Playing with Fire

Kamurai

6/10

10/23/2020

Decent watch, probably won't watch again, and can only recommend for younger audiences. Nickelodeon has done some weird things, and putting together this cast is one of them. It's a great cast, but it's not really what I could consider a kid's movie cast. I don't think any kids would know Dennis Haysbert or Judy Greer, and I kind of hope they wouldn't know John Leguizamo, Keegan-Michael Key, or Brianna Hildebrand, but they might know John Cena if they know wrestling. There is a lot of things that happen in this movie with very little happening at the same time. It's actually a sweet (if ridiculous) concept, but for most of the movie there is very little weight to it other than laughing at the misfortune of these good civil servants. A lot of the jokes are too "grown up" without being good, or too "kiddy" for me to enjoy. I'm not saying it isn't funny for bubbles to fill a room, but context still helps (see "Just My Luck"), and using that as an example, there is actually a good sequence of misfortune right before the bubble scene that sets it up so I know they know how to do it, but they chose to do it another way. For what should have been really good just came out decent.