‘Hell of a Summer’ is a Low-Key Doodle of a Slasher

April 3, 2025

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What the hell (of a summer)?! (CREDIT: NEON)

Starring: Fred Hechinger, Abby Quinn, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Billy Bryk, Finn Wolfhard, Pardis Saremi, Krista Nazaire, Matthew Finlan, Julia LaLonde, Daniel Gravelle, Julia Doyle, Rosebud Baker, Adam Pally

Directors: Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk

Running Time: 88 Minutes

Rating: R for Bloody Shenanigans and a Conversation About Getting Busy During a Movie

Release Date: April 4, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Veteran Pineway Camp counselor Jason (Fred Hechinger) had an embarrassingly tearful goodbye at the end of last summer, which he thought was going to be his last at Pineway. And it probably should have been. He is aging out of the gig, after all, and it doesn’t exactly pay like a full-time job. But the owners needed the extra help this year, or at least that’s what he keeps saying. But he really should’ve reconsidered, considering that … there’s a serial killer on the loose! Will Jason turn hero and save all his fellow counselors, or will everyone just die sad, unremarkably gruesome deaths?

What Made an Impression?: Two-for-One Deal: Hell of a Summer is written and directed by a pair of youngsters (Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk, who both also star), but despite their youth, they’ve assembled a throwback to the slashers of yore, particularly two that loom menacingly large over the rest of the genre. You’ve got the camp setting and ugly relentlessness of Friday the 13th, but with a little bit more personality than Jason Voorhees’ adventures. That’s crossed with the Scream-style setup of friends playing detective against each other, except that in this case most of them are a little dopier and a lot more superficial than Woodsboro’s residents. They’re not so infuriating that you’re begging for them to get sliced up, but you might just want them to go through some terrible trauma so that they’ll actually grow up.
Where is Everyone?: There’s one big unanswered question throughout Hell of a Summer: where are all the kids?! Or is this just an “Oops All Counselors” type of amp? Now, of course, the most likely answer is that the young attendees are scheduled to arrive at least one day after all the counselors, so they’re not supposed to be there at this point anyway. But the counselors never seem to behave as if anyone else is on the way! To be fair, that isn’t exactly unbelievable behavior from teenagers and young twentysomethings, but I nevertheless couldn’t help but be deeply affected by the lack of explanatory context.

Hell of a Summer is Recommended If You: Wish that Wet Hot American Summer had fewer laughs and more blood

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Decapitations

‘Sonic the Hedgehog 3’ Review: Sonic vs. Anti-Sonic

December 19, 2024

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This is not Sonic, even though it kind of looks like him (CREDIT: Paramount Pictures and Sega of America, Inc.)

Starring: Ben Schwartz, Colleen O’Shaughnessey, Idris Elba, Keanu Reeves, Jim Carrey, James Marsden, Tika Sumpter, Krysten Ritter, Natasha Rothwell, Shemar Moore, Lee Majdoub, Tom Butler, Alyla Browne, James Wolk, Sofia Pernas, Cristo Fernández, Adam Pally, Jorma Taccone

Director: Jeff Fowler

Running Time: 110 Minutes

Rating: PG for All the Silly Cartoony Action Nonsense

Release Date: December 20, 2024 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Our true-blue, Ben Schwartz-voiced shiny speedster is enjoying his happy family life with his adoptive parents and his fox and echidna friends. But some secrets in the halls of power threaten to get in the way of that blissful domesticity. You see, back in the 1970s, a clandestine government program created Shadow the Hedgehog (voiced by Keanu Reeves), who is basically, naturally enough, a shadow version of Sonic. He’s on the loose now, and that of course threatens the stability of the entire world. So Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles form an uneasy alliance with their archnemesis Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey) and Robotnik’s long-lost grandfather (also Carrey) to get Shadow back into the shadows.

What Made an Impression?: How Can You Say No to This Guy?: I never played the Sonic video games all that much while growing up, and I only kind of like the first two movies, but whenever there’s a new cinematic adventure with the most famous hedgehog in the world, I find myself getting inexplicably excited. A lot of that has to do with Schwartz’s effervescent, incorrigible vocal performance. And it also probably has something to do with the fact that no matter how convoluted these plots get, it’s clear that everyone is having tons of fun. This franchise is no marvel of storytelling, but it is kind of impressive how wholesome it’s managed to remain amidst all the chaos.
Keep Punching It Up: For the most part, the most complimentary I can be about Sonic 3 is that it’s a pleasant enough diversion for a couple of hours. But occasionally it really comes alive with some especially punchy dialogue, like when one character is mistaken for Detective Pikachu, or when Robotnik describes himself as “undesirable to all possible genders.” Those probably don’t sound as funny typed out as they do in context, but they definitely got some laughs at my screening. Anyway, I most certainly wish that the script had focused on being clever like that more often. The requisite goofiness is certainly there, but it gets distracted by this little thing called saving the world, which isn’t what I’m coming to Sonic movies for. But maybe that’s just me!

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is Recommended If You Like: The possibility that there could be a new Sonic movie every two years for the foreseeable future

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Sycophants

Sonic is a Party Dude, but is ‘Sonic the Hedgehog 2’ a Party Time?

May 19, 2022

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Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (CREDIT: Paramount Pictures and Sega of America)

Starring: Ben Schwartz, James Marsden, Jim Carrey, Tika Sumpter, Idris Elba, Colleen O’Shaughnessey, Natasha Rothwell, Adam Pally, Shemar Moore, Lee Majdoub, Tom Butler

Director: Jeff Fowler

Running Time: 122 Minutes

Rating: PG

Release Date: April 8, 2022 (Theaters)

Early on in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, the little spiky blue guy has the house all to himself. So he and Ozzy the golden retriever just kick back and PAR-TAAAAAAY!!!! That’s the kind of Sonic movie I want. Just a CGI hedgehog and a chill pooch hanging out and having fun. And there’s no reason to have any anxiety about the mess they make, because thanks to Sonic’s super-speed, he can just clean everything up in a literal second! Why not take advantage of that? Anyway, that’s only a small portion of this sequel. I guess I’m totally fine with the decision to have Sonic team up with the Fox Fellow and the Echidna Dude to take down the Wacky Mustache Man, but it would have been a lot nicer if the dog had also been there the whole while. That’s all I’m saying.

Grade: Doggone It!

‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ is Awfully Silly, And That’s Okay

February 13, 2020

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CREDIT: Paramount Pictures and Sega of America

Starring: Ben Schwartz, James Marsden, Jim Carrey, Tika Sumpter, Adam Pally, Lee Majdoub, Natasha Rothwell, Frank C. Turner, Neal McDonough

Director: Jeff Fowler

Running Time: 99 Minutes

Rating: PG for Hedgehog Mischief and Mad Scientist Arrogance

Release Date: February 14, 2020

Sonic the blue video game character and Sonic the drive-in fast food chain are very different, insofar as running around loop-de-loops really fast is advisable with only one of them. But they are also similar, insofar as they are both fine and enduring examples of lowbrow culture. So the release of the Sonic the Hedgehog movie raises the question: is this a good flick to watch while chowing down on some burgers and tots? I would have to definitively say yes, and thus I am awarding the Jeff Fowler-directed Sonic the Hedgehog the first (and perhaps also last) ever Sonic Feast Stamp of Approval.

Remember that hullabaloo about Sonic’s CGI teeth needing to be reanimated to something less uncanny valley-ish after the first trailer was released? It turns out that job was taken care of thoroughly and that snafu will henceforth only be a footnote in cinematic history! Thus, we are all able to fully focus on our spiny friend’s hairy adventures. Not that we need to focus too much to understand what’s going on, as the plot follows a standard formula for kid-friendly video game creature adaptations. Sonic, voiced mostly amusingly by comedian Ben Schwartz, gets magically transported to the world of humans where he strikes up an unlikely friendship with Tom (James Marsden), a small-town guy with big-town ambitions, and runs afoul of his nemesis, Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey), whose physical presence is more Earthbound than his typical video game iteration though his personality is full-on cartoonish.

Anyway, Sonic loses his bag of gold coins that he uses to transport between worlds, so he wrangles Tom in for a road trip to go find them, even though with his supersonic capabilities, he could probably do it himself in a matter of minutes. It doesn’t matter. It’s all just an excuse for Sonic to get up to shenanigans like causing a ruckus in a biker bar as Schwartz vamps, Carrey mustache-twirls, and the Olive Garden jams its way in there with some stealthy product placement. Also, Natasha Rothwell is on standby as Tom’s sister-in-law for some inexplicable running gag in which she keeps telling his wife to divorce him. It’s bright and colorful and silly, and frankly, I’m glad we live in a world in which doofy video game adaptations can still get made.

Sonic the Hedgehog is Recommended If You Like: The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, Batman Forever, The Smurfs

Grade: 2.75 out of 5 Loop-De-Loops

This Is a Movie Review: The Naughty Nuns of ‘The Little Hours’ are Raunchy and Sweet

June 28, 2017

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This review was originally posted on News Cult in June 2017.

Starring: Alison Brie, Dave Franco, Kate Micucci, Aubrey Plaza, John C. Reilly, Molly Shannon, Fred Armisen

Director: Jeff Baena

Running Time: 90 Minutes

Rating: R for Naked Witchcraft Acid Trips

Release Date: June 30, 2017 (Limited)

Fred Armisen shows up as a visiting bishop about halfway through The Little Hours. It is a hilarious scene, but it encapsulates the trepidation I had upon viewing this flick. In writer/director Jeff Baena’s riff on one of the tales from 14th-century story collection The Decameron, things are getting wild and crazy at a convent, with a trio of central nuns (Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza, Kate Micucci) getting into sex, witchcraft, and other debauchery. While the premise alone is worth several chuckles, I had worried that it was better suited to a sketch rather than a full feature length, and Armisen’s routine demonstrates exactly what I was thinking of.

As Bishop Bartolomeo, Armisen takes stock of all the sinning that the residents have been getting up to, and it is a potent mix of petty, mundane, and outrageous. Running down kooky lists and taking a few breaks for exasperation is one of Armisen’s specialties. He revels in a litany that includes envy, “being a busy body,” “eating blood,” and “not being baptized.” This recaps everything important that has happened thus far and if this scene had been an SNL sketch (easily imaginable, considering the cast), our imaginations would just fill in the visuals for all that outrageousness. Instead, we get to see all the vulgarity play out, which could be a recipe for exhaustion after ninety minutes, but The Little Hours has some grounding elements to make the whole course palatable.

The focus is on three young brides of Christ – Alessandra (Brie), Fernanda (Plaza), and Genevra (Plaza) – who are either seeking to escape the convent or happy to stay there but not really interested in living the religious life properly. This would all be just a mélange of nuns behaving badly if not for the appearance of runaway servant Massetto (Dave Franco), who strikes up a romance with Alessandra and a deal with the head priest (John C. Reilly) to keep his true nature a secret. The love story is kinda sweet and Reilly is always so invested in the material no matter how ridiculous, elements that help offset all the debauchery, which is fitfully amusing but could have been exhausting if not for these counterpoints. Besides, this film cannot coast on shock value when its ladies do not bother one iota to resemble actual nuns.

The Little Hours is Recommended If You Like: History of the World: Part 1, The sexier scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The To Do List

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Rolls in the Hay