The Monkey, Becoming Led Zeppelin And The Unbreakable Boy Are All Lousy Movies
It's February and movies are rarely very good this time of year. But, Becoming Led Zeppelin, The Monkey and The Unbreakable Boy are all especially lousy movies even for this time of year. Here are mini-reviews of each of these. I saw them so you don't have to.
After watching The Monkey, one thing was very clear: we can all stop pretending Osgood Perkins is a genius. The Final Destination movies are at least fun looks are the absurdity of mortality. The Monkey is a comedy that isn't funny and a horror film that is too stupid to be scary.
To his credit, Perkins knows how to set up a shot. His movies do have a unique look to them. But make no mistake: this is a huge fall from the quality of Longlegs (which was a movie I liked but didn't love). I can't recall too many other movies that tried this hard to be funny that falls this flat.
We are told at least a dozen times that it's fucked up that we all eventually die. There is a ton to say about how bizarre the concept of death truly is but this doesn't seem all that focused in anything beyond just saying that. It would much rather try painfully hard to be funny without making much sense at all.
I've seen some movies that were worse in the theater (not many, but some) but I don't know if I've been this disappointed. There are times when this is shockingly bad. There is was one character near the end that is played by Rohan Campbell that is so poorly acted, it seems like something out of a film student production.
The Monkey: D-
Led Zeppelin may have sung "Good times, bad times, you know I've had my share". You'd never know they had any bad times from this bland movie.
The is the first authorized documentary from the band. It also may be the most sanitized documentary from any band. Want to know how safe this is? We don't get a single interesting John Bonham story. One of the wildest men in rock history and all this tells us is he liked there other guys in the band a lot.
We are told about their first tour…but all you hear about is how much they missed their families. This was a band that had drugs play a major factor in their music and their time as a band. I don't believe the word "drug" is ever even mentioned.
Becoming Led Zeppelin also includes at least four full live performances spliced in between the talking heads. It all just felt so redundant…and I like Led Zeppelin! I don't need to see them perform Whole Lotta Love in poor quality. What I wanted was Robert Plant telling us about how he felt about Jimmy Page taking so much control of the band. Tell us anything interesting!
Because this ends with their concert on 1/9/1970, we don't get any break-up stories (which is usually the best part of any rock doc). Instead, we watch them become really successful and popular…THE END! Yawn.
Becoming Led Zeppelin: C-
The Unbreakable Boy is a bad movie. It's a shame because the premise could have been compelling. A movie about parents trying to deal with the challenges of raising an autistic child could be very interesting and relatable for a lot of folks.
Instead, this is schlocky and lazy filmmaking. It literally has an imaginary character on screen so the Dad (played by Zachary Levi in way over his head as an actor) has a way of saying how he is feeling. This also shoehorns religion in unnatural parts of the movie. It feels like the messaging is an obligation to someone (producers?). Oh, it's also a movie that spends more time on a school bully being kinda mean than a major character being institutionalized.
This was shot in late 2020 and sat on a shelf for over four years! Meghann Fahy (who has the misfortune of playing the Mom) must wish it was still sitting on that shelf. Since this was made, she was in The White Lotus and stars as the lead in the upcoming thriller Drop. Considering she plays someone here who is written to be almost impossible to like, I wouldn't blame her if she ran away from this coming out.
Hopefully one day, someone can make a movie that shows what these parents go through without imaginary adult characters and weird, alcoholic, unemployed Dad plot points. It's just too bad that the shelf this was sitting on for so long was also apparently unbreakable.
The Unbreakable Boy: D
2025 Movies
1)Presence
2)The Damned
3)One Of Them Days
4) Paddington In Peru
5)Valiant One
6)Heart Eyes
7)Flight Risk
8)Den Of Thieves 2
9)Dog Man
10)Companion
11)BECOMING LED ZEPPELIN
12)Captain America: Brave New World
13)Inheritance
14)THE UNBREAKABLE BOY
15)Brave The Dark
16)Wolf Man
17)THE MONKEY
18)Love Hurts