JoeMama's Movie Reviews

Juliet & Romeo Starring Clara Rugaard, Jamie Ward, Jason Isaacs, Rebel Wilson Directed by Timothy Scott Bogart Musicals are fantastic when they're done right. "Wicked," "The Greatest Showman," "La La Land," "The Sound of Music," "Fiddler on the Roof" and many more fall into this category - musicals that will and have withstood the test of time and provide some of the best songs set to film ever. Then there are the muddling musicals that come out every year - "Mean Girls," "Journey to Bethlehem," "Spirited" and "Dear Evan Hanson" exist in the zeitgeist but are either maligned for great reason or so bland they're forgettable. 2025 has delivered its first such musical with "Juliet & Romeo," a re-telling of the classic Shakespeare story set to pop music that tries to remake the wheel but ends up spinning in place. In Verona, a war has waged between the Montagues and the Capul...

Bring Her Back Starring Sally Hawkins, Billy Barratt, Sora Wong, Jonah Wren Phillips Directed by Danny Philippou & Michael Philippou Twin brothers Danny and Michael Philippou have made a name for themselves on YouTube as the duo RackaRacka, producing horror comedy content that've garnered them numerous awards. They expanded their reach to the big screen in 2023's "Talk to Me," and their talent for horror showed brightly, producing one of the most unnerving, scary, and even darkly comedic at times, movies of the year. Everyone was excited to see what they'd come up with next, and whether or not they'd be one-trick ponies. With "Bring Her Back," the twins prove once again that they're not a one-and-done, producing yet another knockout horror movie that will crawl under your skin due to four impeccable performances, practical effects that will freeze your blood, and a slow-burn story that escalates to unfathomable levels by the film's denoue...

Friendship Starring Tim Robinson, Paul Rudd, Kate Mara, Jack Dylan Grazer Directed by Andrew DeYoung There's an epidemic hitting America, and that's called the "male loneliness epidemic." It refers to the observation that men are disproportionately impacted by loneliness, as generally it's harder for men to find good friends as opposed to women. Men, typically, are focused on career, family, and economy and delve so much into their hobbies that they don't really take the time to make friends of the same gender. "Friendship" is a movie that focuses on that, but also shows what happens when you go completely overboard and find yourself unhealthily obsessed with a friend. Craig Waterman (Tim Robinson) is a man living in solitude - he works his typical 9-5, doesn't really interact with people, and has a strained marriage to his cancer-surviving wife Tami (Kate Mara) and an uneven relationship with his son Steven (Jack Dylan Grazer). Tami talks about ...

Lilo & Stitch Starring Maia Kealoha, Chris Sanders, Sydney Elizebeth Agudong, Zach Galifianakis Directed by Dean Fleisher Camp Back in the early 2000s Disney took some serious risks with its movies, and some didn't pay off as much as they wanted ("Atlantis: The Lost Empire," "Treasure Planet"), while others re-vitalized the company. One was "The Emperor's New Groove" which - to me - is still criminally underrated and one of my favorite Disney movies of the recent decades, and the other was "Lilo & Stitch" - a story taking place in Hawaii about two sisters who encounter an alien being that disguises itself as a dog and lives among them, and learning the meaning of "ohana." Even now, twenty-three years later, we all know what "ohana" means - ohana means family, and family means nobody is left behind or forgotten." The film earned over $270 million worldwide and Stitch became a Disney icon that still sells ma...

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning Starring Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg, Angela Bassett Directed by Christopher McQuarrie The "Mission: Impossible" film franchise managed to do something impossible: turn an iconic television series that ran from 1966-1973 into an almost thirty-year film franchise that's earned over $4.3 billion dollars between eight films. The movies center on Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt, an Impossible Missions Force agent who often goes rogue in search of powerful villains and even more powerful MacGuffins, but he always gets results - even though his own country has disavowed him. The movies are best known for showcasing Tom Cruise's insane stunt performances, as he's well-known for doing his own stunts. From motorcycling off a huge mountain cliff to attaching himself to a flying plane to scaling the Burj Khalifa, there's no dangerous stunt he won't partake in. Perhaps that's why "The Final Reckoning" is th...

Another Simple Favor Starring Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively, Henry Golding, Allison Janney Directed by Paul Feig A "frienemy" is someone who is friendly in appearance but harbors a fundamental dislike, rivalry, or negative feelings. It's basically being fake to maintain appearances, but deep down (and sometimes not-so-subtly) you truly resent the person everyone else thinks is your friend. Honestly I have no idea why you'd want to be a frienemy, because it just wastes time you could use doing something more non-defeating, but I digress. The true frienemies occur when one wrongs another, and none are more wrong than sending your friend to prison for murder - to which, being fair, she did commit - after she also tried to kill you. So five years after said person is rotting in prison, what does it feel like for the one on the outside to suddenly see her walking down the aisle to ask you for another simple favor? Five years after surviving a murder attempt by someone she th...