Knock on Wood

Summer movie season is the most popular, if not the biggest time of the year for cinema. It’s when the most exciting new blockbusters hit the big screen, and when studios typically release new entries of their most popular franchises. 2024 has been one of the most interesting movie years in recent memory, and there were more new releases than we could keep up with here at Knock on Wood. To commemorate the conclusion of the season, I’ve reviewed every new release (that I have seen) that has not been previously covered on our site. Please enjoy this year’s Summer Summary!

IF

John Krasinski does his best to pull at our heartstrings in IF, a family film about the power of belief and imagination, told through the lens of a wacky comedy in which Bea (newcomer Cailey Fleming) must reunite imaginary friends with the kids they’ve since been abandoned by. The ending is sweet, but bizarrely, IF somehow exists without a cohesive narrative. The themes and interconnected events tie it together, but it feels more like a proof of concept than a complete experience. The performances are good, but nobody (aside from Fleming) stands out, despite the impressive ensemble roster including Ryan Reynolds, Steve Carell, Bradley Cooper, Emily Blunt, Bill Hader, Maya Rudolph, George Clooney, and many more. Its greatest merit is its tribute to Louis Gossett Jr., whose role forever immortalizes him as the heart of the story.

Available to stream on Paramount+.

The Strangers: Chapter 1

For whatever reason, this new iteration of The Strangers – set up as a multi-part narrative, with a recurring cast and a consistent creative team – supposedly styles itself as an epic, but fails to make itself unique in any way, shape, or form beyond its release gimmick. While not a poorly made film, it’s worth noting that The Strangers: Chapter 1 doesn’t do anything new, and seems content to reside in the trope-ridden world of the standard slasher. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean that there is practically no reason to seek it out, unless you’re a huge fan of the first two Strangers or a horror completionist…or just morbidly curious, as I was. In theory, it should stand alone, but it is instead a frustratingly incomplete first act of a movie with very little character development or genuine scares. Maybe Chapter 2 will finally give me a reason to be invested in this world of senseless violence and incomprehensible dream logic.

The Garfield Movie

By premise alone, a Garfield movie can never work. The very conceit of the comic strip is that Garfield is a lazy, stubborn cat, averse to everything but lying on a couch, eating lasagna, and complaining about Mondays. That’s not enough to sustain a film, and so the Garfield movies have to get him out of the house and on some sort of adventure that will entertain children, which goes against mostly everything that makes Garfield sardonic and effective in the first place. This latest animated offering, Chris Pratt voices the titular cat, who is forced to team up with his estranged father (voiced, bizarrely, by Samuel L. Jackson) to pull off a daring heist. It’s not offensively terrible by any stretch, but it manages to somehow be dull and unfunny, perhaps an even worse crime. There were kids in my screening, and none of them seemed particularly jazzed or excited about any of it. If your action-packed animated kids’ movie can’t even entertain its target audience, there’s a problem rooted in its very DNA.

Hit Man

Linklater’s modern noir, complete with its own subversion of the standard archetypes, is the perfect vehicle for modern superstar Glen Powell, and his turn in Hit Man delivers his best performance(s) so far. His dynamite movie star charisma as the leading man, and his evident talent in co-writing one of the best screenplays Netflix has attached their name to in years, are proof of his raw, effervescent allure. I thought I couldn’t be more excited for a new Linklater movie, and in a story about the power of confidence and being the person you want to be, Powell and co-star Adria Arjona shine through impossibly bright.

Available to stream on Netflix.

Summer Camp

Like most movies, the concept of Summer Camp comes from a pure, wholesome place. The film follows Nora (Diane Keaton), Mary (Alfre Woodard), and Ginny (Kathy Bates), three childhood friends who attend a reunion at their summer sleepaway camp after years of diminishing connection. The film fits perfectly into the sub-genre that includes Book Club and 80 for Brady, which almost always center around an ensemble cast of older female actresses who make a movie that ends up being largely about shenanigans, goofiness, and spending time together. These movies are engineered to appeal to a very specific demographic, and it’s safe to say the same is true for Summer Camp. I do think it’s noteworthy (and admirable) that movies like these, intentionally or not, are an effort to keep a generation of actresses that Hollywood typically ignores employed, while also giving younger female directors a chance to direct a feature.  The endeavor is cool, but it becomes disappointing (and even embarrassing) that most of them end up being dogwater in movie form. It begins with an engaging and charming opening – we meet our trio of protagonists as young girls during their first meeting at the titular summer camp (represented by Camp Pinnacle in North Carolina), and the film rapidly falls apart when a montage of time jumps brings them through adulthood and into their golden years. Diane Keaton looks miserable, (appropriately) playing a workaholic who would rather dive into scientific research than spend quality time with her lifelong friends. Alfre Woodard is a brilliant actress, but this feels like a paycheck performance, one that someone as talented as her could give in her sleep. At least Kathy Bates is giving a real performance, but her character has an actual arc, so it’s not surprising to see her doing good work with a fully-rounded character. Unfortunately, Summer Camp is bland and cringe-inducing, and in a film landscape that’s more competitive than ever, that’s one of the worst things a studio release can be.

Fancy Dance

Fancy Dance, the feature narrative debut from Native American documentarian Erica Tremblay, is about the journey, not the destination. It’s not about where we end up, it’s about who supports us and loves us along the way. Fancy Dance is a very lovely movie and one that I feel privileged to have experienced. I’m excited to see more from Erica Tremblay, and I’m thrilled to see Lily Gladstone continue to deliver performances of equal caliber to her Oscar-nominated turn in Killers of the Flower Moon.

Available to stream on Apple TV+.

Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1

Horizon: An American Saga is one of the most interesting movies to be released this year — a misguided passion project that in any other world would make a stellar TV show, but because of ego and the need for exposure, this must be a four-part epic with too many characters and storylines to make for a cohesive narrative. Chapter 1 endeavors to begin an epic story about how the west was won and lost, and the struggle that ended with the subjugation of Indigenous Americans and an expansive empire that only grows to this day. This movie does play everything very safe, showing just enough of the Indigenous perspective in search of praise, but falters when it comes to taking a stand and condemning Manifest Destiny for the imperialist doctrine it was. There were very few storylines that actively compelled me, and even though it’s shot very beautifully and has several strong performances, there wasn’t enough here to actively hold my interest. This is the sort of movie that I admire the vision behind but never want to watch again, although I’ll undoubtedly be forced to catch a few occasional minutes of it on cable whenever I turn on the TV.

Available to stream on Max.

A Family Affair

Somehow, Netflix’s companion piece to The Idea of You is charming, funny, and poignant, if very conventionally structured. The script is engaging and plays very well to Joey King and Zac Efron’s strengths. There is definitely a baseline of how well the “famous person hooks up with a teenager’s cougar mother” story can work, but A Family Affair makes the smart choice of focusing on Joey King’s character, and how the relationship affects both her and her relationship with her mother (Nicole Kidman). I liked it more than I’d be willing to publicly let on.

Available to stream on Netflix.

Despicable Me 4

Jam-packed to the brim with storylines (some spanning the entire film, others just a single scene), Despicable Me 4 is a lot to take in. It’s a franchise that has become so saturated with visually interesting and recognizable characters that adding even more feels like an impossible task; but alas, in the age of TikTok, no movie meant to entertain the younger generation can linger on a shot for more than five seconds before the attention spans begin to wane. That seems to be the mission statement of Despicable Me 4: include as many characters and narrative threads as possible, deliver plenty of flair-driven action, and bring it all in under 100 minutes. It feels overwhelming and messy, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit it was also entertaining. My enjoyment of the Despicable Me and Minions movies has diminished with every new entry (the fact that I’m getting older is doing me no favors), but I must admit that the franchise will always have a special, nostalgia-focused place in my heart.

Fly Me to the Moon

I wish I had something deep and thought-provoking to say about Fly Me to the Moon, but it really does feel like a hollow, albeit harmless, rom-com primarily made to attract engagement from a very specific crowd. It has charm to spare, like many glossy streaming originals produced these days, but at least Apple and Sony had the decency to release this in theaters. It also has a literal gloss, a sheen that makes everything look a little too perfect to believably take place in the “real world.” Fly Me to the Moon feels like one of those movies people will see, but will largely come and go without a massive fanfare…and in the grand scheme of genre-twisty rom-coms, it isn’t bad. It didn’t make a deep impression on me, and that’s okay.

Twisters

A bona fide summer blockbuster, the first of its kind since Top Gun: Maverick! Twisters might be of a singular mind, but that singular mind is set to thrill, amaze, and entertain, and by god it will do all three of those things until the credits roll. It’s ridiculous and absurd, of course, but that’s how it has to be; that’s how these types of movies are constructed. There are, essentially, two archetypes that every single character fits into (stoic/witty scientist and cowboy vlogger scientist), which makes the ensemble less memorable than the original’s, but this movie still knows how to take advantage of its action and stakes to pump up the tension and make you care when it counts. It all leads to an insanely large-scale climax, the likes of which I don’t know if I’ve ever seen before on the big screen. If Marvel wasn’t destined to fully dominate the rest fo the summer, I’d label this the $500 million hit it deserves to be, but let’s hope I’m wrong and Twisters pulls through! It’s a thrill ride, and a very effective one at that.

The Girl in the Pool

Single-location thrillers are always impressive to me, especially if they are able to sustain the tension while sticking to their single setting. The Girl in the Pool, destined to stay under the radar because of its lack of studio distribution and straight-to-VOD release, is a taut new addition to the aforementioned sub-genre, starring Freddie Prinze Jr. as a family man who must endure a surprise birthday party thrown by his wife (Monica Potter), very shortly after he has hidden the corpse of his murdered mistress (Gabrielle Haugh) in his pool box. It’s very tight and appropriately chaotic, mastering its low budget to maximize the narrative stress. Prinze Jr. is committed and manic, and it’s certainly one of my new favorite performances of his. While it does feel very Lifetime-esque at times, The Girl in the Pool has enough mystery, suspense, and Hitchcock-inspired thrills to tide over any enjoyer of good cinema.

For reviews of Inside Out 2, The Bikeriders, The Fall Guy, and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, check out our Midyear Movie Report. Reviews for other summer movies can be found on our site, including Deadpool & Wolverine, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Thelma, Dìdi, Trap, A Quiet Place: Day One, MaXXXine, Longlegs, Alien: Romulus, The Watchers, Borderlands, Kinds of Kindness, Sing Sing, and Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person. For a full list of films covered on the site, see our Index.