WHAT’S IT ABOUT

The story features the original group of friends reuniting in Lake Como, Italy, for a destination wedding as Marcus (Michael Jai White) and Angela’s (Tasha Smith) daughter, Jasmine (Armani Greer), prepares to marry Wesley (Everett Osbourne). As the group reunites, they realize their adult children have grown up to mimic their own relationship traits and mistakes. This forces the couples to reflect on the examples they set and ask themselves that familiar question: why did they get married… again?

MOVIESinMO REVIEW

Before Hollywood got they hands on this story, Tyler Perry had already developed it on the stage, which made it one of his most successful franchises after Why Did I Get Married? was released in 2007, followed by its sequel, Why Did I Get Married Too? in 2010. Sixteen years is a long time to wait for another installment, and now Perry is finally bringing back his crew of married people in Why Did I Get Married Again?, currently available on Netflix. The story continues where the first two movies left off, although this time all couples have aged and there’s one new member of the family, as one of the children of the couples is about to get married. Marcus and Angela (played by Michael Jai White and Tasha Smith, respectively) hold a huge family reunion before their daughter’s wedding in Italy, which takes place in Lake Como. Before leaving for the trip, they throw a lavish dinner to unite a whole bunch of people, including Terry and Diane, Troy and Sheila, and other couples who were friends before. Somehow, Mike, Sheila’s former partner, ends up getting an invitation. He appears with a new girlfriend, as if nothing had ever been between him and Sheila. One signal like this indicates that the film is going to exploit the wounds that were never fully healed. What’s worse is the absence of Janet Jackson as Pat, regarded as the key character from the earlier films. No real reason for her not being present is provided. Instead, Taraji P. Henson takes on the part of Roselyn, the mother of the groom. Although she is quite a good actress, placing her among the group of people who have been friends for two decades completely destroys the plot of the movie. What is quite right about the movie is the message. As the young people are getting ready to establish their own families, it is time for their parents to realize that nothing is perfect and that they made mistakes during their lives too. This is an important lesson that should be learned. Being a good example means not hiding one’s imperfections from children, but showing them that people make mistakes, hurt one another, and come back together despite this. Still, one problem keeps showing up across all three of these movies (it’s more like 90% of Mr. Perry’s movies), and everybody knows what it is. The Black women in this story get written as angry, jealous, or hard to please far too often, even in scenes that should just let them enjoy a happy moment. Just when a character earns a bit of peace, the script twists it into tension or a sharp comment. These are talented actresses playing women who deserve fuller, warmer inner lives, not a rotating cast of complaints. That pattern is the real weak spot running through this whole franchise, and it holds this entry back from becoming something more than just pleasant. As a Black man, I feel that only one couple on screen seems genuine — Angela and Marcus feel like they have been married for twenty years. The argument feels well-observed; their chemistry is palpable; White and Smith have done a good job of making the audience feel connected to the characters. At other times, the couple felt awkward, like actors reading lines and not like couples sharing the same space for decades. Henson did her best, consciously trying to add a bit of humor, but was never able to save a plot without any emotional depth from the beginning. The younger actors who played the kids perform quite well, but it becomes irritating to watch them in such a predictable film right from the beginning. Tyler Perry is the writer, director, and one of the actors in this film, and he clearly has a lot to say, but why does he keep casting himself in his own movies? I know lots of directors do it, but not on the same scale as Perry. He has to be one of the most skilled storytellers around, yet his acting talents don’t compare to his writing skills. There are a lot of actors out there, new and old, call them. Would I watch it again? No, not if I am being honest with you. Would I recommend it to my friend? That depends on my friend. If the person wants something comforting to watch, like old friends, I would say yes. But if someone is seeking something new, then they would be disappointed. If a stranger asks me, “Should I watch this movie?” I would steer them in a different direction. To evaluate this movie, I would give it a score of about six. I dislike how shallow the chemistry between a lot of these couples turned out to be, and how the film depicts its women as complicated instead of beautiful. However, while I watched the film mostly as myself, I also kept my audience in mind. Tyler has created a franchise that speaks to a lot of people, particularly African Americans, especially African American women. After having spoken to some members of this audience after the movie was over, I realized that they received this film right in the way Tyler intended them to. So, I rate this film an eight because it is visually impressive, taking place in Italy, stars great actors, but, as a Black MAN, not infatuated by Mr. Perry, it’s still just a six.

OUR RATING – A BANKABLE 8

What’s It About

After her baby brother is abducted by a murder of crows, headstrong teenager Prue McKeel launches a desperate rescue mission into an enchanted forest hidden just beyond Portland, Ore. Joined by a hapless but loyal classmate, Prue risks it all as she navigates a world of bandits, talking animals and powerful figures driven by grief and ambition.

What’s It About

Expelled student Mia and her pet rat Quentin arrive at Rotwood Academy, where she’s the only human among monster classmates. With Principal Van Vlad’s hatred of humans, she must team up with monsters to thwart his schemes.

What’s It About

Klara is an artificial intelligence friend who wants nothing more than to find the perfect home. It soon meets Josie, a young woman who has a fraught relationship with her mother. But Klara’s innocent wonder and unwavering loyalty soon start to heal the family and bring some light to Josie’s complicated world.

WHAT’S IT ABOUT

A former CIA agent (Lawrence Cook) organizes black teenagers into well-trained guerrilla bands bent on overthrowing the white establishment.

MOVIESinMO REVIEW

As a Black critic, more than that, as a Black man in America watching a movie like this more than fifty years after it was made, unfortunately still holds up. “The Spook Who Sat by the Door” does not just entertain. It warns. And it warns so clearly that, according to many people connected to the project, the United States government worked to make sure almost nobody saw it. That single fact tells you this is not an ordinary piece of 1970s filmmaking. It is a record of Black anger, Black strategy, and Black hope, wrapped inside a spy story that still hits hard today. Based on Sam Greenlee’s 1969 novel, the film follows Dan Freeman (Lawrence Cook). A white senator, worried about losing Black voters, pressures the CIA to integrate its ranks. As a publicity stunt, the agency agreed to it. Officials expect every Black recruit to quit or fail. Freeman refuses to fail. He survives the brutal training and earns his badge, only to get rewarded with a desk right by the front door, where visitors can see the agency’s “integration” without the agency ever handing him real power. After five years of being used as a prop, Freeman quits the CIA and goes home to Chicago. There, he takes everything the government taught him about weapons, strategy, and psychological control, and uses it to train a Black revolutionary group willing to fight back. That plot is the whole argument of the movie, and it is why the question of what an actor is actually given to do matters so much here. Lawrence Cook is not just standing in front of a camera. His character spends the first half of the film playing small on purpose, smiling and staying quiet so white officials underestimate him. Cook has to act like a man who is only pretending to be harmless, then slowly let real fire show underneath. That is a difficult thing to pull off, and Cook manages it without ever overplaying his hand. The movie’s biggest risk is trusting one actor to show rage through restraint instead of shouting, and that risk pays off. When “The Spook Who Sat by the Door” opened in theaters in September 1973, Black audiences filled seats to see it, and word spread fast. Critics at the time noticed a film unlike the wave of Blaxploitation movies filling theaters that year, though they did not ignore its flaws. It was made on a tiny, independent budget after mainstream investors backed away, and Chicago’s own mayor reportedly refused to grant a filming permit, so the crew shot in Gary, Indiana instead. Reviewers pointed out the rough production values and a few uneven supporting performances. Still, the film’s punch could not be denied. Then, within weeks, it disappeared from theaters. For years afterward, nobody gave a clear public explanation, and many people close to the production believed federal pressure was behind it, out of fear that the film’s message of armed Black resistance was too dangerous to leave in circulation. Only worn-out bootleg tapes kept the movie alive until actor Tim Reid tracked down a surviving print years later, finally giving new audiences a real chance to see it. The Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry in 2012, officially calling it a work of lasting importance to American culture. A documentary released in 2010 and a full restoration in recent years brought the film back to festival screens, with scholars and Dixon’s own family present to explain why it still matters. Considering the government allegedly tried to bury it, only for the government now working to preserve it, says a lot about how far the conversation around Black political filmmaking has come. Modern critics read the film less as a shock and more as a serious historical document, one that predicted arguments about policing, tokenism, and Black political anger that are still happening now. For the Black community, and for me writing as a Black critic, this film is more than just entertainment. It portrayed the promise that many Black Americans quietly held during the civil rights and Black Power years: the promise of turning the tools of an unfair system back against itself. It also refused to downplay its anger to make anyone comfortable, which made it a rare major production willing to be straight about government power and Black self-defense. That honesty is part of why the film earned a permanent place in Black film history, and why families connected to its making still show up decades later to keep its story alive. It wasn’t fully embraced in 1973, but today’s audiences can be a lot smarter, considering we have every bit of information at our fingertips. Viewers who care about film history, political movies, or the history of Black liberation movements will likely find it gripping, maybe even more relevant now given ongoing arguments about policing and protest. Casual moviegoers looking for slick, fast-moving action, though, may find the pacing slow and the low budget obvious in certain scenes. The film’s harsh language and violent content still earn it a mature rating by any modern standard, but nothing in it crosses a line that should keep it out of classrooms, film programs, or streaming libraries. If anything, its themes are more teachable now than ever. “The Spook Who Sat by the Door” is about as perfect as the powers that be were going to allow it to be in that time period. Its budget shows, and a few scenes drag. You can only work with the hand you’re dealt, and its faith in Lawrence Cook’s controlled performance makes it essential viewing, especially for anyone who wants to understand how Black filmmakers used genre storytelling to say what the big studios would not.

OUR RATING – A HARSH WARNING 8

What’s It About

Bela, an eight-year-old girl living in a home with marital problems, confronts a sinister entity that comes out of her closet. The presence, whom she calls “Other Mommy,” becomes increasingly threatening to her and her family.

What’s It About

A courier and former soldier named Hank Malone (Alan Ritchson) must transport a critical, time-sensitive medical organ across a tight three-hour window to save a seven-year-old girl. He is forced to escort an unlikely partner, played by Owen Wilson. A dangerous cartel and ruthless mercenaries pursue them, hoping to intercept and steal the priceless organ for the black market. Every delay, detour, and violent encounter pushes them closer to failure, threatening the life of the young girl waiting for the transplant.

What’s It About

A weapon systems engineer and former Green Beret protects his Wyoming neighbors against a ruthless corporation threatening their rural community.

WHAT’S IT ABOUT

When his 8-year-old son is abducted, a widowed crime writer looks to his estranged father, a retired police detective, for help. He soon discovers a connection to the decades-old case of a convicted serial killer known as the Whisper Man.

MOVIESinMO REVIEW

When Robert De Niro, Adam Scott, Michelle Monaghan, and Michael Keaton are cast to be in the same movie, you expect something special. Then Netflix releases The Whisper Man, and within twenty minutes you realize that a stacked cast means nothing if nobody bothers to write them a real story. It starts with Adam Scott playing Tom Kennedy, a widowed crime writer who brings his eight-year-old son, Jake, back to his New Jersey hometown. Not long after they settle in, Jake disappears. The suspected kidnapper copies the methods of a killer called The Whisper Man, a man who once whispered through children’s windows before pulling them into the dark. That original killer, Frank Carter, already sits behind bars, played by Michael Keaton in a role that clearly deserved a stronger movie built around it. Detective Amanda Beck, played by Monaghan, takes on the new case. Then the film drops its biggest twist. The retired detective who caught Frank Carter years earlier, Pete Willis, played by De Niro, turns out to be Tom’s estranged father. One town. One old crime. One new crime. Three people connected by blood and by case file. That is not a twist. That is a shortcut. So we are to believe that Tom rents a house that sat empty because of the original Whisper Man murders. Then, the new killer zeroes in on Jake specifically, for reasons the script barely bothers to explain. Near the climax, Beck tracks down the killer because a neighbor mentions unwatered houseplants. That detail cracks the case. Not fingerprints, not instinct, not real detective work, just dry plants. Alex North wrote a bestselling novel that this script claims to adapt, and somewhere between the book and the screen, writers Ben Jacoby and Chase Palmer lost everything that made the story worth telling. The Russo Brothers produced this film. Somebody with that much experience read this script and still said yes. North’s novel carried real dread. The Whispers Man had a presence like it reached in from the beyond. That version of the story could have been the strongest horror release of the year. Instead, this movie flattens all of it into a standard cop drama, the kind you might come across late at night on an old cable channel. The Guardian described the film as loaded with hoariness, and that word fits it well. Every piece feels recycled, and none of it lands with any real weight. You can trace exactly where this movie borrowed its ideas. Beck walking alone into danger mirrors The Silence of the Lambs. The way the killer selects his targets is something like The Black Phone. Jake noticing things nobody else can see is so much like The Sixth Sense, this director needed to be served. Those films earned their power. The Whisper Man copies their setups without ever understanding what made those stories work in the first place. Director James Ashcroft built real tension in his earlier film, Coming Home in the Dark, but here he swaps that skill for what The Guardian labeled the dreaded Netflix look: flat lighting, gray color, almost no visual tension anywhere on screen. The editing does not help matters. Scenes get chopped into short pieces that never connect the way they should. Long stretches drag with nothing happening, then the movie rushes through moments that needed more room to breathe. Even with all that screen time, the characters still feel like strangers by the final act. Roger Ebert’s site named the real problem plainly: nobody buys that Scott and De Niro are father and son. Their scenes together stay thin and surface level, without one moment that suggests any real history between them. De Niro gives what he can, because that is simply what he always does, but the script leaves him almost nothing to build from. This is where the movie fails hardest. Four talented actors show up, and the story never gives a single one of them a role with real depth. Adam Scott plays a quieter, sadder version of his Severance character, and that performance works on Severance because a whole world supports it there. Here, he is just a skilled actor stuck waiting on a script that never shows up. Monaghan receives even less to work with. Her detective exists only to push the plot forward, not to feel like an actual person making real choices. The suspects the film tosses at the audience, including Hamish Linklater playing a serial killer memorabilia collector, read as so obviously fake that you could spot them from another room. The Whisper Man wanted to be a serious thriller. It wanted the tension of Silence of the Lambs and the emotional pull of a father racing to save his son. It wanted a mystery that kept you guessing until the end. Instead, IGN pointed out that the film telegraphs its biggest reveal early, so you spend the second half simply waiting for the movie to catch up to what you already figured out. The tone shifts scene to scene without ever settling on solid ground. The cast deserved a stronger script. Alex North’s novel deserved a real adaptation instead of a summary. Netflix, already carrying a mixed reputation this year, needed a stronger release than this one. Close the tab. Go find something else to watch.

OUR RATING – A VERY SLOW 3

What’s It About

A criminal plans to fake his death for insurance money while framing his wife’s lover. His wife plots to kill him for real and take it all. Both race to outmanoeuvre each other in a deadly battle of wits.

MOVIESinMO REVIEW

The film “Just Play Dead” opens to troubles, right from the introduction of Samuel L. Jackson with his character’s odd gray ponytail. The scene makes us think that the movie is going to be a serious one, but later we know that this film will not be one to take seriously. The opening scene of the movie shows Jack Wolfe (Jackson) poisoning one of his business colleagues, who just warned him that the feds are closing in on him. The scene does want to show us how cruel Jack is, but this type of scene is used in too many different movies already. Jack, played by Samuel L. Jackson, is a successful businessman who built his fortune through criminal businesses. He enjoys life in the Canary Islands with his wife Nora (Eva Green). Instead of going to jail, Jack wants to fake his own death and collect $30 million in insurance money. Seems like Nora ain’t all about loyalty and sharing things. She’s got two fellas juggling her life while she’s still wed, a detective who’s fallen head over heels for her and a surfer dude named Chad, whom she plays like a puppet. Instead of receiving half the amount of money from the insurance company, she wants it all, with her husband also gone. To make it come through, she turns a fake murder into a real one, making it look like Chad is behind it. Jack, however, is smarter than it looks. He finds out what his wife does behind his back and keeps himself ahead of her by developing a plan similar to the one planned by Nora. Even the premise of two devious partners trying to pull one over on each other should create a suspenseful tale; yet when Martin Campbell, who has made several truly great films before, like Casino Royale and GoldenEye, directs the movie, we’re left wondering where the excitement went. He uses way too many flashbacks and jumbled-up chronological events. By the time of the last act, viewers may be so exhausted by the constant scheming that they’d miss the plot twists. It seems that the screenplay was kept in the drawer for at least twenty years before anyone brought it to life; it is not surprising since it is based on a really old novel and its ancient beauty doesn’t really work anymore. The bigger disappointment is with what the film does to two performers who clearly deserve more. Jackson and Green are both capable of anchoring a movie like this, yet the script gives them almost nothing real to work with. Jackson plays Jack as smooth and unbothered, but the character never becomes threatening or complicated enough to leave a mark, and Jackson often seems to be coasting through the role rather than committing to it. Green fares no better. She has spent years perfecting dangerous, seductive characters, but her version of Nora reads as weary rather than menacing. The screenplay provides her with the alluring characterization of a femme fatale, but without real substance to back it up. Neither actress is given any significant depth in the story; they largely occupy and manipulate the screen, which is just part of what makes this movie feel like a big waste of time. The supporting characters face the same predicament. A police partner who sounds the alarm to the detective about Nora, a hitman who claims to know where every body is buried, and a former cop turned nun only get a brief moment on screen. None are fleshed out enough to make a mark, so their presence just adds noise to the film rather than significance. Dan Gordon’s screenplay makes things worse with its lack of respect for the audience. Characters state their intentions over and over in hopes that maybe it might help people comprehend what was already clear. The film makes everything so obvious that all the twists lose their surprise. A movie with many twists and turns can only be successful if it has a plot that is easy to follow, and although the movie does provide various explanations in an attempt to clarify the story, it still ends up being confusing. However, it has to be said that one aspect of the movie that stood out was the location. The Canary Islands have been filmed brilliantly, showcasing its great weather and appealing look. Nevertheless, due to the weak storyline and poorly developed characters, the good visual representation isn’t enough to save the plot, which is really poorly executed. The film undoubtedly had an interesting idea that could have been successfully developed into a great story  struggles with the husband who is unfaithful and his wife who is resentful, and whose lives are entangled with those of the people they manipulate. By the end of “Just Play Dead,” I was more upset than amused. Although the actors performed well, the movie didn’t provide them with an opportunity to display their talent and, therefore, watching them was boring. If you still need help deciding whether to watch this movie or not, just play dead.

OUR RATING – A RAZZIE-WINNING 3