LISA FRANKENSTEIN: Blunt Force Black Comedy

LISA FRANKENSTEIN (Blu-ray)

2024 / 101 min

FROM UNIVERSAL

Review by Pepper the Poopy😾

Lisa Frankenstein is slickly directed, looks great and features good performances. But while there’s plenty of comic horror potential in the basic concept, the film squanders it with shallow characters, heavy-handed satire and a misguided idea of black comedy.

The title character (Kathryn Newton) is your standard-issue misfit emo teenager who’d rather hang out in a graveyard than with her peers. After nearly being sexually assaulted at a party, she visits the grave of a long-dead musician, wishing aloud she could be with him. That wish ends up being granted when he’s resurrected by a lightning strike. Lisa is initially horrified by his stench and missing appendages, but after cleaning him up a bit, he becomes infatuated with her, enough so that when bitchy stepmom (Carla Gugino) threatens to send Lisa away, he kills her.

At this point, Lisa’s entire personality and appearance changes fast enough to give the viewer whiplash. Suddenly sexy, bitchy and outgoing, she ends up sewing missing pieces back onto the Creature (Cole Sprouse) with the body parts of those he kills. This includes a boy who tried to assault her at the party, as well as Michael (Henry Eikenberry), a guy she has a crush on but ends up sleeping with her stepsister, Taffy (Liza Soberano). 

"Stay off the bike...it's where I hang my clothes."

The plot isn’t the problem…it’s the execution. First of all, Lisa Frankenstein takes place in the ‘80s for no discernible reason. Not only is poking fun at that decade like shooting fish in a barrel, the setting has nothing to do with the plot. Additionally, virtually everyone is a caricature…the ditzy cheerleader, the sensitive hunk, the goofy dad, the narcissistic stepmom and, of course, the eye-rolling goth protagonist who’s increasingly nonchalant about the murder and dismemberment going on around her. I guess they'd all be funny if you'd never seen them before.

There’s a lot of situational black comedy in Lisa Frankenstein, but it’s presented with the subtlety of a mallet, as if hearing a sensitive ballad during a brutal murder is inherently humorous (which has been done to death in plenty of other horror comedies). Yet at the same time, the film pulls its punches in an obvious attempt to keep a PG-13 rating. Should any black comedy that takes place in the 80s and features the severing of body parts really be concerned with the tween crowd?

First time director Zelda Williams (Robin’s daughter) has a good visual eye and puts together some neat sequences. But she and the able cast are let down by Diablo Cody’s screenplay which, considering her resume, is surprisingly ham-fisted, derivative and superficial.

EXTRA KIBBLES

FEATURETTES - Resurrecting the ‘80s takes a look at the production design; An Electric Connection is about the characters; A Dark Comedy Duo features director Zelda Williams and screenwriter Diablo Cody.

AUDIO COMMENTARY - By director Zelda Williams.

5 DELETED SCENES

GAG REEL

DIGITAL COPY

THE 355 (4K): "Weren't We Gonna See That Once?"

THE 355 (4K UHD)

2022 / 124 min

FROM UNIVERSAL

Available at www.MovieZyng.com

Review by Mr. Bonnie😽

I vaguely recall seeing the trailer for The 355 when it was first released. It was my wife who fleetingly mentioned, “That might be fun,” to which I nodded in agreement. Every now and then, we enjoy taking-in a big, loud action flick at the movies. But we never got around to it, either because we were too busy or the movie came and went so fast in theaters that we simply forgot about it.

Sometime later, when the wife and I were browsing through Netflix or Prime, The 355 popped up. “Hey, weren't we gonna see that once?” she said. “That might be fun some night.” I nodded in agreement and stuck it on my watchlist because sometimes it’s great just to vedge on the sofa with a movie that doesn’t require a lot of brain power. But again, I never got around to it, probably because I generally spend more time looking for something on Netflix than actually watching something on Netflix. With the billion other things I had on my watchlist, I guess it just got lost in the shuffle (if it’s even there anymore).

When it arrived on 4K for review, I said to my wife, “The 355…didn’t you want to see that ?” She shrugged indifferently, either because she forgot or was no longer interested. At any rate, I was flying solo for this one, and after watching it with the lights down and the volume cranked, it’s exactly the movie I thought it would be. The 355 is a big, loud actionfest that seldom engages the brain, and unless you’ve never seen a single 21st Century action movie, offers no surprises whatsoever.

"You rode shotgun last time. My turn."

Which isn’t necessarily intended as criticism. Like going to McDonald’s, sometimes you just want simple comfort food. And it doesn’t get much simpler than four international agents (and another forced to go along for the ride) chasing down a MacGuffin around the globe while clashing with a gaggle of ruthless bad guys. In this case, it’s five women who must overcome their initial distrust to team up for a common goal. The MacGuffin is a hard-drive that can take control of any digital system. As for the ruthless bad guys…well, there's a ton of ‘em. Some we meet in the first scene, others are later revealed as bad guys in a shocking plot twist (though it won’t come as much of a shock).

With a frenetic pace and action sequences that tend to gloss over most of the story implausibilities, it’s fun watching these women trot the globe and kick-ass. There’s a plethora of bullets, bombs, brawls and broken glass, all of it well shot and choreographed. An impressive ensemble cast of leading ladies (Jessica Chastain, Diane Kruger, Penelope Cruz, Lupita Nyong’o, Bingbing Fan) make the main characters more interesting than the screenplay actually does. The even bigger batch of antagonists are strictly standard-issue, though Sebastian Stan appears to be enjoying himself as a double-crossing CIA agent.

Both narratively and technically, there isn’t a single aspect of The 355 that's particularly original, complex or all that memorable. But hey, it’s certainly fun in the moment and seldom boring. If the wife ever does decide to finally watch it, I might be up for another round. The film bombed in theaters and was quickly forgotten, so I don’t know how many were pining for a 4K upgrade, but it looks and sounds terrific (as does the accompanying Blu-ray).

EXTRA KIBBLES

4K, BLU-RAY & DIGITAL COPIES

FEATURETTES (all carried over from the original Blu-ray) - Chasing Through Paris; Action That Hurts; Reconstructing Marrakesh; Chaos at the City of Dreams; VFX Breakdown. These featurettes run around 5 minutes each and are mostly focused on locations and technical aspects of the film.

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MIGRATION: Animated Mac & Cheese

MIGRATION (Blu-ray)

2023 / 82 min

FROM UNIVERSAL

Review by Stinky the Destroyer😽

Maybe some of you parents can relate to this…

When my daughter, Natalie, was little, she was a notoriously picky eater, which sometimes made going out to restaurants a little annoying. She tended to poo-poo any place offering cuisine that didn’t come in a box with a toy. Most eateries tried to have parents’ backs with kids’ menus, which always featured mac & cheese…and which Natalie always ordered. 

There’s nothing inherently wrong with mac & cheese, but I resented the hell out of shelling-out six bucks for a plate of it just because the place had a tactile menu. Since I was footing the bill, would it have killed Natalie to be just a little adventurous and order something that couldn’t be whipped up in a microwave? On the other hand, watching her stare at an untouched plate of shrimp scampi for an hour would have been an even bigger waste of time and money…

…which is something to keep in mind with Migration. Like a lot of the other animated movies from Illumination Studios, it’s a kid-friendly selection on the menu which may not be all that flavorful or original, but at least it’ll fill up the little ones. 

"I said that out loud, didn't I?"

The story has a family of mallards that have spent their entire lives in one pond, then finally decide to migrate south like all the others. Taking something of a cue from The Croods, dad is initially fearful and overprotective, while mom is, naturally, the more level-headed of the two. The teenage son is adventuresome and rebellious, while the baby daughter is illustrated & voiced to be irresistibly cute (and provide a poop joke, of course). Tagging along is old Uncle Dan, who exists to drop amusing comments here and there while having little impact on the plot. In other words, we’ve met them all before, this time as ducks.

The episodic narrative takes them on a variety of misadventures on the way to their destination, some amusing, some not, but all of them pretty familiar, right down to the obligatory use of a popular pop song in the middle of the action. There’s also the typical cast of celebrity voices, including Kumail Nanjiani, Elizabeth Banks, Keegan-Michael Key and Carol Kane. Danny DeVito makes Uncle Dan the film’s funniest character (superfluous as he is), while Awkwafina, as tough-talking pigeon Chump, manages to remain obnoxious even when we can’t see her. 

The film does boast excellent animation and appealing character design, though. Additionally, the overall tone is light and congenial, briskly moving from one predicament to the next. Like that plate of restaurant mac & cheese, there’s nothing particularly distinctive about Migration, but as movie comfort food, undiscriminating kids should have a good time.

EXTRA KIBBLES

FEATURETTES - Taking Flight (making of); Meet the Cast (interviews with most of the cast); Microphone Madness (behind-the-scenes footage of recording); The Art of Flight (animation process); The Sound of Flight (music score)

3 ANIMATED SHORTS - “Fly Hard”; “Mooned”; “Midnight Mission.” The last two feature the Minions, just in case you haven’t already had enough of them.

ACTIVITY FEATURES - How to Draw (how to draw the Migration characters); Build Your Own Pop-Up Book; Calling All Birds (how to make bird noises); Best Nests (making nests and water feeders with stuff laying around the house).

DIGITAL COPY

HARRIET (4K): Superficial But Exciting

HARRIET (4K UHD)

2019 / 125 min

FROM UNIVERSAL

Available at www.MovieZyng.com

Review by Stinky the Destroyer😺

With only a rudimentary knowledge of Harriet Tubman’s life and accomplishments, I can’t attest to this movie’s historical accuracy. Nor do I actually care. If the law required films based on true stories to be accurate, how many of them would end up being all that entertaining?

What’s important is that Harriet is very entertaining, even though it doesn’t offer much in the way of depth. It’s more of a chronology of Tubman’s (Cynthia Erivo) rise from lowly, abused slave to the legendary abolitionist we read about in school. But to her credit, director/co-writer Kasi Lemmons keeps her filmmaker hat on and leaves the educating to others. Her skills elevate the movie from one we feel obligated to see to one we actually want to see.

The worst place to lose a contact lens.

Harriet is surprisingly action oriented, with many sequences focused on Tubman’s daring - and dangerous - efforts to not-only escape north to freedom, but repeatedly risk her own life by returning south to free others (including most of her own family). The uncomplicated narrative presents its characters as clear-cut heroes and villains. The latter, Tubman’s vindictive former owner, Gideon (Joe Alwyn), is evil personified. 

As “Minty”, Cynthia Erivo rises above the proficient-but-unremarkable script with an excellent performance (which earned her an Oscar nod that year), providing a majority of the movie’s emotional heft. A chief reason the escape sequences and conflicts are effective (and suspenseful) is because Erivo’s earnestness has us invested in the character from the get-go. 

Is this the definitive Harriet Tubman story? Probably not. It’s more of a checklist of events that never dives too deeply into its subject, the divisive political turmoil of the time or atrocities committed against slaves. And aside from Tubman herself, none of the other characters resonate much. Still, Harriet is exciting, well directed and fast-paced. Boasting impressive cinematography, authentic production design and an affecting music score, the film looks and sounds great with this 4K UHD transfer, which is an improvement over the 2020 Blu-ray disc (though it looks good, too). Both formats are included here, along with a smattering of perfunctory bonus features.

EXTRA KIBBLES

4K, BLU-RAY & DIGITAL COPIES

FEATURETTES - Her Story; Becoming Harriet.

AUDIO COMMENTARY - By director/co-writer Kasi Lemmons.

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