Action/Adventure | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: Frozen II [2019]

2019/12/042020/03/23 Jared Mobarak

Do the next right thing. I have to give directors Jennifer Lee (who also wrote the script) and Chris Buck credit for not simply jumping at the chance to follow up a cultural phenomenon for the paycheck. People wondered on opening weekend when a sequel to Frozen would arrive and these two held fast to their mutual decision of waiting until the story drew them back. They even began work on a completely separate project before heeding the call of unfinished business where Anna (Kristen Bell) and Elsa (Idina Menzel)…

REVIEW: The Aeronauts [2019]

2019/11/302020/10/02 Jared Mobarak

Doubt is there to be listened to. When Jack Thorne decided to craft a screenplay that was able to embody the insanity of what Richard Holmes described in his book about early aeronautic pioneers, Falling Upwards: How We Took to the Air, he recognized that cherry picking the best bits and smushing them together through fiction proved the simplest way to represent the era’s spirit if not each of the participants themselves. There was dramatic intrigue to meteorologist James Glaisher breaking the world record for flight altitude alongside pilot Henry…

REVIEW: Charlie’s Angels [2019]

2019/11/302020/03/23 Jared Mobarak

Hugs work. It’s been over fifteen years since Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle hit cinemas. That might not seem so long considering the first movie bowed almost twenty years after the television show went off the air, but TV reboots were all the rage back in the early ‘aughts. That extra time might have actually helped then because the fad’s key selling point was updating seventies-era properties with twenty-first century technology. Going from then until now, however, doesn’t quite hold the same demand for a “new look” as far as aesthetics…

REVIEW: Abominable [2019]

2019/11/232020/03/23 Jared Mobarak

Dude. You darted Dave. Writer/director Jill Culton started production on Abominable in 2010 before eventually leaving the project and ultimately coming back on-board. Still retaining sole writing credit, I have to believe Dreamsworks stayed true to her original narrative vision during those years when she was away. Maybe they fiddled with things to hew closer to a proven formula (the plot similarities to the studio’s How to Train Your Dragon are many) or perhaps parallels to that 2010 release were always present considering the close proximity of their respective geneses.…

ANOMALY19 REVIEW: VFW [2019]

2019/11/092020/03/23 Jared Mobarak

Same mud. That co-writer Matthew McArdle remains shocked even after seeing the film he and Max Brallier wrote on the big screen shows how tough the accomplishment proves. Best friends since childhood, the two began their script for VFW with transparent intentions as far as harkening back to the no-holds-barred VHS gems they’d scour video store shelves to find. Using John Carpenter‘s Assault on Precinct 13 as inspiration, they created a group of aging vets decades-removed from service yet still thick as thieves with a drug-fueled, zombie-esque horde threatening to…

ANOMALY19 REVIEW: Bacurau [2019]

2019/11/092020/03/23 Jared Mobarak

A feast of fear and terror. It’s been awhile since Teresa (Bárbara Colen) last stepped foot in Bacurau, the small Brazilian village where she was born. Escape has proven the only way to become known outside of one’s neighbors since those who remain entrenched by choice (or necessity) are more or less the sole providers of their own survival. This notion might have begun in the abstract with the obvious contrast between a big city like São Paulo and their humble abode, but it’s been made overtly true with food…

REVIEW: Dolemite [1975]

2019/10/312020/03/23 Jared Mobarak

The game is rough and the stake is your life. After adopting the persona in his stand-up act and on multiple comedy albums, Rudy Ray Moore decided to self-finance a feature film around the character of Dolemite. The result is bad—shoddy direction, horrid editing, and outlandish scenes devoid of any bearing on the plot itself. And yet the name has endured as a touchstone of Blaxploitation cinema regardless due to a cult status that defies craft in order to focus upon intent. Moore sought a venue with which to entertain…

REVIEW: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie [2019]

2019/10/252020/03/23 Jared Mobarak

“Nothing beats cash on-hand” Obviously contains “Breaking Bad” spoilers. I’m neither alone in this thinking nor objectively correct, but “Better Call Saul” is superior to its predecessor “Breaking Bad”. I didn’t even really get into the latter until the season three finale and even then it was tough to stay invested in its cast of monsters doing monstrous things to each other ad nauseam. I say that because they used to be good people—or at least innocent of murder. The intrigue was therefore rooted in how deep they’d fall. Since…

REVIEW: Gemini Man [2019]

2019/10/212020/03/23 Jared Mobarak

I just want some peace. It took twenty years, multiple rewrites, and a who’s who list of directors and stars, but Gemini Man finally made it to the big screen. And original scribe Darren Lemke kept his story and screenplay credits through everything. That says something considering these development hell miracles too often become abominations so far removed from their auspicious beginnings that there’s no sign of what got studios excited in the first place. David Benioff and Billy Ray earned their place beside him with Ang Lee putting his…

TIFF19 REVIEW: Guns Akimbo [2020]

2019/09/102020/03/24 Jared Mobarak

Never bring a spork to a gunfight. Just because you can troll the trolls on the internet from the comfort of your couch while wearing nothing but underwear and a bathrobe doesn’t mean you should. It’s not because it’s a waste of time, but that you probably didn’t activate your VPN and the death match website you’re commenting on now knows your address. And they don’t take kindly to anonymous nerds projecting on them the aggression they’re too afraid to unleash on their bosses. So when they break down your…

REVIEW: Riot Girls [2019]

2019/08/052020/03/25 Jared Mobarak

You feel me, bro? Following her success helming a segment in the well-received, woman-directed horror anthology XX, former Rue Morgue editor Jovanka Vuckovic delivers her feature film debut with the high concept, post-apocalyptic teen actioner Riot Girls. Obviously borrowing from the underground feminist punk movement Riot grrrl for its title (with an appropriate aesthetic and love for Joan Jett), screenwriter Katherine Collins‘ tale of rival gangs also takes many cues from “The Walking Dead” by applying that 90s-era subculture to its social commentary separating humans into two categories: those who…