Netflix Original Graveyard

Everybody knows that Netflix does not make good original movies (with very few exceptions). In fact, most Netflix Originals would end up in the bottom of a Walmart bargain bin somewhere if they had been released theatrically. However, because Netflix produced these films in-house, we don’t have to worry about them clogging up a landfill with their box office flops.

No, Netflix is where bad movies go to die.

Today, I decided to host a funeral service for the unlucky ones. An in memoriam, if you will. 

RIP to the following:

Red Notice- D

Red Notice is a boring, cliche action movie. It's not nearly as fun or memorable as the trailers made it out to be when it premiered last year. This is disappointing, but ultimately not surprising once you look at Netflix's track record with producing quality movies.

In Red Notice, everyone's favorite action heroes, Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, and Gal Gadot, star in this film about thieves who go head-to-head in their global search for valuable MacGuffins (jeweled eggs) in order to make their fortune selling them. Dwayne Johnson plays a mysterious FBI agent named John Hartley (which is already a red flag because he's an FBI agent outside of his jurisdiction for the whole movie), while Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot play the notorious art thieves Nolan Booth and Sarah Black (AKA "The Bishop"), respectively.

A few things about this movie:

1. Despite him being a producer for this film and the main draw for most people to watch it on Netflix, Dwayne Johnson was terribly miscast as the lead. His FBI character had no personality, and despite being the largest man in the room, he was the most boring character to watch. Because he was attempting to play the straight man to Reynolds' sarcastic thief, he lacked a certain amount of charisma in this movie. I honestly wished that they had cast literally anyone else, because Mr. Johnson was just there to collect a check, and I could tell.

2. This movie needed a drastic rewrite. Parts of the film feel like they were just half-baked ideas that they filmed and then never fully resolved. For example: the movie doesn't really have an ending. At the end of the movie (SPOILER) the bad guys all get away with all of their thievery, and everyone becomes friends. Suddenly, they're planning their next heist.

Which makes literally no sense if you think about it for more than two seconds.

The ending has literally no stakes, and it feels like a setup for the beginning of the next film, when this film didn't even have a satisfying conflict to resolve in a meaningful way. At least in Indiana Jones or Tomb Raider, the MacGuffin that they're after has some ancient lore or mystical power that could unfold the fabric of space time. This movie just had a bunch of unsatisfying fight scenes that inevitably went nowhere.

3. The twist at the end of the movie was jarring to me, and not in a good way. By the time the twist ending happened, I was laughing at how STUPID this movie became. It would have been one thing to play the entire ridiculous plot straight through, but throwing in a twist ending where (SPOILER) Dwayne Johnson's character was evil all along, was just too much. Mind you, it was a very obvious set up (as I mentioned in the beginning, what kind of FBI agent galivants around Europe looking for art thieves?), but I was so disinterested in the plot by this point in the movie that I had to just laugh when it really happened.

4. After shooting Red Notice, Ryan Reynolds was hospitalized for months after basically carrying this movie on his back. He was the best part of this entire film (and not just because he was playing himself in the movie). Reynolds' character had the best backstory, had the most comedic moments, and was overall about 1000% more likeable than Dwayne Johnson in this film. We stan.

Overall, my takeaway is that Red Notice is a bad movie.

If we’ve learned anything today, it’s that expensive doesn’t equal good, as Red Notice is Netflix’s most expensive film to date. Most of that money went to securing the major stars, as they amounted to about 60 million of the 200-million-dollar budget.

However, I'm sure Netflix doesn't mind. Judging from the lack of a conclusive ending, and by how many people watched this movie in the first 28 days on Netflix, Red Notice is bound to become a Netflix original movie franchise. (They already greenlit two sequels!)

Red Notice getting a sequel is just proof that zombies really do exist.

Red Notice 2- emerging from the grave in early 2024.

Tall Girl 2- C

Tall Girl 2 is probably the best movie on this list, but not because it’s a good movie. Tall Girl 2 just barely managed to clear the bar for a competent film. The movie itself is… fine?

For full transparency, I watched the original Tall Girl when it came out on Netflix in 2019, and I literally fell asleep halfway through the movie. It actually made me tired to see a conventionally attractive white girl complain about being the same height as most supermodels.

After watching it a second time to see what all of the fuss was about, though, I concluded that the original movie was trash. Jody, the titular "tall girl" was incredibly whiny about an issue that most people consider to be a non-issue. However, despite her unlikeable character, the blame can't be fully thrown at her size 13 feet. The writing of the first movie really made it seem like everyone in high school is obsessed with teasing people who're slightly taller than average. (The script also made it seem like the only tall joke anyone knows is "How's the weather up there?" when I could easily think up about 5 more without having to try too hard.)

Regardless, Tall Girl 2 arrived on Netflix a few weeks ago, much to the shock and chagrin of everyone who watched the first one. I'm pretty sure no one knew this movie was coming out until it was already out. That's mostly because, like me, a lot of people thought Tall Girl was trash and wouldn't warrant a sequel.

Unfortunately, (or fortunately, depending on how you feel about the Tall Girl cinematic universe) this phenomenon happened because so many people were talking shit about Tall Girl and commentating on the first movie after it came out. That drove up Netflix's viewership numbers, indicating Tall Girl's series potential. The thing is, Netflix doesn't care about why you're watching- they only care that you continue to watch. And, as my favorite YouTube commentator, Kennie JD, can attest to, people love watching bad movies.

Only, Tall Girl 2 is not a bad movie.

It's certainly not a good movie, but it's definitely not a bad one.

Let me explain:

Tall Girl 2 follows Jody from the first film as she tries out for her school's musical. After a successful audition, she gets the lead in the play. Now, with her boyfriend (who is arguably obsessed with her) and her newfound popularity, Jody becomes overwhelmed by the pressure of having to perform for everyone in the musical and the risk of losing her status as the "cool girl" now. The conflict in this movie is much easier to understand than the conflict in the previous movie. Jody has anxiety and she doesn't want to embarrass herself or let anyone down by performing poorly in the school's musical.

While the conflict is somewhat small scale, there is something to be said about simplifying a plot. The original Tall Girl invented a problem so that they could solve it, whereas this movie attempted to tackle something real, and so I admire the writers for at least trying to be relatable to high schoolers in this aspect.

The movie mostly follows Jody and her journey of trying to overcome her anxiety of being in the musical, while also fighting off a racially ambiguous hot guy who is not-so-secretly into her. (Which is a trope I actually am tired of seeing in romance movies in general. It's in everything from the Twilight Saga to The Kissing Booth trilogy). Jody and her boyfriend go through some struggles, but inevitably end up together in the end (because we all knew she wasn't gonna go for the objectively better racially ambiguous guy, amiright?).

Blah, blah. Boring, boring.

Unlike the first movie, this movie is pretty inoffensive. I sat through it and I wasn’t upset so much as I was disinterested. It wasn't dull enough for me to literally sleep through it, though, and so I think that's a major improvement.

The one thing I did like about this movie was that they gave her black best friend, Fareeda, her own plot line about fashion (because I remembered that being her thing in the first movie), and they even gave her a love interest. I thought that was a nice addition, even if it was only a C plot.

Overall, I think Tall Girl 2 is a perfectly passable Netflix original movie. At least, it's good enough to pass under the radar. I wouldn't consider this movie anything more than forgettable.

Oh, Tall Girl 2... Gone, but so quickly forgotten.

The Royal Treatment- D-

As a movie, The Royal Treatment actively makes me angry.

This movie is so bad that I was literally on my phone for 80% of it. I have nothing good to say about The Royal Treatment.

That doesn’t make this movie irredeemable, but that does make it a massive waste of time. I have a hard time rating movies lower than a D, because I genuinely believe that if I can sit through a movie, then there has to be something good about it that made me keep it on, when I could have just as easily turned it off.

The good thing in this movie are the leads Mena Massoud and Laura Marano. Despite their obvious lack of on-screen chemistry, I still enjoyed looking at them.

Everything else needed to be scrapped.

Everything- and I do mean everything- about this movie is broken.

For starters, Laura Marano plays Izzy, an Italian-American hairstylist from New York, who is asked to style Prince Thomas's hair for his wedding. Prince Thomas, played by Mena Massoud, is getting married back in Lavania (which is another fictional country in the Netflix Prince Cinematic Universe, or the NPCU for short), and he invites Izzy and her friends to his castle to help him prepare for the wedding.

This plot sounds fine, if not incredibly fanfictiony, until you hear Laura Marano's Italian accent for the first time, and your spirit physically leaves your body.

Now, I'm not sure WHO told Laura Marano that she could do an Italian accent, but they lied to her, and this movie will forever be a reminder of their betrayal.

Aside from the awful accent work (There is also a "French" character in the film who literally sounded like she was choking on her accent every time she talked), there were several missed opportunities for comedy in this supposed "romantic comedy." I don't think I laughed once in this entire movie. I believe this movie may have elicited a single chuckle out of me, and it was only because I was chuckling at the incredibly obvious joke that THEY FAILED TO MAKE.

I posted this on Letterboxd while watching the movie. This is literally the best joke I've ever made, and I'm ashamed- because it was the most low-hanging fruit ever.

Not to mention, I'm all for fanfiction and campy garbage, but after watching how Izzy and the prince have their meet-cute at the beginning of the movie, my suspension of disbelief was shattered. They meet because the prince's assistant calls the wrong hair salon. While giving him a haircut, the prince thinks it's cute that Izzy just talks back to royalty. If it weren't so played out it would be stupid. Too bad it was both.

After about twenty minutes of actually watching the movie, I had taken to reading scathing reviews of it on Letterboxd while the movie played in the background.

(SPOILERS, IF YOU CARE)

From what I could glean between terrible reviews, Prince Thomas fell in love with Izzy for literally no other reason than she acknowledged the poor, and she wasn't rightfully afraid of walking alone at night in a foreign country. However, inevitably, Prince Thomas's parents discovered that their son has feelings for Izzy, and they try to break them up so the prince can marry the girl they picked for him. Predictably, Izzy is humiliated by these feelings and returns to her humble life in New York. In the end, Prince Thomas breaks his engagement and travels back to the city to be with her, while- you guessed it- on horseback, for some reason.

It's not the predictability of this movie that made me want to die while watching it (although that certainly didn't help), but it was the way everything about the film fell flat. Nothing about this movie was even remotely likeable or enjoyable. The romance was forced, the comedy was non-existent (unless you count screaming, in which case, this movie was hilarious), and the plot was boring. Even a basic Hallmark movie manages to get at least one of these elements right.

Netflix, if you need someone to write you a better rom-com prince movie, call me. I’m available.

Overall, I would give this movie an F if I weren't so forgiving. However, Laura Marano and Mena Massoud were both cute in this movie, and so props to them for being good looking, even if their movie was terrible.

If this movie gets a sequel because of how secretly popular it was like Tall Girl or Red Notice, I swear it will haunt me for the rest of my life.

Now, let us all leave the Netflix graveyard, and journey forth into the bright future where these movies can no longer haunt us.

May God rest their souls. 

Amen.

Thanks for reading everyone! 

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