Praise Petey- Season 1

6.5/10

In Praise Petey, the new animated, adult comedy on Freeform and Hulu, New Yorker Petey (voiced by Schitt's Creek's Annie Murphy) inherits a cult and basically control over an entire small town from her late cult leader father (Barry/Office Space's Stephen Root) who she never knew.

The show gets a slow start, especially the first episode. At first all the town characters don't feel that engaging, they feel like a vague bunch of rural weirdos. The show takes it's time but by the half way point the show has gotten more of a voice for the characters and the episodes get funnier and more offbeat and creative. (Admittedly, one, especially if they or a loved one has been wronged by a cult, may have completely valid reasons to find this in poor taste. The show does downplay the actual awfulness and dangers of cults.)

Praise Petey does lean way too hard on the jokes about Petey being from New York. I mean, we get it; no need to hammer in the point. Also, not EVERY single episode needed to have Petey and anti-cult town member Bandit (John Cho) get into big fights that always end with will they/won't they chemistry. It becomes tiresome. That having been said, I acknowledge that as a male I may not be the target audience. This seems to be targeted at women and power to it; there are just not that many female adult animated comedies (I can only name Tuca and Bertie and Birdgirl off the top of my head).

Though Petey can get too self-absorbed in this show, all credit should be given to Murphy's performance giving her a fun, energetic urban millennial accent to the character. Petey's father's right hand woman, now Petey's right hand, Mae Mae (the Magnum P.I. reboot's Amy Hill) I initially couldn't get behind. She just felt randomly sinister, but as the show continued she became more fleshed out as someone kinda nutty try to fulfill a hole in their life. She isn't in many episodes, but Petey's friend Ella (the show's creator and former SNL writer Anna Drezen), who's kinda a goober, is always fun when they use her.

Though Cho does a great southern guy accent, the character of Bandit is frustrating. He mostly just complains about the cult, Petey being a cult leader, and how he'll stop the cult, but he rarely actually does anything about it. The whole bit gets old real fast.

I liked the character design: cartoonish but not too, too simplistic. There's an interesting use of color here.

Kinda recommended. I gave this the rating I did because I feel that would be the most accurate rating for a general audience. The show can be uneven, particularly in the first half. However, I still genuinely liked this and am looking forward to a second, and hopefully more fine-tuned, season. At least give it a shot, you may not like it, but I feel it's worth the risk.

Miracle Workers- Season 4 (Final), End Times

8/10

The final season of Miracle Workers on TBS takes place in the post-apocalypse. In it, heroic nomad Sid (played by Daniel Radcliffe) and warlord Freya (Geraldine Viswanathan) fall in love, get married, and decide to settle down in a town.

The show ends on a strong note. Given the more over-the-top nature of its setting the show tackles some of the craziest ideas it ever has. Really, the previous seasons have nothing on how inventive this season is. Plus, End Times has fun parodying every post-apocalyptic and dystopian movie it can.

Be forewarned that this season is a lot, lot darker and messed up than any of the previous ones. I mean props to the writers' ambitions, but this may not be for everyone.

I appreciate that this season has bucked the tired trend of having Viswanathan's and Radcliffe's characters falling in love over the course of the season. We've seen that all before. It's refreshing to see them already together and just working on themselves as a couple. 

Again, Radcliffe is such a comic gem in this show. He does a great job reacting to the insanity around him and continues to have excellent chemistry with Viswanathan and Steve Buscemi, this time playing Morris "The Junkman" Rubinstein, the town's richest man. Viswanathan arguably gets some of her best material in this. In all the previous seasons she's had to play the optimistic woman who wants more. Here she's someone who's achieved what she wants and honestly gets more to do than Radcliffe. Jon Bass, who's been one of the show's unsung foundations since the beginning and has always put in good work, plays Scraps, their human pet. Admittedly, I felt they went too far and weird with Scraps (and his story does get DARK), but one cannot knock Bass putting his all into the role. Though he gets more to do than last season, Karan Soni as a robot and Freya's best friend is still not given as much time to shine as the others.

I'd rank this as the second best season of the show. (Weird how the show got better as it continued. I found the first season to be the weakest.) A lot of the individual material is funnier than season three, but three felt more consistent overall. End Times does feel a little thrown together at times.

Recommended. Maybe too dark for some, but the show ends with a bang and not a whimper.

Nancy Drew- Season 4 (Final)

6.5/10

In this the final season of Nancy Drew, Nancy (played by Kennedy McMann) and company must deal with a new supernatural problem when a bunch of corpses are stolen from a graveyard.

I'll be honest: perhaps this is the best time for the show to end as it is definitely experiencing series fatigue. I kinda missed when the show was a combination of regular mysteries and the supernatural and now the writers feel the need to shove the supernatural into every orifice of this show's figurative body.  That having been said, I liked most of the individual episodes and their threats; solid entertainment.

However, it's the overarching stories where the show feels like it was losing steam. George (Elemental's Leah Lewis) gets a weird subplot about clerking for lawyers without going to law school yet, and Bess (Madison Jaizani) gets the worst of it in a storyline that runs completely on goofy character logic (vaguely similar to the poorly written awful rich people in the first two seasons). Nancy and Ace (Alex Saxon) have a tragic love storyline going on and it feels really obvious and is dragged out all season. Ryan Hudson (Riley Smith) on the other hand, yeah, I liked where the guy was taken this year. He's a great character but his personal life didn't have much trajectory last year and now he's given something to occupy his time. 

I will give the show this: it did a wonderful job of connecting multiple characters and plotlines naturally without feeling sloppy at all. Also given that the showrunners weren't notified that the show was canceled until only a handful of final episodes were left to shoot, the finale didn't feel messy or rushed.

They completely ditched the youth center this season, and I kinda missed it. Also, the set up they did last season where Nancy's career is going was basically thrown out the door and forgotten. The show now has it's FOURTH chief of police/primary law person in the form of Sherrif Lovett (The Astronaut Wives Club's Erin Cummings), a pointless role with poor dialogue. Also, couldn't stand the most prominent human antagonist who doesn't just have poor dialogue but truly awful ones. 

Acting's still great. Lewis, Jaizani, and Smith all still do a great job with their delivery. The writers have learned that McMann has more range and gave her more fun stuff to do.

Kinda recommended. Again, the individual stories are fun and when the show is entertaining, it's definitely entertaining. Just don't expect much from the main storylines this time around.

Strays

 

8/10

This is basically a movie where someone said to themselves, "What if we did an R-rated comedy version of The Incredible Journey?" In Strays, Reggie (voiced by Will Ferrell) is abandoned in the city by his awful owner Doug (played by SNL/Last Man on Earth's Will Forte). Reggie and some new dog friends decide to travel back to his home in order to get revenge on Doug.

If you're worried that the trailer may have used up all the A material, you'd be pleased to know that this isn't the case here. A ton of crazy and funny stuff that you couldn't predict goes on here. Not every joke lands, but they're quickly replaced by ones that do. I had tears in my eyes with the ending I was laughing so much.

Get that this is a hard R. Writer Dan Perrault (creator of American Vandal) takes full advantage of the fact that you can do adult content with dogs that is harder to do than with humans. I'm amazed at how clever he was with coming up jokes involving dog behavior and anatomy. But, this should also be a warning for some. This is a hard R. If you're not a fan of scatological humor or other gross stuff, this may not be for you. (There's one scene in particular I felt I didn't need to witness.)

Be aware that the jokes are clever, but the actual plot itself is rather predictable in where it's going.

As in Megamind, Will Ferrell does a fine job of being sympathetic and playing a character better than you'd expect considering his tendency to be a personality actor. The best performance in this is Jamie Foxx as the voice of Reggie's new friend Bug. He plays the completely cliched streetwise animal who befriends a domestic one, but he jumps into the role with both legs. 

Love the location scouting for the woods the dogs walk through; some very scenic areas.

Recommended. Maybe too raunchy for some, but for everyone else this is really funny.

Blue Beetle

6.5/10

In this new movie based on the DC comics character (which was originally supposed to be on HBO Max but new management felt it had a chance in the theaters), Jaime Reyes (Xolo Mariduena) is entrusted with a scarab that turns out to be a biomechanical suit that bonds with him transforming him into the superhero Blue Beetle. He's soon hunted by a corrupt corporation out to retrieve the scarab. 

This is one of those films with a weaker first half and a stronger second half. At the beginning, Reyes' family, which is a huge focus of the film, is just too silly and goofy for their own good. (In fairness, I'm a very, very white guy (I know who Glenn Yarborough and Garrison Keillor are). This is a Hispanic director and screenwriter and intricacies of Hispanic families and culture may be lost on me.) It is also frustrating that Jaime is way too naive and idealistic and his cynical sister Milagro (Hocus Pocus 2's Belissa Escobedo) is too self-destructive in her devil-may-care-decisions.

However, when the story starts getting serious and the humor is downgraded then I started liking the family. They felt like real characters and though there were still jokes, they no longer felt too cartoonish. The sentimental family bonding moments really work. Jaime's uncle Rudy (George Lopez) is the one who gets the most screentime and is definitely the VIP. He does get the best jokes but is also a great ride-or-die ally and the tech guy. Lopez gives the best performance I've seen (and isn't playing his usual type) and nails the more serious moments. He definitely has the best interactions with Jaime.

The movie has the problem that you sometimes find in shows and films these days in that it tries to look at a culture while also telling a superhero story and has difficulty balancing the two. The movie tries to cram as much demonstrations of racism and other struggles for Hispanics in America as it can before Jaime gets the suit. It feels inorganic and like the movie is talking down to you. (There are not one but two white people who don't care about getting Spanish names wrong.) Again, things improve in the second half; the messages are shown not told.

If you don't know, Jaime is the third Blue Beetle in the comics. If you're a fan of his predecessor Ted Kord (who may not mean anything to anyone unfamiliar with BB but trust me, he has a fan base. He was pretty prevalent during the 90's), you may like to know that the movie does honor the BB legacy.

The single worst part about this is the villain Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon). She's a one-dimensional evil/racist businesswoman/weapons manufacturer. Sarandon's trying her best but her dialogue is painful and she's impractically evil for the sake of evil. Her right hand Carapax (Mayans M.C.'s Raoul Max Trujillo), who actually does the fighting, is better. He's an effective physical threat, and I give Trujillo credit for nailing the character's body language. He can say a lot without speaking at all.

Jaime's suit has an artificial intelligence (voiced by singer/actress Becky G). She appears to have her own personality, but the movie makes it slow to figure this out at first. So much time is spent on the family and other human characters, the relationship between Jaime and his suit is lacking. She just speaks up when the plot needs it and no more.

The best part of this is the action and visuals. The action in the second half, especially the final battle are some of the best choreographed fight scenes I've seen in a superhero movie in a while. They don't break the mold but are really entertaining. 

I love the use of color in this. Everything looks so vibrant. The city the family lives near is a superb quasi-futuristic-looking accomplishment. 

Special effects really blend in well in this. I applaud director Angel Manuel Soto for making it look like the actors aren't even acting with CGI effects they can't see.

The movie does a surprising job of accurately replicating the Blue Beetle suit in live-action. It doesn't have a mouth hole, but they have the suit have a lower lip-like section at the bottom that moves as Jaime talks. I've never seen a movie do something like that ever before. It sounds goofy but manages to work.

Kinda recommended. The first half and Victoria Kord can be a slog to get through, but when the movie works it's really entertaining. I'm really impressed by the action and physical design in this. I do feel a little bad this isn't doing well at the box office. I kinda want to see Jaime and company in a sequel with a chance of correcting the flaws of this film. Also, again white guy here. If you're Hispanic, you may get a lot more out of seeing your culture represented.

Pretty Freekin Scary- Season 1

7/10

In this Disney Channel show, middle schooler Frankie Ripp (played by Eliana Sua who was Hobbs' daughter in Hobbs & Shaw) dies before she's supposed to. The Grim Reaper or GR (Murdoch Mysteries' Siobhan Murphy) sends her back with two Underworld employees, the ever cheerful Pretty (Kyan Samuels) and the dour Scary (Leah Mei Gold). (Are they dead or were they never human to begin with? No idea. The writers don't seem to worry so neither should you.)

So, this sort of your traditional Disney Channel live-action show. The jokes and story aren't high art, but they're suitable for a kids' s program and are good goofy fun. I kind of like the sheer suspension-of-disbelief everyone has with Frankie suddenly popping back up from the dead with two new "foreign exchange students." (That's, right she doesn't immediately come back the moment she died. I'm pretty sure it was implied she was buried and everybody is way too chill with it. The government isn't looking into it or anything.)

By "sort of your traditional Disney Channel live-action show," Pretty Freekin Scary should be given credit for being well-planned out. This has a full storyline going behind GR's motivations for sending Pretty and Scary. Sure, there are other Disney shows with ongoing stories, particularly the superhero ones, but most of those are told in bits and often don't last the whole season. Here, everything is heading towards a clear purpose.

Best part of this is Sua; her Frankie is just so darn congenial. There is also a main antagonist to this show, and I've got to say, the actor is having a blast with the roll.

Gold and Samuels, especially the latter, do a fine job but admittedly it feels like Frankie isn't given enough time with them to bond. The writers like to pair her up with her goth friend Nyx (Emma Shannon). The duo's personalities are also one-note in the first half, but they become more engaging as the show goes on.

Going back to Nyx, she's likable enough, but there is a problem with her existence, having a quasi-anti-societal goth and Scary, who's not a people person, and both of whom have dry wit feels a little redundant. (Although, the writers do push Nyx more toward being a traditional friend as the show goes on.) In all honesty, I thought the recurring character of Layla Mueller (Adora Sheikh), Frankie's former best friend interacted better with her than Nyx. Unfortunately, the writers soon get bored with her and she disappears. (In fairness, maybe they realized the large cast of kids was too much.)

Also not loving GR. Murphy is fine in the role but her hiding info. for no rational reason other than to drag out the mystery is frustrating. The fact that's she bossing Frankie around all the time does not make one adhere to her.

Recommended. Wouldn't say it's one of THE best live-action kids shows ever made, but it's definitely watchable. Kids should like the cast who are all game.

Snoopy Presents: One-of-a-Kind Marcie

6.5

In this special on Apple+, Marcie (voiced by Arianna McDonald) deals with her introvertedness getting in the way of her goals and responsibilities.

This special does a really heartfelt job of showing children it's okay to be introverted and how to deal with it. Charlie Brown's not in this much, but there is one scene where the special does a great job of reminding us that he's probably one of the most likable fictitious characters out there.

However, this didn't need to be 39 minutes long. There are too many scenes of Marcie having difficulty. Admittedly, this does nail her struggles but also beats the issue to death. Also, kids have short attention spans.

Like the previous Apple+ specials, this still feels like Peanuts diluted. The characters feel more two-dimensional. Peppermint Patty and Marcie have really been Flanderized, reduced to just "the sports one" and "the brainy one." Part of the original strip's success is that through Charlie Brown's insecurities it related with a lot of people. However, the rougher aspects of the original are gone.

Also like the previous specials, this looks great. The scribbly line look of the Peanuts kids feel really strip accurate. The bright colors are not faithful to the classic specials, but they are so colorful, I forgive them. The 2d-animation has never looked better for Peanuts like it's on a film budget.

Kinda recommended. Does deliver a great message for kids and does it well, but it's slow and a poor imitation of classic Peanuts.