Review of LILO AND STITCH (2025): Accepting an Alien

May 23, 2025

The United Galactic Federation had convicted Dr. Jumba Jookiba for his illegal genetic experiments which had resulted in the creation of a violent, indestructible creature whom he called Experiment 626 (Chris Sanders). Sentenced for exile 626 carnapped a red police cruiser that brought him to planet Earth. However, instead of landing in water (which was fatal for him given his high molecular density), his cruiser landed on one island in Hawaii. 

When both their parents passed away one day, teenager Nani (Sydney Elizebeth Agudong) had to forego her plans for going to the university to study marine biology. However, she had her hands full keeping her 6-year old sister Lilo (Maia Kealoha) in control, especially under the watchful eyes of social worker Mrs. Kekoa (Tia Carrere, the original voice of Nani). Motherly next-door neighbor Tutu (Any Hill) and her surfer son David (Kaipo Dudoit) tried their best to help her babysit. 

As the 2002 animated original film told us before, Lilo would adopt Stitch as her ugly pet dog leading to hilarious chaos, and heartwarming sentiment. Despite the unwieldy mixture of alien sci-fi and Hawaiian culture, it won critical acclaim and box-office success.  It famously taught us the Hawaiian concept of "ohana" that meant "family," that meant "nobody gets left behind or forgotten," a line of enduring appeal and impact, much like "Hakuna matata" before it.

Aside from giving David a mother, this reboot gave Nani a backstory out for more dramatic impact. The social worker Cobra Bubbles character had been split into two for this remake -- social worker Mrs. Kekoa and CIA agent Cobra (Courtney Vance). For them to be able to blend in better, the aliens going after 626, Dr. Jumba and bumbling "Earth expert" Agent Pleakley, were made to inhabit human forms of Zach Galifianakis and Billy Magnussen.  Jason Scott Lee, the original voice of David, also has a cameo appearance.

This new 2025 version was again a live-action adaptation, following all the previous ones that Disney had been releasing recently. This one was rather uneven for me. The animatronic character design of Stitch was very cute, but the scenes of him and the aliens was being destructive felt scarier and more dangerous. I understand why they chose to scrap the whole Gantu spacecraft battle in the third act as its too violent for a live action kids film. However, having live actors trumped the animated version when it came to the emotionally-affecting family scenes. 7/10

Review of CONMOM: Forcing the Funny

May 22, 2025

Pinky (Kaye Abad) retired from being a theater actress when she got married to wealthy Anton Gonzales (Kit Thompson) and became a mother to Yana (Valerie Talion), now 7 years old. She still kept in touch with her theater colleagues Benok (Paolo Contis), Jetboy (Empoy Marquez) and her cousin director Oyet (Patrick Garcia), who all became Yana's godparents. They remained to be Pinky's best friends and shoulders for her to cry on. 

One day, Pinky saw Anton walking with his mistress Rachel (Kiel Canoza), who was even pregnant. When she confronted him and told him that she is tired of her chronic womanizing. Exasperatedly, she told him that she wants out of their marriage. Instead of being apologetic, Anton shocked her by throwing her out of the house and proceeded to cut off all contact with her daughter. Pinky had to resort to stealthy ploys (the titular "con") just to see Yana. 

This film was two hours long, but the plot about a marriage on the rocks and the child caught in between was a commonly-told tale in Filipino films. Director Noel Tonga just padded the main story core of the film with long, loving shots of picturesque Boljoon, Cebu (that magnificent old church just across the street from the wide open sea was so inviting, you'd want to go visit this place right away), and silly uneven comedy routines by Pinky's three friends (these lame attempts at "humor" felt forced than truly funny). 

The various "cons" Pinky and her friends did to see Yana -- supposedly the point of this movie -- were not planned or executed well, with terrible masks and ugly wigs. The one involving a "merman" on the beach was very corny. The part where their gang tried to recreate the film shoot rescue plot from Oscar Best Picture winner "Argo" (2012) during the girl's birthday in her school was wasted with that seemingly endless run to get from her classroom to the front gate. The climactic airport con was so clunky obvious, it surely could have been done better.  

While Kaye Abad really played Pinky in the most sympathetic way, one could not help but wonder why it felt as if this script had thrown all the progress of the women's movement over the years all out of the window. Pinky not only let abusive Anton walk all over her, and she had to resort to playing fools in order to talk to Yana. When her desperation reached her peak, she actually tearfully knelt on the floor before him, begging him to let her back into the house. Abad went all out for this scene, but honestly it was just so painful to watch. 2/10

Review of FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES: Deliverance from Death?

May 20, 2025

"Final Destination" is a horror film franchise that began in 2000. It was about a group of young people who cheated death by missing an airplane that exploded in mid-air, so Death went after them to kill them one by one in gruesome fashion. The story of this first film was actually a repurposing of an idea for the "X-Files" TV series, hence X-philes will recognize the names of director James Wong, and his writing partner Glen Morgan among the creatives behind it. 

Over the years, there had been four more sequels that followed the same story framework -- a premonition causing some people meant to die to avoid dying in a disaster, so a piqued Death came after these survivors. FD2 (2003) was about a massive vehicular pile-up on the expressway. FD3 (2006) was about a roller coaster crash. FD4 (2009) was about a race car crashing into the grandstand. FD5 (2011) was about a major bridge collapsing in a city. 

It was only 14 years later that a new sequel has been released, still following the same formula. In 1968, Iris Campbell (Brec Bassinger) had a premonition that the glass floor of a nightclub at the top of a new tower was breaking, and her warning saved everyone there. In the present time, Stefani Ramos (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) was having bad nightmares about that disaster, and surmised that Iris was her estranged grandmother (Gabrielle Rose).  

The big twist here was that Death was exacting revenge not only on the main clairvoyant, but also on her whole family. Stefani noted that Death may be going for her relatives in order of seniority, and this upped the sense of paranoia especially for the next one in line. The fact that this series of deaths were happening within a family also gives a different dynamic.  As it had been for the past films, the main draw of this film was the wild mechanisms of death and gore level of these kills -- the more over-the-top, the more gruesome, the better. 

For true fans of film horror, there was a sentimental moment in the middle of this new film because of a cameo from a horror film icon -- Tony Todd. While he was better known as "Candyman" (1992), Todd also appeared in FD 1, 2 and 5 as mortician William Bludworth. In his one scene, Todd already looked weak and cachectic from the stomach cancer he was suffering from. He delivered a line about the preciousness of life, reportedly unscripted, that will surely connect emotionally with viewers.  This was Todd's final screen appearance. 7/10

 

Review of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE: THE FINAL RECKONING: Eliminating the Entity

May 17, 2025

It has been two months since Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) acquired the two halves of a key which was needed to gain control of the Entity. The US President Erica Sloane (Angela Bassett) had personally reached out to Hunt to surrender the key to her government. However, Hunt believed that the Entity should be destroyed outright. This powerful artificial intelligence was now wreaking havoc, taking over the nuclear arsenals of the world.

The action picked up right from where "Dead Reckoning Part 1" left off. In the first act, POTUS Sloane is faced with tough decisions as the US nukes were fast becoming the next target of being controlled by the Entity. Meanwhile, Hunt was deep into planning with his group -- Luther (Ving Rhames), Benji (Simon Pegg) and the master thief Grace (Hayley Atwell) -- to rescue Paris (Pom Klementieff) from prison in order to get to Gabriel (Esai Morales).  

We already learned in the last film that the key will be used to access the source code of Entity in the doomed Russian submarine Sevastopol. The second act was dedicated to how Ethan was able to locate the sunken sub and the extreme perils he faced to do his mission. Cruise's 20-minute long underwater stunt scene, as the sub was precariously slipping off its ledge with the torpedoes inside all falling down, gave us all an intense experience of drowning panic. 

The third act told of how Ethan was going to insert Luther's Poison Pill (which was in Gabriel's possession) into the drive containing the Entity source code, while a countdown to global nuclear annihilation was fast winding down. To top the final stunt in the last film of train cars falling into a ravine, the finale here was a breathtaking "dogfight" of biplanes in the skies. Again, Cruise impressed with these spectacular, wild and crazy mid-air stunts.  

This is supposedly the final installment of a film franchise that started 29 years ago in 1996, the first film directed by suspense master Brian de Palma. Aside from Cruise and Rhames, it also featured Henry Czerny as IMF director, now CIA director Eugene Kittridge. This new film had several callbacks from the first film like Jim Phelps (Jon Voight), and IT William Donloe (Rolf Saxon) from the iconic Vault scene, including the knife that fell on the table. 

If he gave the last film had a rather humorous tone, director Christopher McQuarrie got lot more serious in this new one. The whole first hour was practically just a lot of talking. The first car chase scene was only seen in the last hour of this new one. Here, the fate of the whole world lay on the hands of a selected few, so the focus was on several decisions requiring intense moral discernment and judgement that needed to be made. 

Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt had certainly matured from that cocky young agent we first met in 1996. Compared to "Dead Reckoning" and "Top Gun Maverick," here Cruise himself looked like his age has finally caught up with his eternally youthful screen persona. However, you would not see that age from the elaborate stunts Cruise he gave his all for in this one. For these alone, "The Final Reckoning" deserves to be watched on the biggest screens. 8/10

 

Review of BLACK BAG: Flair to Fabricate

May 7, 2025

Agent George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) was given one week to identify the source of the leak of a top-secret software called Severus. The suspects were all his fellow agents within British Intelligence -- Freddie (Tom Burke), his girlfriend satellite specialist Clarissa (Marissa Abela), James (Rene Jean Page) and his girlfriend psychiatrist Dr. Zoe (Naomie Harris). The fifth suspect was George's own wife and fellow agent Kathryn (Cate Blanchett). 

The titular "black bag" in espionage parlance refers to a piece of classified information you cannot share with anyone. This film posits that the spy game is a game of lies and for agents, the skill of lying is a valuable asset. They made the six agents three romantically-involved couples, so there is an aspect of trusting a person who was supposed to by a professional liar. There are inevitably "black bags" which you cannot reveal to your significant other.

David Koepp was the writer behind big box-office hits like "Jurassic Park" (1993) and "Spider-Man" (2002). But in "Black Bag," Koepp came up with an intense psychological thriller about an investigation of a worldwide threat that was centered around a group of six people, one of whom was leaking vital info. Koepp's script was very wordy, complicated with spy jargon. The web-like plot seemed clear enough if you don't dwell on the details too much. 

Director Steven Soderbergh burst into the big time in 1989 when the first film he wrote and directed "Sex, Lies and Videotape" won the Palme D'Or at Cannes, making him the youngest winner of that prize at age 26. In 2001, he was nominated for Best Director Oscar for two films -- "Erin Brockovich" and "Traffic," and won for the latter. in He announced his retirement from film direction in 2013, but soon came back to work in 2016 with "Logan Lucky."

The way Soderbergh staged the confrontations of the film's characters made us feel like we were watching a play. That first dinner scene where George played a psychological game, challenging his colleagues to make a resolution, not for himself, but for the person on his right side. This, of course, led to hurtful revelations between the couples around the table. Interesting drama, yes, but these relationships were not really pertinent to the Severus plot. 

The first two acts, setting up the investigative scenario, which later made George an unwitting accomplice to a diversionary ruse of the enemy, were masterfully executed. Fassbender's dry methodical George and Blanchett's fiery Kathryn played off each other with such electric chemistry. The third act was made more complex with the involvement of their boss Stieglitz (Pierce Brosnan), but it did not exactly live up to the promise of the build-up. 7/10

Review of UNTOLD: Adulterated Ambition

May 1, 2025

Vivian Vera (Jodi Sta. Maria) was the only daughter of local cafeteria owner Monica (Gloria Diaz), who raised her solo after the death of her father Gerald (Gian Magdangal), an ace reporter whom Vivian idolized growing up. She achieved her dream when she overcame all odds to be chosen as the lead investigative reporter of the hit TV show "Untold," after she made public the secret ingredient of a restaurant's meat dishes. 

Vivian catapulted to even more fame after she exposed the heinous murder of informal settlers perpetrated by sadistic real-estate people, a grisly news story she did with her cameraman Benjie (Joem Bascon), dubbed as the "Cement Massacre." One day at the Quiapo Church, a mysterious woman (Ambrosia Taboneknek) slipped a crude charm bracelet on Vivian's wrist, telling her that she can now see the victims of her past sin.

Jodi Sta. Maria mettle as an actress needs no further proof, in any genre it seems. I've seen her as lead in two other fairly recent horror films, "Second Coming" (2019) as the stepmother of a possessed girl, and "Clarita" (2019) where her titular character herself was possessed. For this second one, she was also directed by Derick Cabrido, also her director here in "Untold." The chemistry between star and director was certainly palpable.

Cabrido also co-wrote the script together with Roselle Y. Monteverde and Noreen Capili. At first, it felt like the story was going to be just a one-dimensional one about avenging angry spirits. As it went on, there were more unpredictable layers to justify its two-hour running time. The violent crime scenes were not for the faint at heart, especially as they transgress into heartless and depraved territory. There should be a trigger warning for ailurophiles. 

The writers also squeezed in a cougar element, with Vivian's love-struck PA Jasper (a consistently engaging Juan Karlos). A very prominent subplot was about ambitious competitive female journalists who were vying for a single slot on the TV show, with rivals Elaine (Sarah Edwards) and Louise (a frustratingly anemic performance by Kaori Oinuma). A notable supporting role was Amanda (a standout performance by Lianne Valentin), daughter of a massacre victim Teresa (a haunting Ge Villamil in cement make-up). 7/10