Movie Review: Blink Twice (2024)

Genre: Psychological Horror  

Director: Zoë Kravitz  
Starring: Naomi Ackie, Channing Tatum, Alia Shawkat, Geena Davis, Kyle MacLachlan, Christian Slater  
Running Time: 102 minutes  

Synopsis: Catering waitress Frida (Naomi Ackie) and her friend Jess (Alia Shawkat) work a function featuring celebrity technology tycoon Slater King (Channing Tatum). He was embroiled in controversy and took a break from public life, buying an island and getting help from a therapist (Kyle MacLachlan). Frida and Jess are star-struck by Slater and his entourage, and he invites them to a fun getaway. On the island they meet fellow guest and reality TV show star Sarah (Adria Arjona), but what starts as a dream luxurious vacation soon takes a dark turn.

What Works Well: This rich-white-men-are-bad journey to hell is not short on themes. The ripe buffet of topics includes probing a culture obsessed with empty apologies; the mechanisms of sophisticated sexual abuse; the gap between forgiving and forgetting; confronting childhood trauma; celebrity obsession leading none-too-bright women to dangerous adventures in search of drinks-and-drugs good times; and the power of sisterhood. 

What Does Not Work As Well: Poorly paced, frequently bathed in darkness, overly ambitious, and lacking in likeable characters, the plot meanders for too long before finding a purpose. With competing mind-altering substances getting in each other's way, the evil intentions are revealed in defanged minimal impact snippets, courage deserting the project when needed most. The final act defaults to B-movie bloody revenge beats, and given the subject matter, the clumsy attempts at humour are misplaced.

Key Quote:

Slater: Are you having a good time?

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The Movies Of Alia Shawkat

All movies starring Alia Shawkat and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Three Kings (1999)

Amreeka (2009)

The Runaways (2010)

Cedar Rapids (2011)

Ruby Sparks (2012)

Night Moves (2013)

Green Room (2015)

20th Century Women (2016)

Being The Ricardos (2021)

Blink Twice (2024)

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.
The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Prom Wars (2008)

Back in the early 1980's, a sub-genre of the teenage movie featured nerds and jocks one-upping each other for 90 minutes before the nerds inevitably triumphed and proved that smarts defeat brawn. This built-in bias is understandable since real-life nerds are much more likely than real-life jocks to become movie producers, directors and script-writers. 

Revenge of the Nerds (1984) and a host of sequels and imitators kept easily amused teens entertained and personified the era. Someone forgot to tell the makers of the Canadian production Prom Wars that this is 2008. Even the movie's tag-line "Love is a Battlefield", is stuck in decades past. 

Screenwriter Myles Hainsworth and Director Phil Price dust-off the concept of nerds facing off against jocks (mixed-up with preppies, in this case) from the nearby school, this time set against the framework of a half-baked competition to win the right to take the girls from yet another nearby school to the prom. 

A cast of relatively unknown young actors, lead by Ricky (Raviv) Ullman and Alia Shawkat, work hard to re-create ancient stereotypes and a positive impression that would hopefully lead to much better roles, to no avail. The usual assortment of characters is here: the really rich and snobby kid; the cool nerd; the girl-obsessed nerds; the pretty but snooty girl; and the less pretty but smarter girl; the strict headmistress; and the requisite black character. 

There is also a lame and unconvincing romance rattling around somewhere among all the heavily recycled ideas. If Prom Wars had been made twenty years ago, it would have been stale. In 2008, it positively reeks.