The House With A Clock In Its Walls: A Wonderful Halloween Haunt For The Youngsters

When I was a kid, I never really had a good spooky movie made for my age group. Sure, we all loved watching Hocus Pocus and Gremlins and The Nightmare Before Christmas, but those had come out when I was just a baby. I never got to see one in theaters until I was much older, unless you count Casper (but that was played for laughs and not scares). Now, kids get the chance to go to the theater and see movies that entertain adults, but can actually provide a few spooks for the young ones (without causing irreparable damage). Monster House is a great example of this. So is ParaNorman. And to a lesser extent the Goosebumps movie. I've always been a big fan of horror movies, but a horror movie for kids, that adults can also enjoy has got to be one of the most difficult things a writer can be tasked with. And who the hell knew that the one guy who figured it out in 2018 would be the gore-king himself, Eli freakin' Roth?

So far, The House With a Clock in its Walls has gotten middling to somewhat high reviews from critics. It wasn't exactly spitting hot fire upon its release and I feel like I stopped seeing advertisements for it awhile ago, leading me to believe the studio had lost faith in it. But, I thought it was a whole lot of fun. It made me wish I was a kid just so I could watch it through kid glasses and get scared at things that don't scare me now that I'm an adult. It's a movie that once a young boy or girl watches, it's going to be their go-to Halloween movie to scare them throughout their childhood, and then watch every year as an adult (like we all do with Hocus Pocus) for nostalgia's sake.

The story revolves around Lewis (Owen Vaccaro), a weird little fourth grader whose parents have just been killed in a car accident. His eccentric uncle Jonathan (Jack Black) invites Lewis to come live with him. Jonathan's house is old, and gothic, and filled to the brim with ticking clocks, and old creepy marionettes, and eerie statues, and, oh yeah, furniture and walls that are sentient. Jonathan winds up revealing to Lewis that he is a warlock (or as Lewis puts it - "a boy witch"). He teaches Lewis spells and the two bond over these "training sessions". There for the fun, is Jonathan's right-hand woman (and a witch herself), Florence (Cate Blanchett). But the house holds a deep, and potentially deadly secret. At night, Jonathan searches the inside of the house for a clock put there by its previous owner - a clock that when it finally finishes its countdown, could mean the end of all mankind. It's up to our new unlikely trio to find it and put a stop to the evil once and for all.

THWACIIW is a lot of fun, even for parents (and lonely adults who still like kids movies). Eli Roth, and writer Eric Kripke have crafted an enjoyable little Halloween haunt for children to both laugh at, scream at, and want more of. Jack Black, like always, is the most watchable person on screen. He brings his weirdness and his outlandish style of comedy to bring the eccentric Jonathan to life. He's wacky, but he's also very kind. Naturally, he's where most of the humor comes from. Cate Blanchett is as wonderful as everything she's ever been in. Seriously, I could watch her eat tofu and be mesmerized by her beauty, and class, and style, and essence. Their back and forth flinging of insults at one another is some of the best stuff in the film. Newcomer Owen Vaccaro is perfect as little Lewis. He's super weird, so he and his uncle bond almost immediately, but it's harder for him to make friends his age. When he makes major mistakes with his magic in an attempt to impress a kid at school into being his friend - it makes sense. He's also a broken kid. With his parents gone, his entire world is shattered and he carries that pain throughout the movie, not an easy task for a ten-year-old. There's certainly big things for this kid on the horizon.

For those of you with kids, the movie is very funny. They'll be laughing their heads off at all of the little fun things around the movie that are played for laughs. Jack Black's entire character, an armchair that acts like the family dog, an tree hedge that refuses to use "the litter box". So, there's plenty of that in the film. The scares come aplenty too. There are just a couple of images and moments that may be TOO scary for young, young kids, but nothing kids over 8 can't handle. In fact, I applaud Eli Roth for going just a little bit darker than I thought he would've. He actually wanted to give these kids a movie that could make them feel actual fear. He doesn't pander to his intended audience. Instead, he steps into their shoes and gives them what he believes will scare them without scarring them.

Sure, some moments in the movie are a little juvenile. And there are a few running gags that are scatalogical in nature and won't appeal to adults, but for the most part, the film is one I'd happily label fun for the whole family. Kids will be happy they get their scary movie and adults will be transported back to their former selves thinking how much they would've loved it if it had come out when they were kids. I really hope they plan on making more of these, because this movie is a franchise in the making.

B

A Simple Favor: I Appreciate What They're Trying To Do... I Just Don't Know If They Did It Right

There are some films that are just hard to market. This can be for many reasons. One, it could be a story that is difficult to convey its intricacies within a two minute time span. Or it could be there's a few reveals halfway through the film that the trailers don't necessarily want to spoil. Or it could be a movie that's so twisty and turn-y that to give any part of the story away is to ruin the story. I remember seeing the trailer for Gone Girl and thinking I knew what it was about and getting halfway through the movie and realizing it was NOTHING like what I was thinking. However, Gone Girl had the clout of the novel backing it up, so the trailer actually didn't have to show that much. A Simple Favor, on the other had, does have a novel the movie is based on, but it isn't Gone Girl big enough to let the book speak for the movie. As far as marketing the film - there's just no way to be able to convey both the plot and the tone of the movie in two plus minutes. So, it's actually pretty amazing that the movie hasn't tanked from the very start. Sure, they were able to tease something sinister in the trailer. And sure, Anna Kendrick is a box office draw. But an R-rated thriller (?) no one knows much about is a tough sell and I appreciate what it's been able to do...

I'm just not sure if it was done right. And, unfortunately, I'm going to have keep you on the hook as well with just what the hell it is you're going to be watching in this film. I don't want to give anything away because the mystery will be spoiled. But I also want you to be able to make your own decision if you want to spend your hard earned dollars (or one of your three MoviePass trips) to see this movie. So, I'll put it like this - A Simple Favor is Gone Girl-esque. Anna Kendrick is the bubbly Stephanie, a go-getter mom who volunteers for everything at her kid's school, and loves the fact that "being a mom is a full time job". She's a mommy vlogger, filming herself showing mothers how to do various arts and crafts and how to cook her favorite gluten-free recipes. Her son befriends the son of Emily (Blake Lively), an affluent, terrifying, beautiful mother all of the other parents fear. When Stephanie brings her son over for a play-date, Emily and her share a cocktail and begin a very strange friendship that you will continuously question the validity of.  A few weeks later, after Stephanie and Emily have become "best friends" even though their personalities completely clash, Emily asks Stephanie for a simple favor - just pick up her son and watch him for the night while she's gone for a work function. Stephanie complies, but Emily never shows up. In fact, Emily goes missing entirely. When the police aren't much help, Stephanie takes it upon herself to try and unravel the mystery (and there is much to unravel) of where her best friend is... and just WHO her best friend is.

That's it! That's all you get to know. I might've already said too much. But suffice it to say that everything in the movie is not exactly what it seems on the surface - otherwise there wouldn't be a movie. The problem the movie has going for it is how I described it earlier. It IS Gone Girl-esque, but that's not necessarily something that helps it out. Because Gone Girl was such a hit and such a shock in the twist department, A Simple Favor seems to pale in comparison. It comes off as Gone Girl lite, when it really should be a movie that stands on its own. There are a lot of differences in the film, both in plot and overall tone, but because it deals with a rich, missing wife whose life wasn't exactly what she claimed it is - it's going to draw those parallels. And because the twists and turns and shocks in A Simple Favor aren't nearly as clever as in Gone Girl, the movie does seem to be lacking. Had it come out a year before... it would've been hailed as brilliant. But it was just a little bit too late.

Director Paul Feig is a strange choice for a movie like this. On the one hand, he's one of the few directors right now giving a yearly platform for actresses to be able to have starring vehicles with great writing attached. But, dipping his toe into the mystery/thriller genre was kind of a stretch. He's known for his female-driven comedies (Bridesmaids, The Heat, Spy, Ghostbusters), and what he's done with A Simple Favor is sort of mesh his comedic style with that of a midnight mystery novel. Anna Kendrick's bubbly/goofy mom-persona would've been a perfect quirky character in a Feig straight up comedy. Here... she's still great, but when shit hits the fan and it's time for this quirky character to show some emotional range, it does feel a little bit jarring. When she enacts certain "plans" to uncover certain truths, it feels almost out of character for her. But, on the other hand, where Gone Girl was the dark and quiet and brooding and almost nauseating-feeling movie... A Simple Favor is played like a dark comedy. There are a lot of laughs in this movie. For example, other than the fact that Emily is a very intimidating woman, the interactions she and Stephanie have are quite amusing. You feel like Emily could snap off the rails at any second, but she's also curious about what makes a woman like Stephanie just so incessantly happy, which gives the two of them great chemistry and a lot of humorous moments together. I like looking at the movie as if it was Gone Girl with a darkly comedic twist - because it kind of is - but it's still a very jarring feeling watching the movie.

The reveals are, in some aspects, satisfying, and in other aspects, obvious. Unlike Gone Girl, I wasn't totally shocked each time something new about the main characters were revealed. There were a few that I thought were pretty clever, but others that I could see coming a mile away - and you will also. There's also a few more plot holes in this movie that added to the messiness of the story that you'll be able to feel throughout. It's messy because of its constant shifts in tone, but it's also messy because there's so much info being thrown at you and not all of it is meaningful. Stuff that seems to be thrown in to fool the audience that never comes back actually sends the viewer down a rabbit (plot) hole of trying to fill in the gaps in logic.

It's not a bad movie by any means, but I can't say it's the greatest either when something similar has come out before it and done it better. I want to be able to separate the movies, but most moviegoers aren't going to be able to help draw the comparisons and when that happens, A Simple Favor just can't hold a candle to Gone Girl. I love and seriously appreciate what Paul Feig has done with the source material available to him, but it's just not the great dark comedy/mystery I thought it was going to be. The actors in the film are all top notch (Kenrick is wonderful, and Lively is scary as hell - in a good way), it's got a sleek look, a decent amount of comedy, and a mystery that will keep viewers interested the entire time - I'm just not sure if, by the end, it will be satisfying enough.

C+

The Predator: Close, But No Cigarnold

Sometimes a franchise won't die despite the fact that it's only had one good movie among the rest of the sludge. Predator was 80s Arnold cheese. It was testosterone banging an 80oz tomahawk steak with aliens. It was a chance to showcase Arnold as an action star against an other-worldly being. It was a chance for a group of he-men to wag their nuts at the screen and get killed in brutal ways. It was a movie for Arnold and Carl Weathers to show how goddamn big their arms were. But that's it. It should've just stayed that way. After the success of Predator, the studio, as studios are wont to do, greenlit a sequel - a sequel intended for Arnold to star in it. When he read the script, knew it was shit, and passed, the studio decided to go with Danny Glover and, uh, Gary Busey(?). From there, they decided to cross movies with Alien Vs. Predator and did that a couple times. Then there was the underrated, yet also underwhelming, Predators a few years ago that, again, never lived up to the first movie. So, finally, in a last ditch effort to cash in on a franchise that has been dead for over 30 years, Hollywood God Shane Black stepped in. And goddamn I was excited. Shane Black (The Nice Guys, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Iron Man 3, Lethal Weapon, The Long Kiss Goodnight) is my favorite writer/director in Hollywood. He's one of the best genre-crossers in the business. He's able to write whip smart action/thriller/espionage/spy/noir movies that just happen to be funnier than most comedies out there. So, if you were going to breathe new life into a long dead franchise, the guy who should be able to do is Shane Black. And I'm here to tell you that he... ALMOST did. But not exactly.

This time around, The Predator revolves around another Predator crashing into Earth. A soldier, Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook) finds the unconscious being and takes his helmet and arm-gun-thing. He mails it to his family to hold onto it, only his Aspberger-y, on-the-spectrum son Rory (Jacob Tremblay) opens it up and figures out the Predator's alien language, inadvertently summoning a more deadly Predator to Earth. Along the way, scientists examine the unconscious Predator body and study it. They call in Biologist Casey (Olivia Munn) to figure out who/what it is. Watching over her is Traeger (Sterling K. Brown), a high up government official who might actually just be violently insane. Finally, McKenna is locked up with a group of ex-soldiers, now called "loonies". Among them are Moonlight's Trevante Rhodes, Keegan-Michael Key, and Tom Jane. All of these forces and people collide when the original Predator, and a massive super-Predator start messing everything up for everyone.

There is a lot that I liked about The Predator. Shane Black has always been able to make epic movies seem small. Nearly the entire movie takes place in a small town with small-town set pieces displaying big-time action sequences. There's a battle at a middle school. There's a fight on a local baseball diamond. The "jungle" sequences happen just in the woods bordering the town. The small town vibe juxtaposing the large popcorn action sequences makes the movie have a different and unique feel to it that elevates the Predator franchise. The action sequences are pretty fun as well. Black knows what a Predator audience looks for. He knows the reason AvP was so bad is because of its PG-13 rating and the fact that when the Predator did anything violent, the camera would have to quickly cut away, leaving the audience longing for the blood and gore of the first movie. This one has it. Let me tell you. The kills are fun and gross and embody the real spirit of the Predator franchise (think: Carl Weathers' severed arm rolling down a grassy hill still firing its gun). Black doesn't hold back with the violence and it's probably the best action in a Predator movie since the first one.

There's also Shane Black's signature wit running throughout the film. Everything he writes is tongue-in-cheek and it makes the movie very funny. If it wasn't connected to an already established "serious" franchise, I'd want to market this movie as a sci-fi action comedy, because all three elements are equal within the film. The "loonies" together (especially Keegan-Michael Key spouting off-color jokes) work as the badasses and as the comic relief. It's nice to be able to have that kind of balance in a film so nothing feels overtly serious, but you know they're also not taking this movie as serious as some of the others have. There's a lot of fun to be had in the film. So, why didn't I love the movie? It's something I've been trying to figure out since I saw it. The movie is seriously missing... something. It's lacking a quality that's present in all of Black's films. It's lacking a quality that made the first movie so iconic its spawned a thousand sequels. And the only thing I can think of is it doesn't have that leading man quality to it.

Boyd Holbrook can't carry a movie. I'm sorry, but he can't. It was a mistake to make him the lead man because he just can't do it. I didn't really care about his character. I didn't really get any emotion behind his stoic alpha male facial expressions. I couldn't connect with him and therefore I didn't care about him. He's a fine actor. He was great as the villain in Logan, but he didn't and couldn't carry that movie either. Shane Black has a specific way of writing his characters and his dialogue. There's a certain tempo one must have in order to deliver the writing in the most charismatic and Shane Black-y way possible. And I'm telling you right now-- Boyd Holbrook will never have that. It's like Wes Anderson. He has a certain and specific style of writing dialogue and the way he wants his characters to speak, in a certain rhythm. He has a keen ear for actors who fit in well with his movies. And there are a ton of actors who would NEVER fit in with a Wes Anderson movie. Shane Black usually has these larger-than-life, full of personality and charm leading men who are able to aptly translate Black's style to the screen. Robert Downey Jr. did it perfectly in both Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Iron Man 3. Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe nailed it in The Nice Guys. Val Kilmer (Kiss Kiss), Mel Gibson (Lethal Weapon), Samuel L. Jackson (The Long Kiss Goodnight), hell even Arnold was able to do it in Last Action Hero. But no one in this movie really nails it and the movie just feels... off. It's lacking that charismatic figure that really drives a Shane Black film.

But there were some standout performances. Olivia Munn was actually really great in the film. I don't usually find her very compelling acting-wise, but she nailed it here. Jacob Tremblay was also as good as he's always been. Key brings his usual joyfulness to a film and gives us plenty of laughs with his one-liners. It's awesome to see Tom Jane once again on the big screen. And Sterling K. Brown will never be able to do any wrong. So, there were the component parts to the film that SHOULD'VE made it equal to the first film, but without that one guy or girl to fully drive the film with full force, the movie leaves one desiring something more. The Predator is certainly not as bad as some of the reviews surrounding it are saying it is. There is something in this film for any sci-fi lover or Predator fanboy. But keep the expectations lower than usual. If you go in low, it'll satisfy you. I'm pretty sure I went in with my expectations a little bit too high. And for that, I felt just a little let down. Just go have fun watching a man in an alien suit gut different human beings in several creative and highly hilarious ways.

C+

The Nun: A Hollywood Cash Grab At Its Worst

There have been two... TWO... Conjuring movies. Yet, in the "Conjuring Universe" there exists five movies. This could only be possible in the 2010s. The Conjuring was a Hitchcock-ian ghost story that truly frightened audiences in a combination of old haunted-house story ways as well as new inventive scares by acclaimed horror director James Wan. From that spawned two spinoffs that were centralized entirely around a creepy doll that does absolutely nothing. For those who saw Annabelle, you understand how truly un-scary that film actually was. Then came the prequel to the prequel: Annabelle: Creation. This one was decent because an actual visionary horror director was attached, but it still didn't hold a candle to The Conjuring. Finally, a sequel to the original Conjuring film came out and it was even better and scarier than its predecessor. One of the reasons it was so terrifying was the presence of a demon Nun. This Nun hid behind an even creepier painting, emerging barely from the shadows and taunting our heroes until it finally emerges with full force at the end of the film. It was great. But Hollywood saw an opportunity for a cash grab with this Nun. If people were so scared of it once in the limited screen time it's given... they should be even MORE scared of it if we give it its own goddamn movie. So that's what they did. And in the right hands it could've been a decent movie. But when you lazily suggest giving a minor horror villain their own spinoff... more times than not... it's going to turn out just like The Nun... a festering turd sitting out in the September sun with its rotting smell wafting into theaters of movies that people creative tried to give a shit about.

So, pulling from my already cloudy memory from the showing I saw last night... The Nun is about, well, a couple of nuns. The first Nun we meet goes into a room in a castle that's covered with fog-machine fog. She takes a key on a beaded chain and is chased through the castle by an unseen force. She ties a rope around her neck and jumps out the window, hanging herself. The Vatican gets word of this and sends a Priest (Demián Bichir) and another Nun (Taissa Farmiga) to the castle to find out what happened. Taissa Nun hasn't taken her vows yet, and she used to have visions and shit when she was a kid... so that's why the actual Vatican gave their recommendation for her to accompany Priest (I know... it didn't make sense to me either). Priest and Nun go to the castle convent where some uppity dipshit French dude leads them there telling them the place is cursed. Once inside, the Nuns there are all weird and praying 24/7 and covering their faces and awkward. Turns out-- place IS cursed. There's a demon haunting the place who dresses like a Nun to "fit in" with everyone else and lurk outside of hallways and shit (yes, I realize this explanation now makes no sense as to why the demon Nun is even dressed like a Nun in The Conjuring 2). Shit hits the fan... a big confrontation happens... and the movie ends. Except you already know this is a prequel. And whatever they do isn't going to matter because the Nun survives to haunt people in England.

I think the reason that I'm being so hard on this film is that, one, it never should've been made. It has effectively ruined the terror behind the character in The Conjuring 2 by existing. And two, in the hands of someone capable, it actually had promise. The movie came from a story from James Wan, but everyone else who touched it bastardized what could've been a decently scary movie. Everything was right for it to go well-- there was a pretty good cast, there was a very creepy atmosphere, there was a story that when it made sense was actually interesting, there were several moments of impending terror... that all just never paid off. My fiance loves horror movies, especially in theaters. But she gets scared pretty easily. In the beginning of the film when anything seemed like it COULD have the potential to be scary, she'd clutch my arm tightly and hide her eyes, just enough that she could barely see the screen. After awhile, she realized that these moments never led to anything even resembling horror and I noticed my hand and arm went un-clutched for the rest of the film. And it's true. This spinoff based on a movie that actually utilized the demon Nun in a legitimately terrifying way, is almost entirely devoid of scares.

The thing that I took note of most with the film is the creators behind the movie never try to make it their own. They don't add their own little horror flair to the film or give us anything that we haven't already seen a hundred times before. A creaky floor isn't scary anymore unless you give us a reason to have the floor creak. A growling demon isn't scary because a growling sound effect has been overdone for years (seriously, why does every evil thing in this movie fucking growl the whole time?). What the creators did (poorly) was try to emulate James Wan. They tried to make a James Wan horror movie by copying things he's already done and producing something far inferior. Oh, did Want use a scene in a Conjuring film where all the crosses on the wall flip upside-down by themselves? Then let's do that in our film. Oh, did Wan use a scary ghost child who walks down hallways barely seen and giggling? Oh, well let's do that in our film. Every clichéd moment in The Nun is an inferior regurgitation of everything James Wan has already done successfully (and terrifyingly). Every moment of dread leads up to an unsatisfying payoff. When you finally see the demon Nun and realize all she does is growl and shriek, it loses the flavor that made it such a strong antagonist. When the creepy little ghost boy finally shows himself and he has a long, CGI'd snake tongue, it pulls the audience out of the impending fear they thought they'd be feeling and instead puts them in a place where they're rolling their eyes and the filmmakers have lost them.

While it never should've been a movie to begin with, The Nun did have promise. It's supported by a strong cast and some decent performances, but everything that tries to scare the audience is essentially non-existent. It's failed scares that aren't effective and jump scares to startle the audience back to attention. I will say this-- The Nun is better than Annabelle, however. While The Nun lazily executed a bunch of scenes trying to scare you in ways James Wan has alredy successfully scared you... at least it TRIED to scare you. Annabelle didn't even try.

Let's stop these damn horror movie spinoffs and let creators (like James Wan) come up with creepier characters that lesser filmmakers can't bastardize and turn into their own shitty solo films.

D

searching: The Gimmick Works Well ... For Now

When audiences get tired of all the "standard" movie fare, production companies start looking for something different. This is normally where the gimmicky movie comes into play. The Blair Witch Project was a gimmicky movie - that worked. It gave birth to Paranormal Activity and, in my opinion, that worked even better. However, the gimmick then launched the actual "found footage" genre. It didn't necessarily extend only to horror movies. All genres got into the game with films like District 9, Project X, Chronicle, Trollhunter, End of Watch, etc. Well, a few years ago, a new gimmick was introduced into the movie world - the "computer screen" movie. In Unfriended, a movie that  takes place entirely on the computer screens of different people, a high school student has been killed and comes back to haunt her remaining classmates through their technology. The movie is ONLY on computer screens and somehow manages to make it work and provide enough scares and story to keep the audience interested. And while there was an abysmal sequel (that didn't work), filmmakers have introduced another entry - searching. And just like Blair Witch was a precursor for Paranormal Activity, Unfriended made it possible for searching to improve upon and fine tune the genre. And while the gimmick of seeing only what's on a computer screen is great in this film... I do worry about the evolution of the genre if the gimmick finds a rise in popularity.

David Kim (Harold and Kumar's John Cho) is a widower to Margot. One night she goes missing without a trace. David, along with the lead Detective on the case, Rebecca Vick (Debra Messing), use all of the technology available to them to piece together the mystery and hopefully locate Margot. David searches all of her social media, contacting all of her online friends and discovering she's an outcast. Through email he discovers she's stopped going to her piano lessons. And through her online bank account (and Venmo) he learns she's been depositing her piano money into her account. Little by little David starts to understand that he didn't know his daughter at all... which complicates the mystery altogether.

Without giving anything away, searching is a very clever movie. Sometimes the gimmick is just that - a gimmick to put asses into seats (you know like movies that are converted to 3D just for the fuck of it and never needed it in the first place). However, searching uses the gimmick as a major piece of the plot. Even moments that seem innocuous - random clicking on websites, pictures, videos, sites that seem to lead nowhere - are integral to the mystery and to the plot. It's one of those movies you'll need to watch several times in order to pick up all of the hidden clues peppered throughout the entire movie. The other part of a gimmicky movie that seems to get in the way is explaining "unreal" situations. A lot of "found footage" movies come into question when the heroes are running for their lives as they're about to be killed - yet they never drop the camera. When you start thinking about moments like that, they tend to pull the audience out of the film and become less effective. searching has almost none of that. Due to our current technology, there's literally a plausible explanation for everything that happens on screen. I may have to question just how often people in the film overuse FaceTime for nearly every conversation, but that's the extent of the "problems" with the movie. Everything else is thoroughly thought out, logical, and sly enough to catch the audience from the get go.

I can't imagine how difficult it must've been for the writers to actually write a movie like this. How to keep up the suspense, yet never detract from the computer screen. And when I started to wonder how the next scene would even play out (based on how the story was moving), I was surprised by the answers the writers/director would provide. What's also impressive is that even in home videos, FaceTime conversations, brief on-screen interactions - we have a full cast of three dimensional characters. Margot is missing for the majority of the movie and by the time the film ends, we understand her as a character. We empathize for David, not just because he's missing a child, but because we saw his backstory. We saw the battle his wife had with cancer and the fallout with David and Margot. We get a window into his psyche, which again, because the film is totally on a computer screen, is no easy feat. I applaud the creators of the film for being able to craft a deeply moving, as well as thrilling, film. And there are thrills. Every time David stumbles upon a new clue, you as an audience member try to piece everything together yourself. I can tell you this-- the movie may actually outsmart you. I know it did for me. And on top of everything else that already impressed me with the movie - the conclusion was probably even more impressive. It wasn't just that I could think back on every single scene and see how it is, indeed, a clue for the ending, but how fooled I genuinely was with the ending. Normally, I would tell you not to go in there and try to figure it out yourself because you'll only let yourself down. However, this time I say go for it - because I just can't see how anyone will be able to piece together this taut, crafty mystery.

searching is just a fun movie to watch. You'll get wrapped up in the suspense, while also marveling at the way the story is being told. The cast is solid, especially John Cho, who should've been a Hollywood leading man a long, long time ago. He's able to steer the movie confidently and realistically and keep the audience engaged. It's nice to see an original thriller like this. It deserves all the money it makes - but what it shouldn't do is give the green light to several other inferior movies trying to copy its formula in order to cash in on the newest popular gimmick.

A-