Have you been thinking of what to watch on Netflix next? Over the weekend, I watched two recent film releases on Netflix: Love, Hard and Red Notice. What can I say about these movies?
Red Notice
I’ll start with the first recent movie I watched on Netflix, Red Notice. It’s got big stars as cast: Ryan Reynolds, Dwayne Johson and Gal Gadot. In this film, Dwayne Johnson plays an FBI profiler who pursues the world’s most wanted art thief (Reynolds) but eventually becomes his reluctant partner in crime in order to catch an elusive criminal who seems to always be one step ahead.
If you’re living in the Philippines and active on social media, you most likely know about the PR stunt Netflix pulled to promote this film to get people watching. In case you missed it, Netflix partnered with MOA and Rappler for a piece of breaking news – the MOA Globe was stolen. It got a lot of netizens curious and true to form, there were so many Filipinos who had such witty comments on the news SM Mall of Asia’s globe stolen. A pretty clever way to promote the film. As a PR practitioner myself, Netflix’s PR stunt had me saying “Sana all”.I wrote about that here.
Anyway if you’re looking for something funny and entertaining to watch on Netflix, Red Notice should be on your watch list. First of all, it’s got Ryan Reynolds in it – beautiful man with fast-talks and witty quips. The movie itself, story-wise, it’s like India Jones meets National Treasure. If you miss travels, you can live vicariously through the film since it’s got different beautiful settings. I definitely liked that.
Love Hard
This romantic comedy film stars Nina Dobrev as Natalie Bauer, a woman trying to find real love online. She’s also a writer whose job has her chronicling her dating disasters online. When she matches with an East Coast guy, she throws caution to the wind and decides to surprise him for Christmas only to find out she’s been catfished.
What can I say about the film? The actors took the material they were given and gave it their best shot. It was nice to see Nina Dobrev’s comedic side. I remember her so well from her Vampire Diaries days. Thought she was a good actress even then. Jimmy O. Yang as the nerdy Josh Lin, also good. He made me overlook the fact that his character, Josh catfished Natalie. He made Josh pretty lovable.
But I missed the romance part of this movie. They were good on paper – or in this case, online. But in person? I felt like the connection wasn’t strong enough for romance. Even right through the ending, with Natalie’s grand gesture, it seemed as though she wasn’t in love with him and she was settling. So why did he have to get the girl? In my opinion, they were better off as friends who would both meet someone new and be in a relationship that didn’t start with a lie. But yeah I know, this is a romcom. In romcoms, they get their happy endings.
I sure miss the days when romcoms made me want to fall in love and have my own happy ending. It seems so rare these days. But well, maybe that’s just me expecting so much from a romcom.
So there you have it guys – my recent thoughts on two of Netflix’s recent film releases. Hope this post gave you an idea or two on what to watch next on Netflix. If you’re looking for more recommendations, here’s another movie review.