Lisa Frankenstein (2024)

Director: Zelda Williams

Cast: Kathryn Newton, Cole Sprouse, Liza Soberano, Carla Gugino

Have I Seen it Before: Nope.

Did I Like It: It’s always delightful to come across a film that is both charming and more often than not surprising.

Williams makes a directing debut that is self-assured and clear headed about precisely what movie she wants to present. One might have had a hard time imagining that John Hughes and early Tim Burton would blend together so smoothly, but one might also hope that Williams doesn’t limit herself to that aesthetic in the future. Based on some of her short work, she could truly be a versatile director for years to come.

I for one enjoyed both Juno (2008) and Jennifer’s Body (2009), but I could see the validity of some who would complain that Diablo Cody’s dialogue spends a lot of time trying to keep the audience at a distance, but I was struck by none of those qualities here. Characters still have some idiosyncrasies in their speech, but it doesn’t necessarily sound like the dialogue that got routinely satirized in the late 2000s. Maybe she was shamed out of her weaker impulses, but I’d like to think that she is just more comfortable and no longer needs to rely on the same bag of tricks.

Performances, too are uniformly great. I know Ross’ kid from Friends and one half of the kid from Big Daddy (1999) grew up somewhere along the line, but as someone who never regularly had the Disney channel and still doesn’t understand the appeal of Riverdale, I didn’t know the guy was actually good, managing to turn in an authentically silent performance (in a movie written by Diablo Cody, no less), while Newton manages to be both believable and likable (probably needed qualities in what ultimately amounts to a romantic comedy) while she is slowly descending into what amounts to a murder spree.

* Genuinely surprised to learn it was only Cole who did episodes of Friends. Learn something new every day.

Night at the Museum (2006)

Director: Shawn Levy

Cast: Ben Stiller, Carla Gugino, Dick Van Dyke, Robin Williams

Have I Seen it Before: Never. Which elicited a shocked response and an immediate vow to rectify from my wife… I didn’t know it was so important. I’m hesitant to admit—even if it may be implied—that I’ve never seen the sequels, either.

Did I Like It: It’s hard not to like a movie like this. It was very carefully orchestrated to be pleasing and unchallenging. 

The story all fits together, if unremarkably. It’s not astonishingly funny at any moment, but any kid who saw it way back when couldn’t have been judged too harshly for cackling at the antics on display. There’s even enough of a current of intellectual curiosity at the core of the movie—with the possible byproduct of encouraging kids to actually want to visit a museum. It wouldn’t appeal only to stupid kids, or make otherwise bright children any dumber. That’s more than we can expect from many films aimed at children.

Every actor is likable, and selected for the specific purpose of being imminently likable. Indeed, is there another performer in the history of the moving picture more able to elicit those sort of feelings than Dick Van Dyke? Even Robin Williams was in One Hour Photo, and for that matter, Popeye (1980). That’s kind of a strange miracle in a film which features Ricky Gervais, a performer whose built an entire career out of being iconically unlikable.

Is it wrong for a film to be bland in this fashion? I think not, it has modest goals and largely accomplishes them. It’s not subversive in the slightest, and while one may be implied to knock the film for not reaching for more, is it more a knock against a studio system no longer capable of making children’s fare that is at all subversive. Then again, across all criteria, I may very well be the unreasonable one for even wanting something like that.