Month: February 2023

Movies that come out in January always have a reputation as being a month of dumpster diving flicks and for good reason. It just seems like the most convenient time for studios to release whatever movie they don’t have fate in onto the big screen during this particular month so it can die a quiet, painless death and be forgotten about until critics have to do their worst-of-the-year lists. Dumping these ill-fated films in a time right after the end of the holiday season and kids are back in school just seems like the best time to do it as it’s likely to have the least amount of consequences. That way, they have no realistic expectations on how a picture does critically and just pray it does just enough financially to where they don’t lose a whole lot of money from it. However, now comes 2023, which decided to kick start the new year with at least six big new features that could qualify as not just being good to great for a January movie but just being good to great in general. The movies I’m talking about include M3GAN, Plane, A Man Called Otto, Skinamarink, Missing, and Infinity Pool.

M3GAN was a ridiculously fun and over-the-top horror flick with a fair amount of heart and commentary on A.I. and human relationships that it was able to deliver perfectly on the expectations that it set for itself. Plane was one of the few action-packed flicks that actually works for Gerard Butler. A Man Called Otto was able to use the charm and charisma of Tom Hanks and Mariana Trevino to tell a tale about an old man regaining his humanity again with his new neighbors after a tragic event so he may live his finals days in grace. Skinamarink, albeit divisive and obviously experimental, was at least interesting and different enough to warrant a viewing of a showcase about how scary being along in the middle of the night can be for a little kid. Missing, while playing like a lesser Searching, was an engaging thriller with enough creativity and inventive filmmaking about a young girl looking for her missing mother. Lastly, Infinity Pool, was a brand new horror flick that basically established Mia Goth as a new Scream queen for the ages. And these aren’t even including films that are basically carried over from limited screenings near the end of 2022 such as The Whale or Women Talking.

These were all competent made movies that never gave the notion of it being lazy or rushed, which are typical for movies that come out in January. Not only did these all seem like movies that the studios themselves actually have fate in despite it coming out in January, it seemed like something the filmmakers themselves had fate in as well and had visions of theirs behind the camera that felt genuine. These were all films that could have come out in any month but January and you would have a really hard time telling the difference.

Granted, one could possibly come up with a reason as to why these movies actually came out when they did other than the studios had no fate in them. It could be the fact that these came out after numerous of delays due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It could be because some of these went through trouble in production and had an abundance of reshoots which caused it to be pushed back as far as it did. Heck, it could possibly even be that the studios just felt this was the right month to release these movies so they won’t get caught between the surprisingly amount of blockbusters that are set to come out in February and March such as Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Scream VI, Creed III, John Wick Chapter IV, and Shazam!: Fury of the Gods. Nevertheless, the fact that these amount of quality movies just happened to come out in January should be considered a blessing and not a curse and could possibly help set a standard for quality movies to come to start off every year.

No matter how one can interpret these movies releasing in January, perhaps 2023 including enough solid motion pictures to start off the year might be a sign. A sign that maybe studios now realize that it’s okay to start the New Year on a high note. A sign that a movie coming out in January is no longer is seeing as an excuse for poor quality. A sign that a movie coming out in January can just be good on it’s own merits and not just be good for a so-called “January” movie. Especially during a post-Covid era, you want to have as many quality movies released in theaters as possible so that many people will want to see and continue to support theaters. And what better way to get people to support seeing movies in theaters than living them actual good movies to see.

That’s not to say every movie that came out in January was a hit. You People was the newest Netflix comedy that surprisingly wasn’t very funny despite having great comedic talent in Eddie Murphy, Jonah Hill, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. There was also Shotgun Wedding which was basically proof that Jennifer Lopez should stop doing romantic comedies and stick to making films such as Hustler. Even on the perfect human face, you can always find some sort of blemish. However, there were plenty more good than bad that January had to offer that it’s worth overlooking that.

Every so often in recent memory, I could point to at least one or two January movies that stood out being legit good in their own rights in a sea of absolute garbage that got released in cinema or just outright guilty pleasures. 2016 had Kung Fu Panda 3. 2017 had Split. 2018 had Paddington 2 (at least in America). 2019 had The Kid Who Would Be King. 2022 had Scream. 2023 had at least five to six movies I can think off that could fit that category of any one of those movies and more. Which is why I shouldn’t hesitate in calling 2023 has perhaps the best year of January movies to date. Because I can’t recall a January in recent memory that treated it’s month of releases as equal to any other movie without needing the excuse of being a “January movie” to stand out well on it’s own.

2023 has gotten how to a good start with movies and hopefully Hollywood is able to continue that momentum as the highly anticipated blockbusters of the year starts to arrive. It’s then that we could be in for one darn good year for movies. If January 2023 is any indication, then we might be in for quite a ride.

Regardless of what you can say about M. Night Shyamalan over the past two and a half decades, you can’t deny there is no other director like them. The man is basically his own unique beast of a filmmaker, allowing himself to spend the quarter of his yearly salary to finance his own personal projects that give him permission to play in his own sandbox in front of the camera for the whole world to see. Whether the movie is good or bad, you always know you are watching an M. Night Shyamalan movie. Lately, however, it seems as if the infamous director is running out of unique ways to tell his stories on the big screen, almost as if he is letting his massive ego start to get the better of him and have that affect his decision making.

There’s Glass, a film despite being a clear, passionate project, ending up having a message at the end where it basically tells it’s audience they were wrong for ever wanting a sequel to Unbreakable and Split and that it would have been better off not existing. There’s Old, even if I like it more than others, which felt the need to throw everything but the kitchen sink in terms of metaphors and symbolism despite having a very simplistic and straight forward message about how fast life can be. Now we have Knock At The Cabin, where we see M. Night tackling themes involving religious beliefs, personal sacrifices, and lgbt rights but does so in a very basic, bare bone, and frankly uninteresting way. It’s not the worst thing to ever come out from Shyamalan but it’s far in a way his most tame and thematically flat movie to date, not even remotely worth a knock at the door.

Knock At The Cabin is based off the 2018 novel, The Cabin at the End of the World, from Paul Tremblay. While vacationing in a cabin in the woods (no pun intended) with her adopted fathers, a young girl named Wen (Kristen Cui) is approached by a mysterious muscular man named Leonardo (Dave Bautista) who tells her that he and his group are here to convince her family to make a certain big decision. Once back at the cabin, we see a queer couple of Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldrige) with their daughter as they get paid an unexpected visit from Leonardo and three other strangers. These other strangers include Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), Adriane (Abby Quinn), and Redmond (Rupert Grint). The four of them are individuals with obvious religious beliefs and have shared their own estranged vision of the world. The group states that the apocalypse is coming to end humanity for good and the only way it could be prevented in any way is for either Eric, Andrew, and Wen to sacrifice themselves for the good of mankind. They can’t commit suicide or have someone else do the dirty deed for them but must decide amongst themselves who shall take their own life to save the world. The family at first believes this to be a lie but as the events transpire, they realize that the group might have a point and must decide amongst themselves what to do before any potential inevitable disaster happens.

That sounds like a premise that could leave to a room of ambiguity and uses it’s own reflective imagery to tell it’s story and the message it wants to get across. However, save for a handful of awkwardly placed flashback scenes, Knock At The Cabin is about as functional in terms of plot as it comes and that’s not necessarily a good thing. Not just because the actual functions itself fall apart like a stack of cards once you give it a second thought but the actual point it tries to make comes off as very ill-conceived and even quite homophobic.

Near the beginning of the movie, the group declares themselves to not be homophobic and that they had no idea that Eric and Andrew was even gay until much later on when they discovered them. That seems like a good place to put that argument to rest and move on from there but it keeps going back to that and even introduces a plot connection with one of the members of the group that basically proves that point to be wrong. Which makes the movie at it’s center to either be about a same sex couple that is getting harassed by an overly religious group which we are just suppose to find entertaining or about this overly religious group trying to prove to the same sex couple that the Old Testament is right and the world would be better off without their kind on Earth. Neither one of those are even remarkably good outcomes but it’s the only ones that the movie itself provides. While I’m sure M. Night Shyamalan is not homophobic, Knock At The Cabin will sure make one want to raise some questions on that matter.

Even taken that aspect out of the picture, the movie itself is quite unengaging with the characters presented. Despite having a small cast and spending 99% of the entire movie in a cabin, hardly any character work or effective filmmaking is on display here. There’s too much explaining of backstory and motivations that we should be finding out through the actions of the characters, the twists are so obvious that I’m not even sure you can count them as actual twists, and even the actual “world ending” stakes presented feel about as inconsequential as that of a mission in a Grand Theft Auto game. By the time we get to the bleak and unceremonious end, you just wonder what exactly the movie itself is trying to accomplish other than those previous things that I’ve mentioned.

There’s just a general sense behind the picture of the movie pulling it’s own punches and not taking things one step further. We never see the characters themselves question their own mindset and beliefs or even try to provide a solution that doesn’t involve killing each other but instead, trying to hammer down the same repetitive on loop throughout the majority of it’s 105 minute long runtime. It makes you wish something as bizarre and crazy as the big shocking reveal in Wide Awake or Lady In The Water would occur at some point to tell us all it’s not what we think but it never really does. Everything that is happening on screen is real and because of that, none of that feels as real as the film would like it to be.

The main thing keeping the experience from falling completely apart is the performances from the main cast. Despite Kristen Cui having a few awkward moments at the beginning with Dave Bautista (which YET again I ask M. Night to PLEASE movie the damn camera back), they mostly do strong work here. Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge make for a very believable pairing and do have some of the better actual moments of character that is presented in the movie. Kristen Cui has her inevitable moments of obvious “child acting” but is charming enough to where you can see her going places in the future. Abby Quinn makes for probably the most engaging of the main group and is even able to sell the moments of her character’s rather clunky backstory. Nikki Amuka-Birds shines well as a sympathetic but also realist women who also happens to be a doctor. Rupert Grint is kinda obnoxious but I guess that was suppose to be the case and his apperance is definitely more brief compare to the rest of the cast. The real star of the show here is obviously Dave Bautista. As he is slowly starting to grow into possibly the best wrestler turned actor to date (Eat your heart out, Dwyane!), he makes every moment matter and helps hold the picture from being a complete failure.

The actual production itself is also not half-bad either. Even if it’s guilty of Shyamalan’s most infamous tropes (close-up shots, oddly paced flashbacks, etc..), the picture itself is generally well made throughout. Jarin Blaschke and Lowell A. Meyer are able to fine that right mix of light and dark from both a literal and metaphorical standpoint to give the movie itself it’s own distinct feeling and at times it’s own character. Herdis Stefánsdóttir’s score is also generally okay as well even if nothing is able to stick out for better or worse in it’s own right.

In the end, I don’t think I can recall an M. Night Shyamalan production that just left me shrugging my shoulders like this one did. Even the negative points I’ve brought up aren’t ones that are worth thinking to deeply into because the movie itself doesn’t even try to do so. It just lacks it’s own value and substance which makes it’s brief runtime feel longer than it really is and as it left a big surface that it doesn’t even bother to scratch.

It’s as if M Night has finally met his match, being unable to shock the world any longer. It’s like his critics had finally gotten to him as he deep down might be just a man that has lost his mojo for a long time and can only rely on twists for the sake of twists and shock value for the sake of shock values to keep audiences engaged in his filmography. In that case, then Knock At The Cabin does at least make for a rather unique metaphor of it’s own, even if it’s a rather tame one.

Other comments:

• I almost wanted to not bother doing a review and just give my Letterboxd rating of it telling you to just watch Cabin in the Woods instead.

• Speaking of which, I should really get to updating my Letterboxd account once again.

• Kinda ironic how after the slew of January movies 2023 gave us, this is probably the one movie that feels like it belongs in January than almost any other movie that actually came out last month.

• Before my screening, a theater employee was telling me that the only M. Night Shayamalan movie he ever enjoyed was The Last Airbender. That was probably the biggest twist of the night for me.