephew Li Fong, who’s been busy training in Kung Fu, but the time is up when his mother, Dr. Fong had a discussion with Han that she and Li have to pack up their bags to New York City due to her job in the hospital, but at the same time, she told Li to be in normal life to hiding his fighting skills, giving up his Kung Fu, this mainly due many days ago, he lost his beloved brother from being stabbed to death by the thugs with the defeated rival. But in his first day to live in normal life in the Big Apple, it wasn’t a good start to be social, especially in his first day of school. That is until he meets a girl in a pizza restaurant named Mia Lipani, who happens to be the daughter of the owner and former boxer Victor, they first start having a romantic relationship to learning about China, until Li is confronted by a menacing Mia’s ex and Karate champ Conner Day, who outright bullies him with a fight. But after befriend with tutor school student Alan and getting beaten again, Li breaks his normal life to fight against the thugs with loan shark boss O’Shea, this left Li opens his door to help Vic to get back to boxing to save the debt, but didn’t turned out what he expect, meaning its up to Li Fong to get himself back training with Kung Fu, but also learning about Karate based Han’s history and plan to meet our old friend Daniel LaRusso, which is in order to facing against Conner Day for the urban themed fighting tournament called “Five Boroughs Tournament”.

The story feels almost like similar as either the original or the remake story, a kid moved to a new town, falling in love with a girl and confronted by an evil ex, its about the same as what you expect if you’re familiar with Karate Kid, but this is an opposite direction to have a potential trained Chinese kid who’s moved to New York in attempt to live in new life before dealing with bullies to get back up, which il give an appreciation to have a same plot, but with new element to training both Kung Fu and learning about Miyagi’s Karate style to be both braver and stronger for self-defense and earning respect for the legacy. While this movie has its drama that its all about Li’s struggle to live in Manhattan to hide his fighting skills (kinda like superheroes’ secret powers/abilities), but it has a humor moments with dialogue, which I will say, I have some chuckle at some and its also light heart. While I like the concept, the message and its humor, but the movie isn’t saved when it comes to obvious clichés, like some fake “no mercy” defeat, avenge family relative’s death and even motivation of “get back up”, but im getting use with the latter, but most of them are pretty obvious inclusions that its easy to point them out, especially some its been used all the time from several other movies.

Despite my nitpick from obvious clichés and kinda rehashed story, but its actually a pretty nice to have something new for the story, it has some fun dialogue and its light heart as well.

The Presentation

The movie’s budget costs $45M, which now the highest budget than previous films in this franchise. And for its presentation, it looks pretty good.

For starter, the filming locations looks pretty nice and beautiful, ranging from the focus on taking place in New York City to brief moments in either Los Angeles and Beijing, China, its a nice set and some reminding us where its been, but then again, Fong family are set to Big Apple as their home for mother’s business at the hospital. Especially since we’re focus on New York, its gonna be an urban themed martial arts film. Although, while they probably filmed New York with aerial view, while the rest is filmed in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. That’s right, they filmed in the city where I visited all the time, the home of Montreal Canadians, the home for Montreal Allouettes, the home of Canadian GP and home of… Okay, you know what I mean. But still, since Manhattan is expensive place to film, there’s always filming in Canada to imitating New York. While some other location like the subway, the a boxing match and the rooftop is pretty nicely done for the sets and beautiful view.

Since this is martial arts film, there’s always gotta showing us some action fight scenes, and I will say, they’re pretty cool to watch from fight back the thugs, training montage, the boxing match to even fighting montage, its been done with couple of montage, but they’re pretty fun that we like to see Li building up his skills from training Kung Fu to yes, even learning about Miyagi’s Karate style from Daniel LaRusso, which like I said before, I really like the idea of learning two fighting styles as a movie merging between the OG Karate Kid and the remake one. Although there are some references on which movies if you’re familiar with Karate Kid franchise.

However, while the filming, the view and actions are pretty good, if there’s a problem I have is the fighting montage, while the fighting montage are great too which is all about 1 point for hitting torso, 2 points to the head with either 8 points or KO to win in the tournament, but when we’re in a montage, it goes into a video game style post-production that we can see points per contact with sound effects and effects, which I find it too be too cheesy and silly inclusion, which im probably guessing the reason why we have a video game like effects, its because we see a couple of posters of Tekken 8, which probably explained why it was filmed when Tekken 8 was a big deal last year.

While the post-production video game like effects in fighting montage is questionable, but the movie’s presentation looks great and the fighting and the choreograph are fun to watch.

The Characters

While we have a main characters back like Daniel LaRusso and Mr. Han, you think the new characters promising as some previous installments? Well, I probably think so.

First, we gotta go with two main characters from OG and the remake, Daniel LaRusso (played by Ralph Macchio) and Mr. Han (played by my favorite martial artist, Jackie Chan), these two are depicted as the mentors in their different fighting styles for helping our main hero Li Fong, while they have a remaining personalities but been changed. For Daniel, if you’ve seen Cobra Kai, he’s now a sensei for holding the legacy from his late mentor Mr. Miyagi since his teen hood, being nice, honored and helpful to anyone in LA, but here, his appearance is rather lacking, which like any hyped movies, Daniel’s appearance wouldn’t be until the halfway through the second act when Mr. Han is looking for helping hand. Despite of minimal of appearance compared what we saw on trailer, Ralph is still did a good job to playing his signature character, along with being honored with awards for his Karate training.

As for Mr. Han, even though I never watched the remake one, but I find him to be a fascinating old Shifu of Kung Fu, which is like the opposite version of Mr. Miyagi after they’ve been separated. Whereas the late Miyagi is calm with small humor, even if he takes the karate training seriously with chores, Mr. Han on the hand is a bit the same, but he’s also friendly to follow his student/great-nephew’s dream and light heart, just like Jackie Chan himself.

The first new character we have is our main hero, Li Fong (played by Ben Wang), he’s the new kid in New York after been briefly trained in Kung Fu, and Daniel back then, he wasn’t as easy from the start to get along before he meets Mia to be in relationship, along with seeing inspiration to training Victor to bring back to his old boxing glory, so we think. And of course, he also got confronted by his new nemesis for the upcoming tournament in revenge to fight back after been bullied, but the difference is that he had a traumatic past when he lost his brother that if anybody pushed him too far, he’ll quickly fight back, or even paralyzed from his traumatic past memory. I find him pretty nice to be the opposite version of Daniel, he was already trained before going to New York, but struggling to hiding his double life as he’s warned by his mother to live normal. But like I said, the cliché is too easy to pointing out that it felt like we’ve heard of avenging relative’s death, which kinda ruined him from obvious cliché, but still, I like his character development to be like Daniel, with an opposite twist, along with learning two fighting styles, and Ben did a good work of his role from struggling to live in Big Apple at first before regaining his confident to participating the tournament, having relationship and new friend.

And we have Connor Day (played by Aramis Knight), the main villain the bully of the movie, where, similar to Johnny Lawrence, Day is Mia’s ex-boyfriend for being a bully to humiliating anybody with his trained Karate and probably being aggressive competitor that he won the Karate championship. While he’s definitely looks intimidating and hard trainer to be better and stronger than anyone around in New York, but we never see him coming out to bullying more or even desperate to get back to Mia, he’s just… There. Training to be stronger and even abusing some training members for the support to his sensei/loan shark O’Shea (played by Tim Rozon), while O’Shea is like a secondary villain who demands rent to Victor rather understanding the debt of the pizza restaurant, which im assuming he uses his money for Connor to be the big deal for the next tournament or even gambling for letting his players pulling a dirty move to win. Which I find O’Shea to be villainous as a dirty loan shark than his student Connor, but then again, its meant to be the New York version of Cobra Kai, but with urban and criminal. Though il give a credit for both Aramis and Tim, they both did a good work of their roles, especially we see Aramis training his skills.

As for the rest, they’re just there for the plot purpose or so. There’s Mia Lipani (played by Sadie Stanley) who’s Li’s first interaction upon living in Manhattan to eventual love interest, Victor Lipani (played by Joshua Jackson) is a pizza restaurant owner and former boxer that he’s fun character when he sees Li, despite he’s also hands tied from the aforementioned O’Shea to pay rent to him, causing his hesitation for his business’s debt, Dr. Fong (played by Ming-Na Wen, aka Mulan) is the protective mother who wants Li to hide his fighting skills to be in normal life, and Alan (played by Wyatt Oleff), he’s just Li’s friend from library in his curious about Li’s life.

While some characters are just there, but they have some nice development, especially il give an appreciation to Li Fong and the welcome return to both Daniel and Mr. Han, even though the latter is I’ve never seen the remake one. Aw well.

And now for my final opinion of this film.

Overall, Karate Kid: Legends is a pretty good film, even though it plays like the OG Karate Kid, but with a nice twist.

The filming looks pretty good, the story is nice with some upgrade, the fighting are fun to watch with pretty good choreography, some characters are good too, its chuckle worthy and its a welcome return to the old route with the original and the remake.

Sure, there are some problems it has in this movie such like one villain is kinda lacking, some cheesy effects and clichés are kinda all over, some I got used and others felt like its been overdone.

While its not perfect, but its enjoyable film to watch if you’re a fan of Karate Kid/Cobra Kai or not, I’d say its a recommended film to watch if you’re curious or in a mood of martial arts film. Again, not perfect, but its entertaining and fun.

For my rating, im gonna give this one an 8.5/10.

So this ends of my movie review, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on KO-FI.com/blackevil.

Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out.