‘Friend Request’ Movie Review

A new horror movie hitting theaters this weekend is ‘Friend Request‘ starring ‘Fear The Walking Dead‘ actor Alycia Debnam-Carey as college student Laura Woodson. Laura seemingly has it all: A perfect boyfriend, popularity, good grades, etc. As a result, she feels compelled to accept the friend request of a loner student with 0 friends, Marina Mills (played by Liesl Ahlers). But when Marina becomes obsessed with Laura and begins to cyberstalk her, Laura unfriends her causing Marina to take her own life on video for all to see and sets into motion a curse that will change Laura’s life forever.

The premise of the film is a good one: Take something like technology, that makes us feel safe in the face of ancient practices of witchcraft and scrying, and make that technology the very vehicle that spirals us deeper into the supernatural clutches of evil. After Marina takes her own life by setting herself on fire and hanging herself in front of her laptop, the video appears in Laura’s Facebook feed leading to many people commenting on how awful she is to post such a thing. After multiple unsuccessful attempts to remove the video and even delete her account, she is questioned by the police and the dean of the college. After Laura receives a posthumous message from Marina warning her “u will know how it feels to be lonely.”, one-by-one her real life friends begin to die horribly after mysteriously becoming online friends with the now deceased Marina. This leads Laura in a race against time to find a way to break the curse before everyone she cares about dies.

The first half of the movie does well and pulls you in immediately. The imagery used in both the Facebook rendering of Marina’s page and the jump scares throughout are what one would expect from a solid, modern-day horror film. Sadly, the second half of the movie begins to unravel quickly and the film almost seems to not know what to do with itself. By the movie’s climax, there are some rather large plot points that strain credulity and the actual finale lacks any significant punch at all and leaves one rolling one’s eyes instead of looking over one’s shoulder. I’m sure this movie will appeal to the teenage crowd who want to kick off the “scary movie season” with a mindless flick, but the seasoned movie goer and horror movie buff will find the overall film rather lacking in the face of several recent genre hits such as ‘It‘ and ‘Annabelle: Creation‘. If I were you, I’d save this one for a watch at home with no better option and save your movie theater money for something better. On a scale of 1 – 10, I’d have to sadly give ‘Friend Request’ a weak 4.5. Feel free to unfriend me if you disagree. 😉

‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle’ Movie Review

For those who may not have seen the original film, Kingsman is an independent British spy agency that works behind the scenes to protect the world. The idea is sort of a mashup of the slick espionage shows and movies like ‘The Avengers‘ and ‘James Bond‘. The first film even slyly poked fun at this notion much in the way the ‘Scream’ films poked fun at the horror movie genre. Sadly, ‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle‘, comes up a little short of the original. While still enjoyable, the plot strains the limits of one’s suspension of disbelief and isn’t quite as fun as the preceding entry. Opening with an assassination attempt of Eggsy (played again by Taron Egerton) by a rejected Kingsman applicant Charlie (a role reprised by Edward Holcroft), the movie delves breathlessly into action with a well-choreographed close-quarters fight scene and explosive car chase through the streets of London. It’s revealed that this assassination attempt wasn’t merely revenge but part of a plot to take out Kingsman as Charlie is seen to be working for illegal drug czar Poppy (played gleefully, but a bit over-the-top, by Julianne Moore). A country-wide missile strike ends up being Plan B and all of the Kingsman agents are wiped out except for Eggsy and Merlin (once again played by Mark Strong). The “Doomsday Protocol” is performed by Merlin leading the pair across the Atlantic to the state of Kentucky where they are introduced to their American cousins: The Statesman.

The group is headed by Champagne (Jeff Bridges) with tech whiz Ginger Ale (Halle Berry) and staffed by Agents Tequila (Channing Tatum) and Whiskey (Pedro Pascal). After clarification of who Eggsy and Merlin are, The Statesman agree to help The Kingsman find and eliminate Poppy and the threat of poisoning drug addicts by obtaining her cure before world leaders capitulate to her demands of legalizing all drugs and granting her and her organization total amnesty. The real wrinkle comes in when it is revealed that Eggsy’s mentor Harry (played once again by Colin Firth) is actually alive, amnesiac and living in the care of The Statesman. From there, the world-saving begins in earnest with everything from robotic dogs, exotic locations and Elton John. (You read that correctly.)

Even though the film clocks in at a lengthy 2 hours & 21 minutes, to its credit, the film never seems slow. I was a little disappointed by how sidelined the roles for Halle Berry and Channing Tatum were after how much they were both hyped in the previews. Jeff Bridges did a fine job of chewing the scenery and Julianne Moore as the villain was serviceable but her role lacked the charisma and punch that Samuel L. Jackson‘s villain has in the last film. This bit of criticism, from my standpoint, has less to do with her acting and more with the disconnected writing for her character. (I.E. The plot was wild but her motives and demands were mundane.) The standouts for me were Colin Firth, who tends to be superb in everything, and Marc Strong who gives, perhaps, the most real & grounded performance of the lot. It was also a delight seeing Elton John playing himself in a hilarious role as Poppy’s celebrity hostage / play thing who eventually gets his revenge in a deliciously fun and unmistakably Elton way.

So while this film carries the franchise forward, it also falls victim to “sequel syndrome” in not being able to completely recapture the elements and charm of the original. All of the actors do a fine job with what they are given, but some of the performances seem to suffer from being provided too little with which to work. Given the hype that the film has received and the anticipation of this sequel from fans who loved the first installment, I’d say that it will take the #1 Spot at the box office from ‘It‘ but will suffer a sharp decline for the second weekend. Based on all of this, I’d give the film a 6.5 out of 10.