Marlon Wayans in Him. (Universal Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection)Hello, Yahoo readers! My name is Brett Arnold, film critic and longtime Yahoo editor, and I'm back with another edition of Trust Me, I Watch Everything.
This week's new wide releases include the unique and ambitious Jordan Peele-produced sports-horror film Him and the surreal fantasy romance A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, starring Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie. Sadly, neither of them is particularly good.
Two recent Sydney Sweeney movies that didn't make a dent at the box office, Eden and Americana, are also newly available to rent or buy at home, and they're both worth watching despite the complete lack of a real marketing campaign for either.
AdvertisementAdvertisementOn the streaming services you're likely already paying for, Swiped, a new biopic starring Lily James about the woman behind the popular dating app Bumble, hits Hulu as theatrical blockbusters Superman and 28 Years Later hit HBO Max and Netflix, respectively.
Read on, because there's more where that came from, and there's always something here for everyone!What to watch in theatersMovies newly available to rent or buyMovies newly available on streaming services you may already have🎥 What to watch in theatersMy not-quite-a-recommendation: HimWhy you should maybe skip it: Jordan Peele's upcoming fourth feature may have been pulled off the schedule recently, but the latest film he produced is finally here.
AdvertisementAdvertisementHim stars comedy legend and actor Marlon Wayans and newcomer Tyriq Withers, and the premise is a great one: After suffering a potentially career-ending brain injury, up-and-coming football star Cameron Cade receives a lifeline when his hero, legendary eight-time champion QB and megastar Isaiah White, offers to train Cam at Isaiah's isolated compound that he shares with his celebrity influencer wife (Julia Fox). But as Cam's training accelerates, Isaiah's charisma begins to curdle into something darker.
Despite its unique setting - the world of professional sports is a ripe and compelling target for a horror film - the movie underwhelms every step of the way, despite solid performances from its two leads. It's a mess structurally and feels like it was pretty clearly reedited to get down to 90-ish minutes, as there are subplots and threads that are introduced and forgotten about almost entirely.
It's just a blunt-force, entirely unsubtle work of social commentary that has one idea and hammers it endlessly. The movie presents football as a sort of violent religious cult in America and its devotees as deranged worshippers, which is interesting on its face but pretty lifeless in execution. The horror elements are entirely underbaked, amounting mostly to dreamlike imagery inserted at random intervals for jump scares.
It's about as didactic as it gets, with its messaging overtaking every other element. The idea of treating sports owners as cultlike demonic figures who groom young, talented Black men into participating in this barbaric violent thing is, again, more fun on paper than execution here.
AdvertisementAdvertisementHim proves that filmmaker Justin Tipping is, unfortunately, no Jordan Peele, as far as crafting biting social satire through a horror lens goes. It may be stylish, but it doesn't have much substance.
What other critics are saying: It's not getting very good reviews. William Bibbiani at TheWrap says the film "lacks the fascinating characters, the misdirection, the carefully stretched out suspense and the thoughtfulness that makes a spider web movie work." The Hollywood Reporter's Frank Scheck writes that it "certainly tries to be disturbing. Too hard, in fact."How to watch: Him is now in theaters nationwide.
Get ticketsBonus recommendation: A Big Bold Beautiful JourneyWhy you should maybe skip it: They truly don't make movies like this one any
MORE: a big-budget studio film full of magical realism, a sort-of-surreal romantic fantasy.
AdvertisementAdvertisementI admire its earnest old-fashioned ambitions, though the thoroughly modern final product lands more at imitation Charlie Kaufman by way of the Everything Everywhere All At Once, guys.
Sarah (Margot Robbie) and David (Colin Farrell) are single strangers who meet at a mutual friend's wedding and soon, through a surprising twist of fate, find themselves on a funny, fantastical, sweeping adventure together where they get to relive important moments from their respective pasts, illuminating how they got to where they are in the present, and possibly getting a chance to alter their futures.
The problem is that the characters are ciphers and not really people. They're archetypes, which makes sense when you zoom out and realize the movie is a sort of playful send-up and subversion of the idea of this type of movie with these kinds of characters.
It works on a script level, and the story is at its most involving when it gets emotional and honest about the characters, as they revisit key emotional moments fr