Shorties #5: “Amen”, “Short Term 12”, “Welp” (“Cub”), “Doubt” and “When We First Met”

This article will contain short reviews of the following films in this order: Amen, Short Term 12, Welp (Cub), Doubt and When We First Met.

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Take an interesting story, okay dialogue, fine performances and on the nose symbolism and you have yourself Amen. It’s nor a special film, nor is it a bad one. Everything’s just borderline okay. The only thing this film has to offer that’s interesting is the story, but it felt as if the film didn’t give us all that there was to give. They for some reason tried to make it more interesting by dramatizing it, which unsurprisingly only had a preposterous effect. It’s lacking the emotional punch it could’ve, due to the generic protagonist, who also could’ve been made more interesting.

Grade: C+

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If you’re looking for a well-written, hard-hitting, heartfelt emotional drama, then watch Short Term 12. It’s filled with complex and realistic characters that were all wonderfully portrayed by a spectacular cast. Each actor was charismatic and had fantastic chemistry with each other, which caused for some great dynamics between characters and it made it all feel as if they were really friends. Out of the cast, I found Brie Larson and Lakeith Stanfield to be standouts. This was mostly because they had the most difficult and layered characters to portray.
Short Term 12 is a heavy film, with a lot of memorable sad scenes, that showcased the acting capabilities of each cast member masterfully, but the film also takes away from these sad moments by adding in some humor, which was sometimes much needed.

Grade: A+

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Other than great cinematography, Welp (Cub) doesn’t have a lot to offer. The horror in Welp (Cub) is funnier than it is scary, due to the incredibly dumb nature of it. A lot of the character motivations don’t make any sense whatsoever, as did the main thing that drove the story forward. Surprisingly, though, the main actor was pretty good, but then again, the film as a whole wasn’t.

Grade: D+

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Don’t doubt this film; it’s awesome and for many reasons, that is. One of which was the brilliantly written screenplay. John Patrick Shanley made up some interesting characters that put the viewer on a moral crossroad: you want to hate Meryl Streep’s character, but she’s probably doing the right thing and you want to love Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character, but you know that he’s probably in fault. This was also due to the incredible casting and phenomenal performances from nearly everyone involved. Each scene with Hoffman and Streep was pure gold, add Adams to the mix and it becomes even more incredible. Viola Davis, who’s in the film for just a handful of scenes, stole each one she was in. The excellent cinematography and creative directing made for some very tense and marvelous scenes. The only downside to this film was that some of the kid performances weren’t that great, but it was to be expected that they’d fall in the shadow of this stellar cast.

Grade: A

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This was one of the most predictable films I’ve seen in quite some time. I was able to tell what was all going to happen and how the film would end, within the first ten minutes. The majority of the jokes weren’t that good either, with the exception of a handful of funny scenes. Luckily, those bad jokes were made somewhat decent by the performances, especially Adam Devine. That all doesn’t take away from the fact that it’s an unoriginal film that has nothing new to bring to the table.

Grade: C

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