Children Adrift 

For a young girl who wishes to keep her current traditions, this holiday will end up with a surprise twist.

I write for a diversity-focused film review blog, so I’ll be honest: I really wanted to like Pretty Lethal. Starring Maddie Ziegler, Lana Condor, Iris Apatow, Avantika, and Millicent Simmonds, Amazon Prime’s new thriller seemed like it would be a girl power movie about dancers with a horror action twist. Sort of a Suspiria for teens. But with shallow and unlikeable characters, a confusing plot, an overreliance on violence, and cringey dialogue, any fun the movie started out with was quickly lost. What was left was a faint echo of greater horror movies about dancers made before. 

Tired of being cooped up in their cages, the critters escape the Australian zoo and try to find their way to the outback.

The film does not add anything to its own conversation or genre, and falls flat once it’s about to end and must declare some sort of conclusion.

At 2:17 a.m., every child in a third-grade class wakes up, leaves their home, and disappears into the darkness—except one. The next day, teacher Justine Gandy discovers that Alex Lily is the only student left, while the rest have vanished without a trace. Did Justine have something to do with it, or is a far more sinister force stalking the town, targeting not just children, but anyone in its path?

Adam McKay might have been more concerned with cramming cameos than he was in this story which is a bloated criticism of the rich and famous… delivered unto us by the rich and famous.