IF 2024 Movie Review
Thoughts on the movie. Written and directed by John Krasinski, he also has a supporting role in the movie. IF tells the story of B (played by Cailey Fleming) (it’s short for Elizabeth we find out…. Wait… Is that a spoiler.?.? Prob not…. ?)
Speaking of spoilers, there’s a bit of an extended opening scene. That’s quite emotional…not goin into too much detail because I don’t really think we showed that in the trailers. But it was a very emotional opening, Uh, Cut to a few years later, maybe, I think four or five years later and we catch up with B when she is 12 years old.
She’s moved in with her gran, in New York for as her dad is going in for What he says, oe a routine surgery. Which she’s obviously a little bit worried about that her dad played by John Krasinski. And as she kind of reconnects to her old childhood home and an old childhood building, she bumps into Ryan Reynolds character.
His character, Calvin, Isn’t alone. He has a few friends with him a couple of…IFS (imaginary friends) , chiefly. Phoebe Walla bridge and Steve Carrell. He’s the giant. Purple guy called Blue Phoebe. Waller Bridges as the Betty boop, porcelain doll Looking type character. Anyway, turns out… imaginary friends… exist.
At least they are real until the kids who invent them. Stop thinking of them, and when that happens .. they don’t disappear, they kind of just linger around and some of them end up in a kind of retirement home for imaginary friends.
We end up there and B ends up taking on a job as kind of an assistant Matchmaker To try and match these uh old discarded. Well old forgotten imaginary Friends, try and match them with New kids.
That pretty much sums up the plot. I’m dancing around a few spoilers here as I said, because I think the trailers in a good way, didn’t give too much away. Um, so we’ll leave it there in terms of the story.
Yes, it’s very good. Just say that right off about IF, is very good.
First of all, right. Off the bat, the actress who plays B (Judith from The Walking Dead, by the way) 90it was annoying me through the whole movie. I could not quite remember where I knew this young girl from. And, yeah, it’s Judith from The Walking Dead. Obviously, she’s much older.
She’s brilliant in this, like, she carries the movie. She’s very much. She’s the lead of the movie. I think the trailers made it look like it was a Ryan Reynolds movie obviously.
So, because Ryan Reynolds, he’s an a-lister, he will put bums in seats, but he’s almost a supporting character. LIt’s As I said, the Judith from The Walking Dead is the lead and she has a lot of emotional heavy lifting to do in this movie and she does a brilliant job for someone so young.
Like… On More than one occasion. You know I getting choked up and you know I was staving back the tears, largely in part due to a her performance like or we face. So she’s she started to get emotional like you start to get emotional because you just, you see it in our face.
So she first of all, she does a really job. Ryan Reynolds is never bad in a thing…. He’s good here but this character isn’t much of stretch for him …he’s doin what he does best…. And what we love to see him do…. Be Ryan Reynolds…
John Krasinski, he’s not in it that much, but with the little screen time he does have… He leaves an impression.
As good as the human cast are, the non human roles are the unsung heroes of this movie….
Steve Carell and Phoebe Wala Bridges chief among them.
I’m not sure if they did performance capture on set or not. I think they might have done because I saw behind the scenes stuff with Steve carrel and John Krasinski like you know, reuniting from the office. Um, so I’m not sure if they were on sale or not or if it was just a virtual either way, they do a really good job.
So do the animators, who bring their characters to life, the combination of those voices and those performances with the animators, Yeah, those are the the digital performance in. Shall we see are really good as well. Not quite the movie. I was expecting from the trailer I was expecting.
I would say, like a lot of the best Pixar movies. Uh, this is two movies. Running through at the same time, like concurrently you’ve got, you’ve got the movie that the adults are watching enjoying and crying at.
And then you’ve been the movies that the kids are watching are join and laughing at and uh, those two strands. Go through the movie and interweave with each other, really, almost perfectly. Uh, two movies at one’s one, for the adults, one for the kids, and they both blend together very well.
The whole family, enjoyed it myself, my partner and the two youngest kids seven-year-old and a 10 year old. We all loved it. The CGI is very well done. It’s um, if you think like you know you’re mixing live action with CGI kind of like who frame Roger Rabbit but with CGI not um animated I have no hand-drawn animation CGI is, you know, it’s not Flawless because CGI is never Flawless, but it’s it’s as close to Flawless.
As you know, modern movies can be, I would say the CGI. There wasn’t any there wasn’t any obvious uh seams or standard bad shots, which have plagued recent movies in recent years, Flash, Indiana Jones .. So that was really nice to see. It was, uh, it was a lot of CGI because there’s a lot of imaginary CGI characters in this movie, but Yeah, the CGI stands out really well.
It’s kind of inside out… Meets up…. Meets who framed Roger rabbit… .
So the seven-year-old gave it eight out of 10. The 10 year old gave it nine out of ten. Sorry. No. Scratch that the seven-year-old gave it seven out of eight. The 10 year old gave, it 8 out of 10.
My partner gave it nine out of ten. I would go with a solid eight out of ten. This is a very good movie, it’s a family friendly movie but as I said, Does the the version of the movie that’s playing on screen? That’s probably going to go over the heads of the kids.
Um, The adults will enjoy walking in with and will cry at especially if you’ve got kids yourself. Uh, you know, the themes of Being a child, losing your imagination, becoming an adult growing up. Having your orchid thinking about mortality your mortality, your children, the mortality your parents mortality, follow that, you know, fun stuff.
And that’s the, that’s the movie that the adults are watching loving and crying at. And then you’ve got the kids movie with the colorful characters, tracking jokes that the Catcher going off. And those two Australians just flow and entertain together really well really male. So yeah, eight out of ten.
I F. Imaginary friend. I think I got to see you early because in the UK there was Advanced screenings this weekend. It’s not actually out until next weekend so that was nice. Thanks to cineworld and you know the other Cinemas that are doing that It was an unseasonably warm day when we saw it.
So the time I was empty, there was about seven people in it. I think. So hopefully that’s not indicative of the overall box office for this movie because this is a really good movie and it sails to, you know, make some money and be successful. That’s us, folks. Thanks very much for watching.
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