Rental Family (2025)

AKA: レンタル・ファミリー

Brendan Fraser plays a struggling American actor working in Japan who signs up with a rental family agency, providing emotional surrogacy to a range of clients, including father to a little girl and companionship to an old man in the early stages of dementia. This is a profoundly, deeply lonely movie that hit me emotionally in all the right spots. I feel I'm doing a disservice to it in my nut.

4 lives before life out of 5

Airheads (1994)

Brendan Fraser, Steve Buscemi and Adam Sandler play three dopey members of a struggling rock band who hijack a local radio station in an attempt to get their demo tape played on the air. The situation escalates quickly from there as hostages and cops add to the chaos. It's a decent enough set-up, but my main issue is that not much happens in the 90 minute runtime and the stakes feel low. Despite strong performances from all involved, it's neither clever nor memorable beyond the premise, while the overall execution is lacking.

2 Beavis & Butt-Head cameos out of 5

The Whale (2022)

Darren Aronofsky brings us this masterful adaptation of the play of the same name. Charlie (an Oscar-winning performance by Brendan Fraser) is a morbidly obese 600-pound man who hides away from the world in his apartment with his on-again nurse. He teaches an online English course to students (with the webcam off) and binge eats at the cost of his own health and the relationship to his daughter. If you've ever been stuck in this vicious cycle of trauma, the material will speak volumes to you. This is an excruciatingly painful movie to endure, but essential to an empathetic understanding of human suffering. That being said, I never want to see it again. My poor heart can only take so much.

4½ honest words out of 5

Brothers (2024)

Peter Dinklage and Josh Brolin play Twins brothers who grow up together committing petty crime after their mom ditches them. When one of them ends up in the clink, the other goes straight, and they reunite after he makes a deal with one of the guards to be let out early, and must convince his brother to go on one last heist. Pretty conventional comedy that probably sounded a lot funnier on the page, but required more skill behind the camera to pull it off. There's far too much talent in the cast for this type of garbage. Features the final performance of M. Emmet Walsh, who deserved better than this.

1½ monkey handjobs out of 5

Monkeybone (2001)

An adult comedy about a soon to be super-successful cartoonist (Brendan Fraser) who has to contend with his animated creation for control of his own future. By 'adult' I mean that it's generally inappropriate for kids, not that it's mature or hard to follow. The titular Monkeybone is the 'zany' type of character that makes me twitch violently.
There's a lot of creativity on display in the designs and in how they're brought to life, including many different animation techniques that someone clearly put a lot of work into, but the actual film was probably more fun to make for all involved than it is for any discerning person to watch.

1½ nightmare tailwinds out of 5

Whole Lotta Sole (2012)

aka Stand Off (in North America)

Desperate Jimmy robs the local fish market because like all good cock-ups it seemed a good idea at the time. He’s robbing Peter to pay Paul, except Peter is Paul. The words ‘Shit Creek’ and ‘Paddle’ come to mind.
It’s a comedy of errors set in Belfast, Northern Ireland, that takes a siege scenario and works hard to make it both comedic and heartfelt.
It's an entertaining adventure, but I don’t think it’ll attract much of an audience outside of the UK and Éire. But, hey, stranger things have happened…usually involving pikeys.

2½ peelers in the chippy out of 5

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008)

Brendan Fraser returns. Rachel Weisz decided she wanted to go off and be a proper actress in proper films, judge for yourself if she succeeded or not, so the Evelyn character is played by someone new. Alex, the irritating kid, is grown up and is now an irritating young adult.
Just because you can make a trilogy doesn't mean you should.

1 are we done yet? out of 5

The Mummy Returns (2001)

The addition of an irritating eight-year-old kid makes the sequel less fun, which seems ironic considering my justifications for loving the first one. I may have enjoyed it more if I was his age? No. He’s just irritating. The story is similar to the first one, except for when it's all over the place. It feels like a series of set pieces stitched together with thin plot thread that could break at any time. The returning cast members do their best to keep it fun and interesting. The Rock makes a very small cameo.

2½ retreads in shifting sands out of 5

The Mummy (1999)

Rick O'Connell finds the fabled lost City of Hamunaptra and soon the sand and the shit hit the fan in Hollywood blockbuster fashion. I should hate this but I don’t. I love it. The casting is excellent. It’s a big dumb action/adventure film, the kind of thing you’d want on a Saturday morning as a kid. That’s its greatest charm; it makes me feel like a kid with no expectations to disappoint. I just drink it in like fizzy juice. The bubbles make me belch and I chuckle. I would love a frolic through the prop dept.

3½ pip pip, I'll score it how I like out of 5

LOONEY TUNES: BACK IN ACTION [2003]

Joe Dante's made a lot of entertaining popcorn flicks in his career. Some of them entertaining and some of them utter crap.
The live action/animated Looney Tunes: Back In Action falls somewhere in the middle. While it is significantly better than it's predecessor Space Jam, it doesn't quite live up to it's full potential. Aimed towards a younger audience the film makes no attempt to try to entertain adults or anyone with a brain. It'd rather keeps the father's attention with Jenna Elfman and Heather Locklear curiously dressed in short skirts, tight shirts and latex cat suits...for a kid's movie?
It's fun but not that great. Stick to Who Framed Roger Rabbit to see how it's done properly.

2 Matthew Lillard vs. Shaggy's out of 5