Jake's Cinema Room

2023 | PG | 106 mins | Directed by McG Plot:  When a chance encounter with an astrological reader causes the Walkers to wake up to a full body switch, can they unite to land a promotion, college interview, record deal, and soccer tryout?

  2023. PG. 90 mins. Directed by Phil Traill In 1997, Nickelodeon decided to try out a sketch from their hit TV show, All That , as a full-length movie. While Good Burger didn't make much noise at the box office it has gone on to become a cult classic among kids that were born in the 90's. Now, 26 years later, Paramount brings back Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell as their lovable characters Dexter and Ed as they set off on a new adventure in Good Burger 2 . Does this sequel live up to the mildly funny comedy from the 90's or did they wait too long to put a sequel together? This is a case of a little bit of both. The issue with so many of the recent sequels, remakes, reboots and requels is that the filmmakers are having to cater to two different audiences. On the one hand you want to have something for the people who grew up with the first movie, but you also want to have something to attract a new and younger audience to the product as well. Unfortunately, Good Burger 2 do...

  2023. PG-13. 105 mins. Directed by Nia DaCosta In 2019, Captain Marvel came on to the scene in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Her solo movie gave audiences her backstory and introduced the character to a new generation of fans. Since her solo movie Captain Marvel has made a few appearances in other projects. She had a brief but somewhat memorable outing in Avengers: Endgame, then showed up for cameos in both Shang-Chi and the finale of Ms. Marvel. Now, Captain Marvel is teaming up with Monica Rambeau and Ms. Marvel to take on a new villain in The Marvels. The Marvels follows Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) as she sets off on a new mission. While on her mission she ends up having her powers entangled with her old friend Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) and teenage fangirl Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani). Anytime any of the three use their powers they automatically switch places with one another and end up causing confusion not only to themselves but to everyone around them. Carol, Monica an...

2023. PG-13. 109 mins. Directed by Emma Tammi Video game movies continue to be an interesting subgenre. It is not an easy task turning a game into a movie and over the years it's been easy to see why. Outside of a couple movies there really aren't many most audiences would consider to be good. While the ambition is typically there, more often they tend to fall shy of the potential set forth by the game. Five Nights at Freddy's is the latest game to get the movie treatment and unfortunately it doesn't do much to improve the genre. Mike (Josh Hutcherson) is a down on his luck security guard who has recently been fired from his job. He is in need of finding something soon as he takes care of his younger sister Abby. Their aunt doesn't think Mike is a suitable guardian for Abby and wants to take custody of her. To keep this from happening and show that he can find a job he takes a night job at a local run down family entertainment spot called Freddy Fazbear's Pizza....

  2023. R. 80 mins. Directed by Ben & Jacob Burghart Head Count follows Kat, an escaped convict who has been kidnapped by an unknown person. While being held captive Kat finds his own revolver pointed at his head. As his captor tries to pull the trigger, each empty round clicks away and sparks Kat to remember what happened to each bullet. The pressure mounts as Kat must figure out how many rounds are left and try to devise a plan to escape. Directors Ben and Jacob Burghart have put together a tight neo-noir thriller that steps on the gas early and doesn't let up until the end. The story itself is highly engaging as we watch the character Kat try and navigate through many different situations ultimately landing himself in hot water almost every time. Josh Doke, along with the Burghart brothers, put forth a solid script that keeps you guessing and wondering what will happen next around every turn. Despite its short run time there are enough tense moments that will keep you glued ...

  2023. PG-13. 127 mins. Directed by Steven Caple Jr. Here we go again, it's another Transformers movie! This series has seen many ups and downs throughout the years. Age of Extinction and The Last Knight are certainly the downs while the first Transformers in the series as well as the excellent Bumblebee make up the highs of the series. Rise of the Beasts manages to be one of the better entries, however that isn't saying much as the of the series has mostly fallen flat.  Taking place in 1994, a new faction of Transformers called the Maximals, join forces with the Autobots to help save the world from a new foe. Along for the ride are Noah (Anthony Ramos) and Elena (Dominique Fishback), two humans that lend their hand to help save mankind. Story-wise this isn't too different than what we've seen in essentially every other Transformers movie. Basically, it's just, "we have to go stop the bad guy from getting the thing that they'll use to destroy the world,...

  2023. R. 97 mins. Directed by Tim Story Parodies can be a hard genre to make worthwhile. Sometimes it can be difficult to take something that a lot of people enjoy and poke fun at it, but also make it clever enough to make an impact. We usually see one or two a year and the ones that stand out are too few and far between. The horror genre seems to be the best genre to take a stab at (no pun intended) when it comes to trying to parody a genre. Movies like Cabin in the Woods as well as Tucker and Dale vs. Evil do a great job at taking the typical tropes from horror movies and making fun of them in a clever way. The Blackening is the latest release to try something new and put its own spin on many common stereotypes in horror movies. Director Tim Story and company attempt to poke fun at the stereotypes involving black characters in horror movies and it makes for what is easily one of the funniest movies of the year. The story follows seven black friends who plan a get together on Ju...

  2023. PG-13. 116 mins. Directed by Dexter Fletcher Ghosted follows Cole (Chris Evans) as he meets Sadie (Ana de Armas) and they have a great first date. Cole instantly falls in love with her and thinks that she could be the one. After their date together he keeps texting her to try and set something else up, but she doesn't respond for days. Thinking all hope is lost and that she doesn't want to see him again he remembers that he left his inhaler, which has a tracker on it, in her purse. That gives him the incentive to track her down in London only to find out that Sadie is a secret agent and the both of them get swept up in an international adventure to save the world.  This is the perfect example of a movie that, on paper, sounds like a good idea but is terribly executed and makes for a less than entertaining time. There is also the feeling of a studio taking two popular actors and putting them in the laziest constructed movie for a quick cash grab. No matter how you look ...

  2023. PG-13. Directed by Chris Robinson Shooting Stars tells the story of a young LeBron James as he and his childhood best friends become one of the best high school basketball teams of all time and change the dynamic of high school basketball for years to come. While not necessarily adding anything new to the genre, Director Chris Robinson is able to put together a competent sports movie that not only showcases the rise of one of the greatest athletes of all time but also shows the struggle and hard work put in by these young men to become a team that will go down in history as one of the best. This movie is based on the book of the same name written by LeBron James and Buzz Bissinger. Despite James being one of the writers of the book the movie does a good job at not just solely focusing on him and allowing time to be spent with the other boys in his group. The first half of movie focuses more on Dru (Caleb McLaughlin) and his family but still spends time with LeBron and their...

  2023. PG. 135 mins. Directed by Rob Marshall Over the last decade or so, Disney has been set on remaking most of their animated classics into live action movies. Outside of a few of them, most not only are nowhere near the quality of the original movies but also do nothing to capture that magic that audiences have enjoyed for many years. For me, the only live action remake that has surpassed the quality of the original is Jon Favreau's The Jungle Book from 2016. Despite mixed reactions to most of these remakes they continue to perform well at the box office so Disney continues making them. Now we have their live action version of The Little Mermaid, arguably one of their best animated movies. With a great cast and a competent director behind the camera this has all the right pieces to be one of the better live action remakes. If you're not familiar with the story of The Little Mermaid it follows Ariel (Halle Bailey), a young mermaid who longs to discover the world above sea. ...

  2023. PG-13. 141 mins. Directed by Louis Leterrier The Fast Saga continues with Fast X! Here we are at the tenth entry, eleventh if you count the spinoff, in the never-ending series about cars and driving them fast. If you're coming into a Fast & Furious movie you pretty much know what you're getting into. Dom and the family get involved in some kind of convoluted plot revolving around one enemy or a specific device and the cars go fast. Seems basic but that is how most of these movies tend to go. This time around they go toe to toe with the son of Hernan Reyes, the villain from Fast Five, Dante (Jason Momoa) as he is out to get revenge on Dom and the crew for the death of his father. This series has seen its ups and downs but there's one thing that always seems to stay consistent, insanely over the top action sequences that defy any bits of reality. There is no shortage of that here as we get a car pulling down two helicopters at the same time as well as a car drivin...

  2023. R. Directed by Calmatic Remakes are a dime a dozen nowadays as we seem to be getting more and more each year. The best one can hope for with a remake is that the new version improves upon the things that didn't work in the original and isn't just a shot for shot retelling of the story. White Men Can't Jump is a movie most people probably didn't have on their bingo card as a remake we would be getting in 2023 but here we are. Not to mention recruiting a rapper with no acting experience doesn't bode well for your new version of a character played by the great woody Harrelson. With all that being said, this remake of the beloved 90's movie actually holds its own well enough to make it one of the better remakes to come out recently. Sinqua Walls plays Kamal, a former NBA prospect whose career went south after getting arrested in high school. Now he's stuck playing pickup basketball games at his old gym. Enter in Jeremy, played by rapper Jack Harlow, a fo...

2023. PG-13. 150 mins. Directed by James Gunn When the Guardians of the Galaxy made their debut on the big screen in 2014 a lot of audiences were unfamiliar with the characters. Despite that the movie went on to be a huge success and spawned a sequel that went on to be extremely successful as well. We've now seen the Guardians in two Avengers movies, a Thor movie and they even had their own holiday special last year. Vol. 3 is the supposed finale to this team of Guardians and will be a send off for most of the characters. If this is the end for most of the characters they couldn't have went out on a higher note because this movie rules. This time around we follow the Guardians as they are in a time crunch to save one of their own. Rocket Raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper) becomes badly injured at the hands of a new foe Adam Warlock (Will Poulter). When the team tries to tend to his wounds they find out they can't as Rocket has a mechanism inside of him that won't allow ...

  2023. PG-13. 90 mins. Directed by Jeremy Garelick Murder Mystery hit Netflix back in 2019. At the time it garnered the biggest opening weekend for a new film to hit the streaming platform. It would also go on to become Adam Sandler’s most successful movie on the platform, so a sequel seemed to be inevitable. While not a hit with the critics Murder Mystery, I personally enjoyed it for the most part. It was better than it had any right to be and both Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston made for an entertaining pair. So how does the sequel stack up against the first movie? This sequel ends up being about the same as the first movie, although it’s a bit more underwhelming I would say. The set up here is basically the same however instead of a murder it’s a kidnapping. We follow Nick (Adam Sandler) and Audrey (Jennifer Aniston) as they try to track down who kidnapped one of their friends from during the night of his wedding. Despite the story not really working all that well I did find ...

  2023. R. 122 mins. Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett The Scream franchise has remained one of the most consistent series in the horror genre. Despite a couple of movies being a tad underwhelming there isn't a bad movie in the franchise. That continues with Scream VI which is the follow up to last year's Scream (2022). This time around we follow the survivors of the previous movie; Sam (Melissa Barrera), Tara (Jenna Ortega), Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Chad (Mason Gooding), as they move out to New York. While there, a new Ghostface begins to terrorize their college campus beginning a new string of murders. With the help of a couple legacy characters, Gale (Courtney Cox) and Kirby (Hayden Panettiere), the remaining kids do everything they can to stop Ghostface once and for all. Being a direct follow up to the previous movie, Scream VI takes everything that worked last time and manages to ramp things up but also do certain things just different enough to m...

  2023. R. 114 mins. Directed by Guy Ritchie Operation Fortune: Ruse de guerre is the latest movie from director Guy Ritchie. Keeping in line with the majority of his filmography this another action/thriller with a touch of comedy. This time around we follow Orson Fortune (Jason Statham) and his team (Aubrey Plaza, Cary Elwes and Bugzy Malone) as they try to recruit one of Hollywood's biggest movie stars, Danny Francesco (Josh Hartnett), to help them on an undercover mission. They are trying to stop the sale of a deadly new weapons technology run by billionaire Greg Simmonds (Hugh Grant) as the fate of the world is at stake. It is very clear that Guy Ritchie likes to stick to this genre of movies. Every once in a while he'll make a Swept Away or an Aladdin but he knows what he does best, make slick action movies with a nice dose of comedy. Operation Fortune walks a fine line between the action and comedy, while maybe relying a little too much on the comedy at times. As you'...

  2023. R. 117 mins. Directed by Kenya Barris It seems like every few years we get a new movie about two people falling in love from different backgrounds. When it's time to meet their family's chaos and comedy is supposed to ensue. You People is the latest attempt to try and reinvent this subgenre of romantic comedies. Unfortunately, despite its talented cast the movie doesn't do much to make itself memorable or set itself apart from other movies that are similar. This is a very straightforward movie in its setup. Jonah Hill stars as Ezra who ends up falling in love with Amira played by Lauren London. Before he can ask her to marry him, he wants to get the approval of her parents played by Eddie Murphy and Nia Long. Amira's parents aren't sure how to feel about their daughter getting married to a white man, but Ezra is determined to win them over. At the same time Amira is tempted to win over Ezra's parents played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus and David Duchovny. Both...

  2023. R. 107 mins. Directed by Jean-Francois Richet Gerard Butler has become one of the bigger action stars over the last 15+ years. From 300 to his Olympus Has Fallen series he's made a name for himself taking on the tough guy roles. While not all his movies are exactly quality hits Butler has managed to keep his roles consistent and he continues to keep getting them just about once a year now. Plane is the latest in his filmography and is arguably one of the best action movies in his career. Brodie Torrance (Gerard Butler) is an airline pilot who is piloting a commercial aircraft during a terrible storm. The aircraft only has a handful of passengers on board but Brodie it determined to do whatever he can to make it through the storm. When the plane loses all of it's power Brodie manages to land the plane on an unknown island with minor casualties. Once on the island the passengers find themselves in the middle of a war zone lead by a group of local rebels. The rebels end up...

  2023. PG-13. 95 mins. Directed by Michael Jacobs Maybe I Do follows Michelle (Emma Roberts) and Allen (Luke Bracey), they're in a relationship together and it seems like the next step is for them to get married. Michelle is sure she is ready for marriage while Allen doesn't know if he's ready yet, going as far as disrupting her from catching the bouquet at a friend's wedding. The two decide to finally get their parents together to meet for the first time. Turns out the parents already know one another well, which leads to some interesting opinions on the subject of marriage. The story here is adapted from a play written by Director/Writer Michael Jacobs, most known for creating Boy Meets World. This marks the directorial debut for Jacobs and he does a fine job adapting his play to the big screen. Adapting his own work certainly helps his case and despite some definite flaws it's clear Jacobs has a natural touch for working behind the camera. Having an extremely ta...

  2022. R. 107 mins. Directed by Mark Mylod The Menu follows Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) and Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy) as they travel to a remote island for the ultimate dining experience. Chef Slowik (Ralph Fiennes) has one of the best restaurants in the world and an experience at his place is like no other. Along with Tyler and Margot are ten other diners who can't wait to experience this fine dining establishment. A lavish menu has been prepared along with some shocking surprises as the night progresses. A good satire is usually hard to come by. Most of the time the tone either gets played too seriously and you miss out on the laughs, or they try way too hard to be humorous and it falls flat on its face. With The Menu, director Mark Mylod is able to walk the line between comedy and horror in fantastic fashion. While certain parts do get outlandish and over the top Mylod is able to reel in his cast and have them not only provide many laughs throughout but also play up the more serious ...