Jake Peffer Watches

  2023. R. 80 mins. Directed by Ben & Jacob Burghart Head Count follows Kat, an escaped convict who has been kidnapped by an unknown person. While being held captive Kat finds his own revolver pointed at his head. As his captor tries to pull the trigger, each empty round clicks away and sparks Kat to remember what happened to each bullet. The pressure mounts as Kat must figure out how many rounds are left and try to devise a plan to escape. Directors Ben and Jacob Burghart have put together a tight neo-noir thriller that steps on the gas early and doesn't let up until the end. The story itself is highly engaging as we watch the character Kat try and navigate through many different situations ultimately landing himself in hot water almost every time. Josh Doke, along with the Burghart brothers, put forth a solid script that keeps you guessing and wondering what will happen next around every turn. Despite its short run time there are enough tense moments that will keep you glued ...

  2023. PG-13. 127 mins. Directed by Steven Caple Jr. Here we go again, it's another Transformers movie! This series has seen many ups and downs throughout the years. Age of Extinction and The Last Knight are certainly the downs while the first Transformers in the series as well as the excellent Bumblebee make up the highs of the series. Rise of the Beasts manages to be one of the better entries, however that isn't saying much as the of the series has mostly fallen flat.  Taking place in 1994, a new faction of Transformers called the Maximals, join forces with the Autobots to help save the world from a new foe. Along for the ride are Noah (Anthony Ramos) and Elena (Dominique Fishback), two humans that lend their hand to help save mankind. Story-wise this isn't too different than what we've seen in essentially every other Transformers movie. Basically, it's just, "we have to go stop the bad guy from getting the thing that they'll use to destroy the world,...

  2023. R. 97 mins. Directed by Tim Story Parodies can be a hard genre to make worthwhile. Sometimes it can be difficult to take something that a lot of people enjoy and poke fun at it, but also make it clever enough to make an impact. We usually see one or two a year and the ones that stand out are too few and far between. The horror genre seems to be the best genre to take a stab at (no pun intended) when it comes to trying to parody a genre. Movies like Cabin in the Woods as well as Tucker and Dale vs. Evil do a great job at taking the typical tropes from horror movies and making fun of them in a clever way. The Blackening is the latest release to try something new and put its own spin on many common stereotypes in horror movies. Director Tim Story and company attempt to poke fun at the stereotypes involving black characters in horror movies and it makes for what is easily one of the funniest movies of the year. The story follows seven black friends who plan a get together on Ju...

  2023. PG-13. 116 mins. Directed by Dexter Fletcher Ghosted follows Cole (Chris Evans) as he meets Sadie (Ana de Armas) and they have a great first date. Cole instantly falls in love with her and thinks that she could be the one. After their date together he keeps texting her to try and set something else up, but she doesn't respond for days. Thinking all hope is lost and that she doesn't want to see him again he remembers that he left his inhaler, which has a tracker on it, in her purse. That gives him the incentive to track her down in London only to find out that Sadie is a secret agent and the both of them get swept up in an international adventure to save the world.  This is the perfect example of a movie that, on paper, sounds like a good idea but is terribly executed and makes for a less than entertaining time. There is also the feeling of a studio taking two popular actors and putting them in the laziest constructed movie for a quick cash grab. No matter how you look ...

  2023. PG-13. Directed by Chris Robinson Shooting Stars tells the story of a young LeBron James as he and his childhood best friends become one of the best high school basketball teams of all time and change the dynamic of high school basketball for years to come. While not necessarily adding anything new to the genre, Director Chris Robinson is able to put together a competent sports movie that not only showcases the rise of one of the greatest athletes of all time but also shows the struggle and hard work put in by these young men to become a team that will go down in history as one of the best. This movie is based on the book of the same name written by LeBron James and Buzz Bissinger. Despite James being one of the writers of the book the movie does a good job at not just solely focusing on him and allowing time to be spent with the other boys in his group. The first half of movie focuses more on Dru (Caleb McLaughlin) and his family but still spends time with LeBron and their...

  2023. PG. 135 mins. Directed by Rob Marshall Over the last decade or so, Disney has been set on remaking most of their animated classics into live action movies. Outside of a few of them, most not only are nowhere near the quality of the original movies but also do nothing to capture that magic that audiences have enjoyed for many years. For me, the only live action remake that has surpassed the quality of the original is Jon Favreau's The Jungle Book from 2016. Despite mixed reactions to most of these remakes they continue to perform well at the box office so Disney continues making them. Now we have their live action version of The Little Mermaid, arguably one of their best animated movies. With a great cast and a competent director behind the camera this has all the right pieces to be one of the better live action remakes. If you're not familiar with the story of The Little Mermaid it follows Ariel (Halle Bailey), a young mermaid who longs to discover the world above sea. ...

  2023. PG-13. 141 mins. Directed by Louis Leterrier The Fast Saga continues with Fast X! Here we are at the tenth entry, eleventh if you count the spinoff, in the never-ending series about cars and driving them fast. If you're coming into a Fast & Furious movie you pretty much know what you're getting into. Dom and the family get involved in some kind of convoluted plot revolving around one enemy or a specific device and the cars go fast. Seems basic but that is how most of these movies tend to go. This time around they go toe to toe with the son of Hernan Reyes, the villain from Fast Five, Dante (Jason Momoa) as he is out to get revenge on Dom and the crew for the death of his father. This series has seen its ups and downs but there's one thing that always seems to stay consistent, insanely over the top action sequences that defy any bits of reality. There is no shortage of that here as we get a car pulling down two helicopters at the same time as well as a car drivin...