My Own Little World

Blockers is surprising. I didn’t expect most of the things I got from this seemingly conventional comedy. It has a surprising amount of heart and great cast chemistry, though not between who you might think. This is a type of film that for me rarely rises above mediocre, but upon leaving the theater I was quite entertained. The thing that sold me throughout Blockers was the three girls. They aren’t the central characters, but every scene they are in stole the show. I don’t know whether it was the writing or the acting, but either way these girls had incredible chemistry on screen that made me believe every word of dialogue they said. Kathryn Newton, Geraldine Viswanathan, and Gideon Adlon do so much to ensure that I only see their characters on screen, and for actresses this young and this new to the game, that is quite an impressive feat. The rest of the cast is fine, but the lead adults can at times overstay their welcome. John Cena is the one that proves his worth ...

Spy films typically have very quick paces, moving from one set piece to another to progress the plot and eventually move towards a large twist or showdown. That’s not a problem with the genre, but it can allow characters to go undeveloped and their plot twists either too predictable or too spontaneous. When that happens, no matter how good the films can be otherwise, they feel shallow and too palatable. Shallow and palatable are not words I could use to describe Red Sparrow . This is the antithesis of a typical spy thriller, with its slow pace that focuses on the more deliberate parts of a spy’s work while also confronting Dominika’s (Jennifer Lawrence) harsh training and what it meant for her humanity. I really appreciated this actually; even though the film is long and does feel like it, it focuses a lot more time on elements of the story that might be short montages in a Bond or Bourne film. The biggest beneficiary of this slow, deliberate pace is the character developme...