Movie Reviews

Movie Review: Holiday movies, and moms, deserve better than ‘Oh. What. Fun.’

Published

3 months ago

December 2, 2025

Movie Review: Holiday movies, and moms, deserve better than ‘Oh. What. Fun.’

Michelle Pfeiffer plays a mom on the edge at Christmas time in the new movie “Oh. What. Fun.” If the sarcastic punctuation wasn’t enough of a tip off, Pfeiffer’s character Claire is not having the best time.

Claire’s grown kids (Felicity Jones, Chloë Grace Moretz, Dominic Sessa ) don’t appreciate her efforts. Her husband (Denis Leary) is supportive without being helpful. And she is operating as a one woman show, managing this precious time with her family and trying to keep it all cozy and happy and fun through constant, thankless labor (cooking, cleaning, wrapping, planning). She even looks fabulous on her many, many (too many?) garbage runs. But after one particularly cruel oversight from her family, she takes off from her suburban prison and doesn’t tell anyone. For once, she’s decided to go do something for herself.

Promising though it may seem, “Oh. What. Fun” is a movie that does very little with its setup and terrific cast (including the likes of Danielle Brooks, Joan Chen, Maude Apatow, Rose Abdoo and Eva Longoria in almost cameo-sized roles) opting instead for the most generic version of itself.

The movie, streaming Wednesday on Prime Video, begins with a kind of “low point” (for a beautiful, well-off, stay-at-home Texas mom, that is) in which she tells some children in a neighboring car at a gas station to be nicer to their exhausted mother in the front seat. “She’ll be dead someday,” she says calmly and seriously. She wishes the mother a Merry Christmas, gives the kids a piercing look and then we get the dreaded freeze-frame/record scratch and a voiceover about being entitled to a little outburst around the holidays and a half-hearted rant about how many holiday movies are about men. Already this movie is making this poor woman apologize.

“They need to make a movie about the true heroes of the holidays: Moms,” Claire says. Sure, yes, preach Claire, even if her exclusions are suspect and her examples need further review. I’m pretty sure “Home Alone” was at least a little bit about the mom, and that “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” doesn’t deserve the vitriol. Alas, noble intentions aside, “Oh. What. Fun.” probably wasn’t what she had in mind.

Director Michael Showalter co-wrote the script with the short story’s author, Chandler Baker and is committed to keeping the proceedings light and breezy (no cancer diagnoses here). But the effect is a movie that seems almost embarrassed to commit to its own silly premise, rushing through everything instead of letting us enjoy this cast. Everyone gets assigned one tidy problem or flaw and no one has any sort of lived-in familial chemistry with one another.

Channing (Jones) is the oldest and is married to Doug (Jason Schwartzman) who really wants her younger sister Taylor (Moretz) to think he’s cool although Taylor, a serial monogamist who always brings a new woman home for the holidays, is just mean to him. Sessa is the youngest: Underemployed and recently dumped. There are two grandchildren too, Channing and Doug’s twins, but they’re nonentities.

Claire wants one thing for Christmas: For her family to have submitted her to a contest to meet her favorite daytime talk show host, Zazzy Tims (Longoria). Of course no one got the hint. But her breaking point really comes when she realizes everyone has gone to an event that she planned without her. No one noticed she wasn’t in one of the cars. And so instead of driving herself to meet them, she decides to drive to Burbank and crash the Zazzy Tims show instead.

Showalter attempts to turn this road trip into a kind of “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” journey, even having her share a dingy motel room with Brooks, playing a suspiciously contented delivery driver (a little on the nose for an Amazon movie). But it barely commits to the bit and they soon go their separate ways instead of embarking on a buddy trip.

There must be a kind of director’s jail for such restrained use of a performer like Schwartzman (as Claire’s son-in-law), or using Chen as a one-joke “perfect” neighbor with her all-white and silver Christmas decorations.

In its own way, “Oh. What. Fun.” has also accidentally tapped into the cinematic zeitgeist. This is a year in which on screen mothers aren’t just on the edge – they’re in complete and total freefall. Jennifer Lawrence’s feral barking in “Die My Love,” Rose Byrne’s waking nightmare in “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” Jessie Buckley’s primal agony in “Hamnet.” Even Teyana Taylor’s postpartum apathy in “One Battle After Another” could fit.

Lighter versions are welcome too – there’s nothing like comedic release. But if the idea was to make something for the moms, “Oh. What. Fun.” is about as thoughtful as a hastily scribbled card on a piece of printer paper the morning of her birthday. We can all do better.

“Oh. What. Fun.” An Amazon MGM Studios release streaming Dec. 3 is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association. Running time: 106 minutes. Two stars out of four.

Related Topics:AP Entertainment Associated Press

Click to comment

Movie Reviews

Jeremy Schuetze’s ‘ANACORETA’ (2022) – Movie Review – PopHorror

Published

4 hours ago

March 4, 2026

Press Room

Jeremy Schuetze’s ‘ANACORETA’ (2022) – Movie Review – PopHorror

PopHorror had the chance to check out Anacoreta (2022) ahead of its streaming release! Does this meta-horror flick provide interesting story telling or is it a confusing mess.

Let’s have a look…

Synopsis

A group of friends heads to a secluded woodland cabin for a weekend getaway, planning to film an experimental horror movie. As the shoot progresses, the project begins to fall apart—until a real and terrifying presence emerges from the darkness.

Anacoreta is directed by Jeremy Schuetze. It was written by Jeremy Schuetze and Matt Visser. The film stars Antonia Thomas (Bagman 2024), Jesse Stanley (Raf 2019), Jeremy Schuetze (Jennifer’s Body 2009), and Matt Visser (A Lot Like Christmas 2021)

My Thoughts

Antonia Thomas delivered an outstanding performance as the female lead in Anacoreta. It was remarkable to watch her convey such a wide range of emotions with authenticity and depth. I was continually impressed by her ability to switch seamlessly between different dialects. I absolutely loved her delivery of the dialogue of telling The Scorpion and the Frog fable.

Anacoreta employs a distinctive, meta-horror style of storytelling. The narrative follows a group of friends creating a “scripted reality” horror film, and as the plot unfolds, the boundary between their staged production and their actual lives becomes increasingly blurred. This was interesting, but at the same time frustrating as a viewer.

Check out Anacoreta on Prime Video and let us know your thoughts!

Movie Reviews

‘Hoppers’ review: Pixar’s best original movie in years

Published

16 hours ago

March 3, 2026

Press Room

‘Hoppers’ review: Pixar’s best original movie in years

“So it’s like Avatar?” one character quips in Disney and Pixar’s “Hoppers,” bluntly translating the film’s high-concept premise for the sugar-fueled kids in the audience. And yes, the comparison is apt. The story follows a nature-obsessed teenage girl who manages to quite literally “hop” her consciousness into the body of a robotic beaver in order to spark an animal rebellion against a greedy mayor determined to bulldoze their forest for a freeway.

It’s a clever hook. The kind of big, elastic idea Pixar used to make look effortless. “Hoppers” does not reach the rarified air of “Up,” “Wall-E,” or “Inside Out,” but after a stretch of uneven originals like “Turning Red” and “Luca,” and outright misfires such as “Elemental” and “Elio,” this feels like a genuine course correction. The environmental messaging is clear without being preachy, the animals are irresistibly anthropomorphized, and the studio’s once-signature emotional sincerity is back in sturdy form.

Pixar can afford to gamble on originals when it has a guaranteed cash cow like this summer’s “Toy Story 5” waiting in the wings, but “Hoppers” earns its place in the catalogue. Director Daniel Chong crafts a warm, heartfelt film that occasionally strains under the weight of its own ambition, yet remains grounded by character and theme. Its meditation on conservation and animal displacement feels timely in a way that never tips into after-school-special territory.

We meet Mabel, voiced with bright conviction by Piper Curda, as a child liberating her classroom pets and returning them to the wild. Her moral compass is shaped by her grandmother, voiced by Karen Huie, who imparts wisdom about nature’s sanctity. True to both Pixar tradition and the broader Disney playbook, this beacon of guidance does not survive past the opening act. Loss, after all, is Pixar’s favorite inciting incident.

Years later, Mabel is still fighting the good fight, squaring off against the smarmy Mayor Jerry, voiced with slick menace by Jon Hamm. He plans to flatten the glade where Mabel and her grandmother once found solace. Mabel’s resistance feels noble but futile. The animals have already mysteriously vanished, the machinery is coming, and her last-ditch plan involves luring a beaver back to the abandoned forest in hopes of jumpstarting the ecosystem.

That’s when the film gleefully pivots into mad-scientist territory. At Beaverton University, Mabel discovers her professor, voiced by Kathy Najimy, has developed a device that can project human consciousness into synthetic animals. The process, dubbed “hopping,” allows Mabel to inhabit a robotic beaver and infiltrate the forest from within. It’s an inspired escalation that keeps the film buoyant even when the plotting grows predictable.

Her new posse includes King George, a lovably beaver voiced by Bobby Moynihan with distinct Bing Bong energy; a sharp-tongued bear voiced by Melissa Villaseñor; a regal bird king voiced by the late Isiah Whitlock Jr.; and a fish queen voiced by Ego Nwodim. As is often the case with Pixar, even in its lesser efforts, the world-building is meticulous. The animal hierarchy, complete with titles like “paw of the king,” is layered with jokes that play for kids while slyly winking at adults.

The plot ultimately follows a familiar template. Scrappy underdog rallies community. Corporate villain twirls metaphorical mustache. Emotional third-act sacrifice looms. At times, you can feel the machinery working a little too cleanly. Pixar, and Disney at large, has grown increasingly reliant on sequels and established IP, and “Hoppers” does not radically reinvent the wheel. In an animated landscape where films like “K-Pop: Demon Hunters,” “Across the Spider-Verse,” and “Goat” are pushing stylistic and narrative boundaries, being safe and sturdy may not always be enough.

And yet, there is something refreshing about a Pixar original that remembers how to tug at the heart without squeezing it dry. “Hoppers” is playful, peppered with cheeky needle drops, and builds to a sweet emotional catharsis that may or may not have left this critic a little misty-eyed. It feels earnest and engaged.

“Hoppers” may not be top-tier Pixar. But it is a welcome return to form, a reminder that the studio still knows how to marry big ideas with a bigger heart.

HOPPERS opens in theaters Friday, March 6th.

Movie Reviews

‘Hoppers’ review: Who can argue with hilarious talking animals?

Published

1 day ago

March 3, 2026

Press Room

‘Hoppers’ review: Who can argue with hilarious talking animals?

Just when you think Pixar’s petting-zoo cute new movie “Hoppers” is flagrantly ripping off James Cameron, the characters come clean.

movie review

HOPPERS

Running time: 105 minutes. Rated PG (action/peril, some scary images and mild language). In theaters March 6.

“You guys, this is like ‘Avatar’!,” squeals 19-year-old Mabel (Piper Curda), the studio’s rare college-age heroine.

Shoots back her nutty professor, Dr. Fairfax (Kathy Kajimy): “This is nothing like ‘Avatar!’”

Sorry, Doc, it definitely is. And that’s fine. Placing the smart sci-fi story atop an animated family film feels right for Pixar, which has long fused the technological, the fantastical and the natural into a warm signature blend. Also, come on, “Avatar” is “Dances With Wolves” via “E.T.”

What separates “Hoppers” from the pack of recent Pix flix, which have been wholesome as a church bake sale, is its comic irreverence.

Director Daniel Chong’s original movie is terribly funny, and often in an unfamiliar, warped way for the cerebral and mushy studio. For example, I’ve never witnessed so many speaking characters be killed off in a Pixar movie — and laughed heartily at their offings to boot.

What’s the parallel to Pandora? Mabel, a budding environmental activist, has stumbled on a secret laboratory where her kooky teachers can beam their minds into realistic robot animals in order to study them. They call the devices “hoppers.”

Bold and fiery Mabel — PETA, but palatable — sees an opportunity.

The mayor of Beaverton, Jerry (Jon Hamm), plans to destroy her beloved local pond that’s teeming with wildlife to build an expressway. And the only thing stopping the egomaniacal pol — a more upbeat version of President Business from “The Lego Movie” — is the water’s critters, who have all mysteriously disappeared.

So, Mabel avatars into beaver-bot, and sets off in search of the lost creatures to discover why they’ve left.

From there, the movie written by Jesse Andrews (“Luca”) toys with “Toy Story.” Here’s what mischief fuzzy mammals, birds, reptiles and insects get up to when humans aren’t snooping around. Dance aerobics, it turns out.

Per the usual, “Hoppers” goes deep inside their intricate society. The beasts have a formal political system of antagonistic “Game of Thrones”-like royal houses. The most menacing are the Insect Queen (Meryl Streep — I’d call her a chameleon, but she’s playing a bug), a staunch monarch butterfly and her conniving caterpillar kid (Dave Franco). They’re scheming for power.

Perfectly content with his station is Mabel’s new best furry friend King George (Bobby Moynihan), a gullible beaver who ascended to the throne unexpectedly. He happily enforces “pond rules,” such as, “When you gotta eat, eat.”

That means predators have free rein to nosh on prey, and everybody’s cool with it. Because of bone-dry deliveries, like exhausted office drones, the four-legged cast members are hilarious as they go about their Animal Planet activities.

No surprise — talking lizards, sharks, bears, geese and frogs are the real stars here. They far outshine Mabel, even when she dons beaver attire. Much like a 19-year-old in a job interview, she doesn’t leave much of an impression.

Yes, the teen has a heartfelt motivation: The embattled pond was her late grandma’s favorite place. Mabel promised her that she’d protect it.

But in personality she doesn’t rank as one of Pixar’s most engaging leads, perhaps because she’s past voting age. Mabel is nestled in a nebulous phase between teenage rebellion and adulthood that’s pretty blasé, even if a touch of tension comes from her hiding her Homo sapien identity from her new diminutive pals. When animated, kids make better adventurers, plain and simple.

“Hoppers” continues Pixar’s run of humble, charming originals (“Luca,” “Elio”) in between billion-dollar-grossing, idea-starved sequels (“Inside Out 2,” probably “Toy Story 5”). The Disney-owned studio’s days of irrepressible innovation and unmatched imagination are well behind it. No one’s awed by anything anymore. “Coco,” almost 10 years ago, was their last new property to wow on the scale of peak Pixar.

Look, the new movie is likable and has a brain, heart and ample laughs. That’s more than I can say for most family fare. “A Minecraft Movie” made me wanna hop right out of the theater.