While the previous Christopher B. Landon film didn’t really play to his strengths, it really says something about strong those strengths are when two other films came out that within the same ballpark… and yet Landon had nothing to do with them. With how close we are to the end of the year, it’s unlikely that we’ll get to It’s A Wonderful Knife, but we are going to get into this film, which takes the Back To The Future inspiration from the Happy Death Day films and pushes them even further.
The DCEU has finally come to an end. The never-ending Crisis of bad timing, bad management, and just generally bad decisions on the part of Warner Bros. is about to be laid to rest and reborn as (hopefully) something better. Not that it’s been all bad, though. Hell, I’d argue that it wasn’t even mostly bad; Wonder Woman, Suicide Squad (both of them), the Snyder Cut, and, where today’s subject is most pertinent, Aquaman all still hold up as worthy adaptations of the DC pantheon of heroes. I still have my issues with the franchise’s lesser moments (all the turning-around I’ve done on Zack Snyder still hasn’t made Man Of Steel look any friggin’ better), and the tail-end has led to some truly inexplicable releases like Black Adam and the Skittles movie, but as someone who still holds a torch for capeshit, I want these movies to be good. Which is why this last hurrah is especially disappointing.
Hoo boy. It’s been a while since we’ve dealt with some talking animal shit on here, eh? That sub-genre that I keep running into and keep being aghast at just how bad it can get. And on top of that, we’re not dealing with an animated film; instead, we’ve got 2000s-era CGI work meant to make real-life dogs look like they’re talking, as if the non-existence movement above the nose-line doesn’t break the illusion every single time. Yeah, suffice to say, I wasn’t exactly jumping for joy at the prospect of watching this, but to its credit, it does have some merit to it. Just not in any of the obvious places.
