Meewella | Critic

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Tag: Laeta Kalogridis

QuickView: Another Simple Favor (2025)

“Why am I here?”

Stephanie Smothers

It is a fair question seven years after the martini-fuelled comedy/thriller A Simple Favor proved forgettable despite the chemistry between its leads. With Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick returning along with director Paul Feig, the only missing ingredient was a compelling reason to reunite the characters. Two hours later I am none the wiser, other than that these are presumably cheap to make. The sparse setup has Emily released from prison and crashing Stephanie’s book tour with an unexpected request that she join her wedding in Italy as the maid of honour. This provides a reasonably witty half hour of verbal sparring between the leads, if outshone by Henry Golding’s retorts as Emily’s vitriolic ex husband. As the script gives way to its mafia and familial intrigue, however, my engagement rapidly waned. Surprisingly, Another Simple Favor is a more grounded story than its predecessor, which is not to say it is any less far-fetched. Once again, there is nothing for the audience to solve, simply a series of revelations — not even twists since there is no misdirection — to observe. The chirpy voiceover from Stephanie’s mommy vlogging turned true crime podcast is now perfunctory rather than fresh, particularly when the conceit has been explored far more effectively in the intervening years by Only Murders in the Building. Gallingly, the film closes by teasing a continuation (“Yet Another Simple Favor”?) — low-cost sequels are perhaps the ideal fodder for “streaming content” and that, Stephanie, is really why you are here.

5/10

QuickView: Alita – Battle Angel (2019)

Alita - Battle Angel (2019)

“This is just a body. It’s not bad or good. That part’s up to you.”

Dr Dyson Ido

Alita is two thirds of a good origin story, spoiled by an unexpectedly truncated ending that provides no resolution. Despite the heavy CGI at play, Rodriguez’s direction keeps the majority of the film impressively grounded, and the action sequences in particular benefit greatly from characters that feel like they occupy physical space (e.g. a cyborg roller derby shot using the camera techniques used for NASCAR). Ending aside, the biggest flaw is an artistic choice that fails to pay off. Whilst virtually all of the cyborgs have human faces — even where attached to monstrous mechanical bodies — Alita’s is motion-captured CGI to mirror her manga origins and provide a slightly otherworldly appearance. The cartoonishly large eyes are expressive, but the overly smoothed skin and features fall heavily into the uncanny valley, undermining many of the films slower paced, emotional story beats. The fact that the effects work so well on the human-faced cyborgs only reinforces that this was a deliberation decision, if an unfortunate one.

6/10

"A film is a petrified fountain of thought."

(CC) BY-NC 2003-2025 Priyan Meewella

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