This Film is Not Yet Watchable – January 2025

You may be wondering why this month’s column is coming out so late, nine whole days into January. Well, there are three reasons. The first is that, right after Christmas, I got a stye in my left eye. Despite multiple attempts to pop and/or drain it, the thing got so big that my eye was basically swelled shut for a few days. It’s been healing steadily ever since, but it still forced a delay in making the “Worst Trailer” video. You’ll see when you watch it that it’s still there, but trust me it’s a whole lot better.

The second reason is that I live in Los Angeles, and currently, a good chunk of the city is ON FIRE! My roommates and I have been monitoring the paths of the various blazes and keeping our phones handy for emergency alerts in case we need to evacuate. So far everything’s okay. The nearest of the fires is about 5-10 miles north-northwest from me, and the notorious Santa Ana winds that have been swirling for the last two days have died down enough to give firefighters and emergency crews a chance to contain them. Naturally, this has resulted in a bit of nerves and anxiety as I’ve checked in on and with people, so something as frivolous as this monthly screed of shit-talk was definitely lowered on my list of priorities. Part of the reason I’m doing it now is because typing helps me relax.

Third, and strangest of all, is that this is the first week for new movies. I always endeavor to get the column out before the first weekend of the month, in case there’s a release I need to talk about right away. But for whatever reason, the weekend of January 3rd was left blank. My guess is that, given how much Oscar bait was crammed into December, the studios decided to take a week off from putting out anything new. Hell, tomorrow basically only has one new picture coming out, because so many prestige entries are using this coming weekend for their own wide releases after just doing the minimal qualifying run last month. I’m nowhere near certain as to why the release schedule is being done this way, but I’m happy for the grace period.

You can understand why. It’s January. It’s the studio dumping ground. The vast majority of output this month is going to suck balls. Out of 20 films coming out, only seven passed the basic smell test, meaning that essentially 2/3 of the movies available are pure garbage. I said last month that I may have to rethink my criteria, especially when it comes to streaming content, but honestly, there’s not that much this time around, and two of them – Star Trek: Section 31 on Paramount and Back in Action on Netflix – not only are among the few that look good, but the former almost got my endorsement as this month’s “Redemption Reel.” So it’s too early to tell. We’ll see how February looks, as well as March, as the Oscar Blitz is also likely to skew the release models.

Still, that’s a conversation for Future Bill. Today Bill has a whole bunch of doody to get through. Buckle up, buckaroos. This is the January 2025 edition of “This Film is Not Yet Watchable!”

Den of Thieves 2: Pantera – January 10

I’m sorry, was anyone asking for this? The first movie sucked ass (41% on Rotten Tomatoes), and it was hardly a blockbuster ($80 million at the box office against a $30 million budget). Sure it wasn’t a total disaster, but I’ve seen studios consider a film a failure if it falls short of $80 million on its opening weekend, forget about the total take.

So why are we doing this again? Are we really clamoring for another generic heist movie shoot ’em up? Was anyone truly jonesing for another outing with Gerard Butler, who still has yet to make a decent movie outside of 300 and the How to Train Your Dragon series? Did we need to pair him up with someone else rap-adjacent (50 Cent last time, O’Shea Jackson Jr. this time)? What purpose could this movie possibly serve? If you want cheap action and gunplay, you can easily find hundreds of options, most of them likely better, just by randomly picking out something on Netflix. This is the only new flick coming out this weekend, and I can understand the desire for a palate cleanser from Awards Season fare, but this is the only option? How?

Also, automatic failure for the subtitle. How dare you take Dimebag Darrell’s name in vain!

One of Them Days – January 17

Oh look, another comedy trying to be Friday that just ain’t Friday, and instead just looks like you’re playing every black stereotype for everything they’re worth. It’s written by Syreeta Singleton, who wrote for the brilliant Insecure, so there’s a chance that it’ll be funny. I’ll cross my fingers. I mean, it’s got Katt Williams, so it can’t be all bad… right?

Wait, we just did another joke about black people having bad credit. Never mind.

Alarum – January 17

You will never convince me that this movie isn’t actually called Alarm, and that Lionsgate changed it because of the way Sylvester Stallone slurs the word. NEVER!

Wish You Were Here – January 17

Do I really need to explain why this is awful? Do I honestly need to go into the lame love story between the girl from the Orphan movies and live action Aladdin that of course involves cancer, because we just can’t have romance without contrived obstacles? Do I have to go through all the rich white people bullshit that comes with all of these middle-aged diddle book adaptations? Or can I just leave it at the text slate that Lionsgate themselves put on the screen midway through?

“From director Julia Stiles”

I mean, that sums up the whole thing, right? The washed up star of Save the Last Dance, whose entire career is 95% teenage romance bullshit, is now directing a movie that is 95% teenage romance bullshit. Who in their right mind greenlit this?

Marked Men: Rule & Shaw – January 23

From a title like this, you’d probably expect an action movie, maybe a spy thriller. Hell, since there’s a Shaw, maybe it ties into the Fast & Furious franchise, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Nope, it’s a “hot people fuck” movie about two roommates who totally aren’t compatible and would never hook up with each other discovering that they, like, are totally into each other. See, he’s a shallow tattoo artist, and she’s a bookish coed who yearns for a bad boy. Instant classic. And seriously, why are we including the characters’ last names in the title? They have no relevance to anything.

Kill everyone involved with a non-sanitized ink stencil.

Flight Risk – January 24

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Mark Wahlberg! In a bald cap! And Mel Gibson’s directing!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I mean, how is this even possible? How does a U.S. Marshal not vet their transportation? How is a flight over snowy mountains the only option? Why would she tell the pilot about Topher Grace’s circumstances? None of this is relevant if she’s doing her job properly. Then again, this is Mel Gibson, so we should just be thankful that Michelle Dockery’s character isn’t named Officer Sugartits.

Presence – January 24

This is billed as some kind of next-level evolution in haunted house storytelling, with Steven Soderbergh at the helm. Sorry, but I’m just not seeing anything here to indicate something groundbreaking. Maybe it’s all in the stuff that didn’t make this cut, but from what I see, this looks pretty standard. Moody lighting, static cinematography that only moves or zooms when it wants to elicit a jump scare, stuff shaking, violin stings, it all looks formulaic as hell to me.

Further, there’s one major red flag, and that’s the fact that this was written by David Koepp. He’s one of the most prolific screenwriters in Hollywood, but the vast majority of his output is mindless schlock. He has more Razzie nominations than nods or wins from any other major outlet, and really, his only true success was Jurassic Park. Even that got ruined by his awful script for The Lost World, but at least he leaned in somewhat by creating the scene where he himself gets eaten by the T-Rex in San Diego. He’s also writing the new Jurassic World reboot for later this year, so clearly he can’t get away from the franchise, and the franchise refuses to die.

Apart from that, his list of credits is dire. He wrote the first Spider-Man movie, but the script was by far the weakest part, and thankfully Sam Raimi was able to save it. Then there’s the first Mission: Impossible movie, which sucked. He penned both latter-day Indiana Jones movies (Dial of Destiny and the sin against God that was Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), the awful 2005 War of the Worlds remake, Angels & Demons, the Tom Cruise Mummy, Kimi, Secret Window, and fucking Mortdecai just to name a few. This guy only has a career because Steven Spielberg really seems to like him, and every time I see his name in the credits, I shudder.

Maybe all the pull quotes from the movie’s festival run are accurate, and this is a game-changer akin to EEAAO. Suffice to say, considering the source, I have my doubts.

Inheritance – January 24

“Like a spy?” asks Phoebe Dynevor when her father (Rhys Ifans), proposes they work together after she discovers his true profession.

“That’s a big word,” he replies.

No it isn’t! It’s three letters. It’s literally one of the smallest words possible.

This is but a sampling of the parade of dumb that Inheritance appears to be. More importantly, the line deliveries across the board are so stilted and robotic that you almost wonder if all the actors were replaced by AI. This is a purely generic spy thriller that offers no intrigue, no suspense, and clearly none of the performers gave a damn. So why should we?

Into the Deep – January 24

I was willing to let this go, as it’s an extremely limited release put out by Saban, which mostly deals in low budget stuff and Kevin Smith movies these days. But then I saw the trailer, and I couldn’t stop laughing. So no, it doesn’t get to shuffle off into the background.

It would be bad enough if this was just a shark movie, but it’s so much worse. It’s a shark movie where a bunch of hotties go diving for treasure because they’re hot thrillseekers, then the shark shows up and starts eating them, THEN some pirates show up and make them dive with the shark some more, SO THEY CAN GET A SUNKEN DRUG SHIPMENT! Oh, and the lead girl studies sharks because a shark ate her dad! Of course!

But best of all, even dumber than anything else I’ve seen so far, is that Richard Dreyfuss is in this movie. I shit you not. Nearly 50 years after Jaws, Richard Dreyfuss is showing up to lend a B-movie shark feeding frenzy some forced pathos and attempted credibility. Oh my God! I get the feeling this will be the premier so-bad-it’s-good movie this year. Honestly the shittiest part from a filmmaking perspective is the fact that the trailer shows about half a dozen kills, which can only spoil the fun.

You’re Cordially Invited – January 30

You know how I have a running gag in this column where I tell a certain actor or filmmaker that they’re better than this? Well, You’re Cordially Invited is this month’s callback, this time for both Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon.

In a premise lifted straight from sitcoms as far back as the 1950s, this movie sees Ferrell as a father to, and Witherspoon as a sister to, two separate women who are about to get married, and OH MY GOD, they booked the same venue on the same day. Isn’t that just wacky how no one (not even Jack McBrayer, apparently) did their job?

The rest of this farce is the two wedding parties trying to out-asshole each other to sabotage the respective ceremonies. I mean, it’s not like they could just be decent humans, have both weddings, and laugh at the mix-up while suing the pants off the venue to get their money back, right? No, we all have to be terrible people, so that the brides – you know, the people who the day is supposed to be for – can feel depressed, unloved, and like their whole lives have been ruined. COMEDY!

Seriously, guys, you’re better than this.

Love Me – January 31

No. No I won’t. NEXT!

Oh, you want more. Well, for some reason we’re making yet another pro-AI movie, only this time it’s a satellite falling in love with an ocean buoy (that has a computer inside it, I guess?), and they spend the whole time reenacting a romance novel, absorbing all the information until they proclaim themselves to be people.

Okay, but then I have to ask, why did you cast Kristen Stewart? If the goal is to convince us that a machine can be human, why’d you go with the most robotic, dead-behind-the-eyes actress in Hollywood? That’d be like saying, “I want to cast the baddest, toughest motherfucker alive for this kickass action movie,” and instead of someone like Samuel L. Jackson you earnestly go for DJ Qualls. You might as well have the robots create their own feet just so they can shoot themselves in them.

CAN WE MOVE ON, PLEASE?

Like Father Like Son – January 31

Hey, were you turned off by Inheritance and its premise of a dad revealing himself as a spy in order to recruit his own daughter? Well how about a movie where a murderer tries to convince his son that being a psychotic killer is hereditary, and the film somehow proves it out as true? Don’t you love learning?

Yeah, there’s a reason why Lionsgate appears on this month’s list five times. This is the shit they put out CONSTANTLY! Can someone please load up a cybertruck full of explosives and park it outside their offices or something?

***

Alright, that’s out of the way, now to hit bottom. It’s time for “The Worst Trailer in the World!” I know I bash Lionsgate a lot here, and deservedly so, but the top purveyors of shit are spared the final indignity this month. No, instead that dishonor goes to one of the other mass-produced dookie factories out there, Blumhouse.

Wolf Man – January 17

Can you believe this was originally supposed to be part of Universal’s “Dark Universe?” Yeah, the Tom Cruise Mummy cinematic universe (I can’t believe I’ve brought this horrible flick up twice tonight) that never happened because that first entry was so bad? Somehow, the other planned classic monster reboots didn’t all die, and this one got put out eight years later, because there is no God.

***

Finally, we end this month’s column as we always do, with the “Redemption Reel.” Horror movies that come out in January often aren’t great (see above). Usually the best we can hope for is a campy fun romp like M3GAN that’s more funny than scary. But every once in a while, something shows potential.

Companion – January 31

This is just so deliciously fucked up. I love the misdirect of pretending it’s a romantic movie by using “I Only Have Eyes for You” in the background and invoking The Notebook when mentioning the studio in onscreen text, only to flip it to a bunch of dangerous, violent imagery. Also, having just seen Sophie Thatcher in Heretic, I’m super pumped to see what she does next.

Even better though, is that the trailer is in and out in just over a minute. Yes, this is just the “teaser,” and there’s a more comprehensive full-length trailer online, but this is the one that’s been playing in theatres for the last month or so. Given that chain cinemas – especially AMC – basically hold their audiences captive for up to 30 minutes from the listed showtime before the movie actually starts, it’s almost a mitzvah for New Line to keep things blessedly brief so as not to give away all the tricks they have up their sleeve. I’m really excited for this.

***

That’s all for this month. Thank you all for your patience, and if you’re like me and constantly checking news updates in L.A., I pray you stay safe. Enjoy yourselves no matter what you see at the movies, and take care of each other.

Join the conversation in the comments below! Are you planning to see any of these films? Was I too hard on any of them? No seriously, how stupid is that bald cap? Let me know! And remember, you can follow me on Twitter (fuck “X”) as well as Bluesky, and subscribe to my YouTube channel for even more content, and check out the entire BTRP Media Network at btrpmedia.com!