The Weekly Movie Rundown #2
Unicorns, Women in Yards, and Jason Statham Oh My!
Welcome to another Week of the Movie Rundown, like stated last week this time we have three new wide releases to discuss (and unfortunately none of them are great lol). The last post did fairly well and Im glad y’all enjoy this format! With that said lets start the roundup!
Death Of A Unicorn (2025)
Synopsis: A father and daughter accidentally hit and kill a unicorn while en route to a weekend retreat, where his billionaire boss seeks to exploit the creature’s miraculous curative properties.
Cast: Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega, Will Poulter, Richard E. Grant, Téa Leoni, Sunita Mani, Steve Park, Anthony Carrigan, Jessica Hynes
Director: Alex Scharfman
In the current film year of 2025, when doing an “Eat the Rich” type of film in today’s climate, you’ve really gotta bring a unique perspective or something that hasn’t been brought to the table when crafting one for it to stand out. Still, unfortunately, despite Death of a Unicorn's admittedly intriguing premise, it does virtually none of that sort. Probably the most shallow themes of this type of film are delved into here but this maybe wouldn’t be as much of a problem if the movie were funnier (it is a horror comedy and all) even the humor is incredibly stale here which is surprising considering the talent of this cast, Will Poulter is the only one able to get a laugh out of me in certain spurts. The film can only get so far with its wack premise before it feels like the premise is the only creative thing about it, it's pretty hollow emotionally, and even the bloody kills (in fairness some more than others) get old and grating after a bit, yes we know a unicorn using a horn to stab a person is by default pretty cool but not when you do it over and over again. If you’re more into the weaker affairs from A24 recently like Opus for instance you’ll probably like this fine enough but I feel this was severally lacking and tiresome only after a couple of minutes into the runtime.
1.5/5 Stars
The Woman In The Yard (2025)
Synopsis: A mysterious woman repeatedly appears in a family’s front yard, often delivering chilling warnings and unsettling messages, leaving them to question her identity, motives and the potential danger she might pose.
Cast: Danielle Deadwyler, Okwui Okpokwasili, Russell Hornsby, Peyton Jackson, Estella Kahiha
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
The Woman in the yard on the other hand despite not being great surprisingly had more pieces to work with. Yes, yes, at the end of the day the heart of the screenplay and themes here revolve around a metaphor of trauma (tell me if you’ve heard that one about a horror film before) but its genuinely elevated a decent amount by that fact that Jaume Collet-Serra knows what to do with his camera to make his film look visually up to snuff and at the very least above the likes of other recent Blumhouse releases such as Imaginary, Night Swim, or even this years Wolf Man. Unfortunately the film does falter in the screenplay department especially as the film begins to unravel more of its darker subject matter during the 3rd act and it feels like it gets lost in what it’s trying to convey. Unfortunate. Still Its one of the better “lift the review embargo at the very possible last minute.” Blumhouse releases and it can at least claim the reward for best film I saw in theaters this weekend but I have mixed feelings on it overall.
2.5/5 Stars
A Working Man (2025)
Synopsis: Levon Cade left behind a decorated military career in the black ops to live a simple life working construction. But when his boss’s daughter, who is like family to him, is taken by human traffickers, his search to bring her home uncovers a world of corruption far greater than he ever could have imagined.
Cast: Jason Statham, David Harbour, Michael Peña, Jason Flemyng, Arianna Rivas, Noemi Gonzalez
Director: David Ayer
Unfortunately, I would probably describe A Working Man as being the biggest disappointment of the new releases this week. Everyone knows the type of movie that Jason Statham resides in and I personally enjoy that type of movie very much a lot of the time. Last year’s Beekeeper which also had David Ayer as director was an utter blast and a nice little January surprise, so what happened?? Well, weirdly it just feels like everything was off track with this for whatever reason. There are way too many subplots happening here in the narrative and not really any of them are interesting enough to justify screen time being away from Statham, but even then things like even the action in this looked and felt worse than it did in The Beekeeper which is very odd. The thing is it's not even that I need that much out of this, I really like Statham films and the idea of him basically getting his own Taken movie is fun but this was excruciatingly dull until it leaned more into the absurdity of its action-filled 3rd act. Disappointing.
2/5 stars
Don’t worry about the weak weekend of new releases this week tho my friends, because next week there’s not going to be a roundup (there will be one the week after) because next week will be a full REVIEW of A Minecraft Movie which is sure to be a hit right? right??
