CAPSULE MOVIE REVIEWS: 8-8-25
- Aug 9
- 16 min read
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My Film Critic pants are quite fetching; they are on, pressed, and ironed. I'm ready to review five new movies in this week's capsule (short) movie reviews for Friday, August 8th, 2025.
In 2003, Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan starred in Freaky Friday, a surprisingly smart and hilarious remake of the 1976 Disney original. It worked. And it worked really well.
Curtis, still underused at the time, brought her incredible comic timing to the table, and Lohan, right on the cusp of Mean Girls-level superstardom, matched her beat for beat.
It was a body-swap comedy that actually had wit, emotional weight, and charm, a rare combination in a genre that often falls flat.
Now, 22 years later, here comes Freakier Friday, a title that screams "sequel!" in the most obvious and uninspired way possible, and, unfortunately, the film mostly lives up to that uninspired title.
Set decades after the first film, Freakier Friday finds Anna (Lohan) all grown up with a teenage daughter, Harper (Julia Butters), and an upcoming marriage to British restaurateur Eric (Manny Jacinto), whose own daughter Lily (Sophia Hammons) is... let's say, difficult.
At Anna's bachelorette party, a run-in with a fortune teller (played hilariously by Vanessa Bayer) triggers another body-swap, but this time, it's a multi-generational mess: Anna switches with her daughter Harper, and Tess (Curtis) swaps with Lily. Shenanigans ensue.
It's a plot that stacks layers of body-swapping in an attempt to feel fresh, but it mostly just feels overcomplicated and, worse, tired. The jokes about being old in a young body or young in an old body have all been done before, ad nauseam, in movies like 13 Going on 30, 17 Again, Vice Versa, Like Father Like Son, and, of course, the original Freaky Friday entries. The movie seems content to recycle rather than reinvent.
Let's be clear: the script is the movie's biggest problem. Written by Jordan Weiss, it's a mess of clichés, limp gags, and emotional beats that never really land. That said, director Nisha Ganatra (Late Night, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Last Man on Earth) does everything in her power to elevate the material.
She directs the hell out of it, packing the screen with sharp visual jokes, clever background gags (listen to those school P.A. announcements... they're gold), and a sense of energy that keeps things from completely collapsing.
The first 15 minutes are actually kind of great. There's sharp social commentary on Gen Z, modern parenting, and the increasingly absurd expectations placed on schools to be all things to all students.
The satire is biting and genuinely funny, so much so that you start to hope the movie might actually pull it off. But then the plot kicks in. And it all kind of goes to hell.
Jamie Lee Curtis, fresh off her Oscar win for Everything Everywhere All At Once and her Emmy for The Bear, looks like she's having a blast. She gets to wear crazy outfits, make ridiculous faces, and throw herself into physical comedy. But even she can't save the material.
Lindsay Lohan, still loaded with charm, does her best, and it's really nice to see her back in a big studio movie after years of Netflix and Hallmark-level fare. She even gets a song near the end that's trying really hard to be Billie Eilish meets Barbie-esque pop. It's fine.
The younger cast is solid. Butters and Hammons are both game and do a decent job playing adults in teenage bodies. The problem is, again, the material. It's just not there.
Then there's the supporting cast, which is stacked with talent. Chloe Fineman pops up as a dance instructor and kills it. Elaine Hendrix is sharp as ever. Stephen Tobolowsky steals his scenes as a teacher. George Wallace announces a pickleball tournament. X Mayo as the school principal is hilarious.
And Vanessa Bayer, as Madame Jen, is a scene-stealer playing a psychic with at least six side hustles and 800 business cards. She's the best thing in the movie, and she's not in it enough.
What works:
The first 15 minutes. Sharp, satirical, genuinely funny.
Vanessa Bayer. Again: more, please.
Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan's chemistry. Still intact.
Nisha Ganatra's direction. She turns a bad script into something watchable.
The supporting cast. Too good for this movie.
What doesn't:
The script. Just... rough.
The jokes. Mostly tired.
The emotional arc. You just don't care enough.
Mark Harmon showing up, looking old, and doing nothing but delivering donuts.
Look, Freakier Friday isn't a disaster. But it's not good either. It's a subpar sequel buoyed by great comic performances, energetic direction, and a genuine desire, thanks to Jamie Lee Curtis, to give Lindsay Lohan a proper comeback. And you know what? I'm glad it exists.
Even if the movie doesn't work overall, it might put Lohan back in the spotlight where she belongs.
If you're a fan of the original or of any of the talented people involved, you might find a few laughs. But if you're looking for something fresh or emotionally resonant, this ain't it.
It's not freaky enough. It's not fresh enough. It's just... there. - ⭐️⭐️
So here comes Weapons, the follow-up to Zach Cregger's much-hyped Barbarian, a movie I found to be gimmicky, shallow, and not nearly as clever as it thought it was.
Now, Cregger's latest project has been described as his "horror epic," inspired by Magnolia, Rashomon, Robert Altman, and what seems to be a stack of rejected Stephen King first drafts.
And while Weapons is certainly more ambitious than Barbarian, and maybe even more technically competent in stretches, it's still a bloated, overstuffed mess that swings for the fences, whiffs, then sets the stadium on fire just to get a reaction.
The movie opens strong. One night, at exactly 2:17 a.m., seventeen children, all from the same elementary classroom, sprint out of their homes and vanish into the night.
Only one child, Alex, doesn't join them. The image of these kids running like they're being summoned, arms stretched out, George Harrison's "Beware of Darkness" playing, is striking, eerie, and deeply unsettling.
The setup screams this is going to mean something, right? It hints at school shootings, community trauma, collective grief, and the hypocrisy of a society that wants someone to blame but won't look in the mirror. And you think for a minute, okay, this is going to go somewhere.
But no. That promise gets flushed.
The movie is stacked with talent. Julia Garner plays Justine, the teacher who becomes the scapegoat for the town's trauma. Josh Brolin is Archer, a grieving father angry enough to burn the world down. Alden Ehrenreich plays Paul, the town cop with a drinking problem (because, of course, he does).
Amy Madigan goes completely off the rails as Alex's aunt, looking like she wandered in from a community theater production of Strangers with Candy.
There's also Benedict Wong, June Diane Raphael, and Austin Abrams as James, a drug-addicted squatter who might be the only person in the entire movie who understands the tone Cregger is trying, but failing to strike.
Everyone's doing the work. Brolin is deadly serious. Garner is balancing strength and vulnerability. Abrams is sly and sharp. But none of them are in the same movie. And that's the problem. Cregger doesn't know what kind of movie he's making.
Weapons is broken into character-centric chapters: "Justine," "Archer," "Paul," "James," "Marcus," and "Alex." The idea is that we revisit certain events from different points of view, slowly unraveling the mystery. And that could work… if it wasn't so jarringly inconsistent in tone.
One chapter is a psychological drama, the next is a satire, and by the time Amy Madigan's bug-eyed lunatic shows up, the whole thing spins into splatter comedy. It's like Hereditary crashing into Scary Movie and then doing karaoke with The Faculty.
There's this constant seesawing: one moment it's about grief and trauma, and the next it's playing for laughs, like a man falling off the wagon is a hilarious beat in a horror movie about missing children.
Cregger's tone management is a disaster. It's like he's afraid to go too dark, so he hides behind ironic detachment or ridiculous gore. It's horror with an escape hatch.
Then there's the ending. Loud. Bloody. Frenzied. Completely unearned.
There's a ton of gore. Severed limbs, screaming, big horror set pieces. And yes, some of it is a lot of fun to watch. There's a particular moment of full-on body annihilation that's gloriously excessive. But it doesn't feel like it belongs in the movie we started with.
All the emotional weight and sociopolitical subtext that Cregger pretends to build are completely gone. What we're left with is empty noise. The plot answers (such as they are) are nonsense, the mystery fizzles, and the chaos just becomes exhausting.
And let me be clear: I'm all for original horror. I'm constantly begging for more original ideas instead of endless sequels and reboots. And Weapons is definitely original.
But it's also pretentious, derivative, and hollow. It steals from better filmmakers like Altman, Kurosawa, PTA, Stephen King, Sam Raimi, and Edgar Wright, but fails to do any of it well.
Zach Cregger may fancy himself a horror auteur now, but Weapons proves he's still just a guy playing dress-up with other people's clothes. It's ambitious, sure. But ambition without control is chaos.
The tone is all over the place, the ideas are half-baked, and the ending is so bonkers that it undermines any serious message the film might have had.
There are a few bright spots: the cinematography is gorgeous, some of the performances are strong, and a couple of set pieces do work. But overall? This is yet another self-indulgent, empty spectacle from a director who still hasn't figured out how to tell a story or earn the reactions he's chasing.
So if you're here for originality, you'll get that. Just don't expect depth. Weapons is as deep as an ashtray and about as satisfying. - ⭐️⭐️
There are times when you watch a movie and can tell it's been sitting on a shelf for a reason. My Mother's Wedding, the feature directorial debut of acclaimed actress Kristin Scott Thomas, is precisely that kind of movie.
Titled initially North Star, the film premiered back in 2023 at the Toronto International Film Festival and then disappeared, until now.
After collecting dust for nearly two years, it's finally getting dumped into theaters under the dullest, most generic title possible: My Mother's Wedding. And honestly, the title matches the film, bland, uninspired, and a collection of clichés dressed up as something meaningful.
The setup is nothing new. Three adult sisters, Katherine (Scarlett Johansson), Victoria (Sienna Miller), and Georgina (Emily Beecham), return to their picturesque English family home to attend the third wedding of their twice-widowed mother, Diana (played by Scott Thomas herself).
Naturally, secrets bubble up, old wounds reopen, and emotional fireworks are meant to fly. Sound familiar? That's because it's been done a hundred times before. Rachel Getting Married, The Family Stone, August: Osage County, even Robert Altman's A Wedding, all of those films did it better.
Each sister has her designated archetype: Johansson's Katherine is a stern Royal Navy officer juggling commitment issues with her long-suffering partner (Freida Pinto); Beecham's Georgina is the quiet palliative nurse whose husband is cheating on her; and Miller's Victoria is a loud, flamboyant American movie star, totally removed from the modesty of her British family.
And if you think you can't see the plot twists coming from ten miles away, you're either asleep or haven't seen a movie in 30 years.
Scarlett Johansson is a fantastic actress. She has range. She has presence. She has depth. But none of that is on display here. Her British accent is unconvincing and wobbly, and she looks visibly uncomfortable trying to sell the stiff, overwrought dialogue she's been given.
Her entire performance feels like a favor done for a friend, because it probably was. This is the third time Johansson has played Scott Thomas's daughter (after The Horse Whisperer and The Other Boleyn Girl), and while those pairings worked, here it feels forced.
The biggest tonal misfire, though? The weird and completely unnecessary animated sequences. For reasons only Scott Thomas can explain, Katherine's memories are illustrated through sketchy, hand-drawn animation that's supposed to be whimsical or poetic, but instead comes off as irritating and totally out of place.
It's twee, awkward, and takes the viewer right out of the story. It's one of those baffling creative decisions that feels like someone saying, "Look! I'm directing! See how artistic I can be?"
To give credit where it's due, there are some flashes of potential. Sienna Miller, for one, is having a blast. Her character might be cartoonishly written, but at least she's alive onscreen.
There are also brief moments, very brief, when the film touches on something real, like the grief of losing multiple father figures, the complicated dynamics between adult daughters and their mother, and the question of when (or if) it's okay to move on after loss.
These are the personal elements drawn from Scott Thomas's real life (she lost both her father and stepfather in military service), and you can feel the film trying to mine genuine emotion from that. But the movie never earns those feelings. It just floats them out there and hopes the audience will do the heavy lifting.
As a director, Kristin Scott Thomas seems lost. The film is unevenly paced, over-rehearsed, and visually unremarkable. The cinematography is flat, the staging is awkward, and scenes often end with characters simply walking out of frame, as if even they're tired of the conversation.
There's no cinematic flair here, just people standing in rooms saying things you've heard a thousand times before. And the lack of emotional impact is shocking, considering the themes of death, memory, and family reconciliation that the movie is supposedly built around.
It all plays like a clunky TV movie from the early 2000s. You can practically hear the dramatic commercial break music cues that should follow every teary monologue.
So why is this movie finally seeing the light of day in August 2025? Simple: Scarlett Johansson is having a moment. She's riding high with critical acclaim, and her directorial debut with June Squibb is on the horizon.
The distributor, Vertical, is trying to sneak this one into theaters while her name still has heat, hoping some poor unsuspecting audience member will walk in thinking this is another chapter in her current hot streak. It's not.
My Mother's Wedding is a mess. It's well-meaning, sure, but so full of clichés, clunky dialogue, flat performances, and bizarre stylistic choices (seriously, those animated memories!) that it becomes unintentionally laughable.
There's a nugget of something real and personal in the story Scott Thomas is trying to tell, but it gets buried under a pile of tired tropes and misguided direction.
In a year already loaded with great films and fascinating debuts, this one feels like an afterthought. A forgettable, misguided family dramedy that will quietly disappear from theaters just as quickly as it arrived. And honestly? That's probably for the best. - ⭐️1/2
Stans isn't just a documentary about Eminem. Yes, he's front and center (it's his life, his words, his journey), and yes, it's produced by his own company. But Stans is really about something much bigger, more layered, more raw: it's about fandom.
Obsession. Devotion. Identification. That strange, complicated, very human need to latch onto an artist so tightly that their music becomes your mantra, their trauma mirrors your own, and their voice becomes the one that yells back at the world for you.
Stans is one of the best documentaries I've seen about what it actually means to be a fan. Period.
When Eminem dropped "Stan" in 2000, it was a turning point not just in his career, but in the cultural lexicon. It was dark, it was bold, it was genius, the story of an unstable fan whose devotion turns deadly.
And now, 25 years later, the term "stan" has made its way into the damn Oxford Dictionary. That's impact. That's staying power.
This documentary leans into that legacy. Structured around the song, the mythos, and the meaning of "Stan," director Steven Leckart creates a film that's as much about identity and emotional survival as it is about Eminem's rise.
The fans interviewed, and we meet quite a few, introduce themselves with the words "My name is…" (a clever nod to "The Real Slim Shady") before spilling their guts.
Some of them have been fans since 2001, like Assault, a Detroit-based ride-or-die who walks us through important landmarks in Eminem's history.
Some have tattooed his lyrics on their skin. Some credit him with saving their lives. All of them are captivating to watch.
We get archival footage, stylized recreations, personal interviews, and yes, Eminem himself, sitting down for an exclusive conversation. And while this is definitely a celebration of his work, it doesn't shy away from the mess.
His controversies, his darker chapters, the backlash, the addiction, the recovery, it's all touched on. And credit where credit's due: Eminem has never been afraid to admit when he's screwed up.
He's always owned his flaws, his anger, his missteps, and that level of self-awareness gives the doc a little more weight than your typical glossy star-approved biography.
The usual suspects show up: Dr. Dre, Jimmy Iovine, LL Cool J, Ed Sheeran, Adam Sandler (yes, Sandler), and other talking heads.
But unlike the parade of industry pats-on-the-back you see in some other music docs, these cameos feel earned. You feel the impact Marshall Mathers has had, not just in rap, but in pop culture at large.
And yes, we revisit 8 Mile, because you can't do a doc about Eminem without touching on 8 Mile. That Oscar win. That freestyle battle. That spaghetti. All there.
But again, the most powerful thing about Stans is its look at fandom. These people aren't just weirdos in their basements playing "Lose Yourself" on repeat. They're artists, survivors, single parents, people who've faced trauma and heartbreak, and found solace in Eminem's lyrics.
Some are eccentric. Some are inspiring. Some go a little far. But the doc never judges them. Instead, it lets them tell their stories.
And through those stories, we get a clearer picture of what it means to really connect with an artist. To see yourself in their struggles. To feel understood. To feel seen. That emotional resonance, and that's what Stans captures so effectively.
Look, this was produced by Eminem's company. Of course, it's got a bias. But it's not blind adoration. There's nuance here. There's honesty. There's depth. You can tell this was made by people who love him, but also know that love doesn't mean ignoring the truth.
Stans is more than just a documentary about Eminem. It's a mirror held up to all of us who've ever felt deeply connected to a piece of music, a lyric, a voice.
It's about how art heals. How it angers. How it elevates. It's about the space between artist and audience, and how that space gets obliterated in the digital age.
If you've ever really loved an artist, like, tattoo-their-lyrics-on-your-body loved, this film is going to hit you hard. And even if you're not an Eminem fan, you'll walk away with a deeper understanding of what it means to stan something. Or someone. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Here's a sentence I never thought I'd say with a straight face: Sketch, the new fantasy family adventure from Angel Studios (yes, that Angel Studios, the one best known for their sappy, overly saccharine, and overtly faith-based output) is one of the most surprising, imaginative, and downright enjoyable movies of the summer.
It's heartfelt, beautifully executed, and has more creativity per frame than most $200 million blockbusters released this year. And I never thought I'd say that.
The premise is wild and simple in the best way: A young girl named Amber (played with real heart and spark by Bianca Belle) has been pouring her grief over the death of her mother into a sketchbook, filling its pages with vibrant, strange, sometimes disturbing drawings.
Her father, Taylor (Tony Hale), and her older brother Jack (Kue Lawrence) are struggling in their own ways, but mostly avoiding any direct confrontation with their shared loss. The family dynamic is fractured.
One day, Amber's sketchbook falls into a mysterious magical pond, and boom, her grief-fueled monsters come to life in the form of crayon wax, chalk dust, and animated chaos that tears through the neighborhood.
Cue a wild, heartfelt adventure filled with chaos, catharsis, and giant pastel monsters that would make Harold and the Purple Crayon need a stiff drink.
Sketch is a film that lives and breathes on the strength of its imagination. The idea that drawings from a grieving child's sketchbook literally come to life and terrorize the town could have been silly, overly sentimental, or flat-out disastrous in the wrong hands.
But director Seth Worley (making his feature debut after expanding this from his short film Darker Colors) finds a balance between whimsy and weight.
The monsters are colorful, inventive, and totally unique. And while the budget here isn't massive, Worley and his team know how to stretch every penny.
These effects are mid-budget, sure, but they're creative, engaging, and most importantly, they feel like a kid actually imagined them. This isn't some studio-polished nonsense. These are the raw, scribbled horrors of a little girl in pain, and that authenticity goes a long way.
Tony Hale, who normally leans into buffoonery and comic awkwardness (Veep, Arrested Development), dials it back here and gives a quiet, soulful performance as a widowed dad trying desperately to hold his family together.
His character is lost, afraid, and way over his head, and Hale nails every beat. It's maybe the most grounded performance I've seen from him, and it works.
And then there's D'Arcy Carden, who plays Taylor's sister Liz. I've been a fan of Carden since The Good Place (Janet forever), and she continues to prove she can do anything. She's funny, sharp, and brings real emotional depth to what could've been a throwaway supporting role.
But the biggest revelation? Bianca Belle as Amber. This is the kind of performance you don't see often from young actors. She's funny, raw, and able to portray grief, confusion, and innocence in equal measure.
She carries the movie. Between her and Kue Lawrence (also great), Sketch becomes a movie less about monsters and more about the messy, beautiful chaos of being a family in pain.
There are clear nods here to Inside Out, Monster Squad, The Goonies, Batteries Not Included, and the entire Spielberg/Amblin factory of mid-'80s heart-meets-monsters adventures.
But while many recent movies have lazily tried to recreate that vibe (looking at you, Stranger Things, and those knockoffs), Sketch feels like it earns its place. It doesn't try to replicate the past; it updates the formula, makes it current, and grounds it in real emotion.
You'll even find yourself flashing back to Pixar more than once, and not just because of the emotional themes. This is a story about grief, imagination, healing, and how art (even crayon-smeared art) can serve as an "outbox" for feelings too big to say out loud.
It's sincere without being sappy, something Pixar usually nails, and this movie manages to capture in its own scrappy, offbeat way.
The movie's not perfect. Some of the dialogue feels a little clunky. There are a couple of scenes that lean too hard into cliché. And sure, you've seen variations of this "family in mourning chased by metaphors" thing before.
But when the movie soars, it really soars. There's a stunning bus sequence, flashes of horror, incredible creature design, and just an overall vibe that screams "we care."
It's also a movie that looks really good, thanks to some striking production design from Madison Braun and inventive cinematography. It may not have the budget of a Disney or Marvel flick, but it boasts the kind of low-budget ingenuity that we once celebrated in genre films.
I'm not gonna lie, when I saw the Angel Studios logo, I got nervous. Their output up until now hasn't exactly screamed "cool, edgy family fantasy film." But Sketch proves that even studios with mixed pasts can surprise you.
This is a movie that deserves its theatrical release. It's colorful, kinetic, imaginative, and more importantly, it has something to say.
So yeah, Sketch is a nice little standout. It's one of the most unexpectedly enjoyable films of the summer. And for a film about grief, loss, and monsters made out of sidewalk chalk… It's got more heart than most of the movies we've been force-fed this year.
It's not flawless, but it's honest, creative, and filled with love, for storytelling, for imagination, and for the weird, beautiful chaos that comes from being a family. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️
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