In his autobiography, Richard “Cheech” Marin called Hollywood a very incestuous industry and by that he meant that there was a lot of connections and you can get involved in a project through someone who knows someone. But there’s also knowledge of projects in the trades and throughout the industries. A studio executive will take a project or two with them that was turned down to another studio where it prospers.
Of course, there’s always an opportunity to get a jump on a movie that is predicted to be a hit. And that’s where the movie Imaginary comes into play. It was released on March 8 a good two months before John Krasinki’s IF featuring Ryan Reynolds and looking like the next big thing. Unfortunately, IF wasn’t a big success. Produced on a budget of $110 million, it only made $111 million in North America and $190 million worldwide. It got mixed reviews. And it was actually a very disappointing movie that didn’t follow up to its hype and marketing.
Filming started in late summer 2022 on IF. Less than a year later, filming began on Imaginary through Blumhouse Productions. There’s no such thing as an odd coincidence. There’s been two Christopher Columbus movies released in a short time in 1992, two movies about volcanoes in 1997, one movie about a comet expecting to hit Earth and another about an asteroid expecting to hit Earth in 1998. Hell, Sylvester Stallone’s Over the Top, a silly movie about a truck driver competing in an arm-wrestling contest while bonding with his estranged son opened around the time P.K. and the Kid had been released. Starring Molly Ringwald as a teen runaway, she hitches a ride with a considerate truck driver played by Paul LeMat. It was filmed in 1983 and shelved until Ringwald became more popular following her John Hughes period. And oh, yeah, there’s a subplot about an arm-wrestling tournament, just not as extravagant as in the Stallone movie.
I could go one listing more, but I have to talk about this movie, even though you’d probably like hearing more about the other movies. Well, let me just say Imaginary starts out promising but has a final act that takes place in another realm that is mostly dark you probably won’t know what’s happening nor care. Jessica (DeWanda Wise) is a children’s book author who is suffering from some trauma that happened when she was a child.
She decides to move back into her childhood home with her husband, Max (Tom Payne), who’s only relevance to the plot is having two children from his previous marriage. Max is a musician who leaves about a third way through this movie as he goes on tour. Jessica and her eldest stepdaughter, Taylor (Taegan Burns), don’t get along well. Then, there’s the younger, Alice (Pyper Braun), who discovers a teddy bear down in the basement she calls “Chauncey” and begins to talk about as her imaginary friend.
Eventually Jessica begins to notice a lot of strange things as it seems Chauncey is telling Alice to do bad and dangerous things. But if you’re expecting a killer teddy bear movie, you’re not going to get it. The title of the movie is called Imaginary not Killer Teddy Bear. When Mikey thinks his teddy bear turns evil in Look Who’s Talking Too, it has more scares and imagination that this movie could. It turns out there’s one of those convoluted plots explained somewhat by the mysterious Gloria (Betty Buckley), a neighbor who claims to be Jessica’s former babysitter. A possessed teddy bear would’ve made for a better plot, if the movie wasn’t great.
Jeff Wadlow directs with the same lackluster thrills he’s brought to his recent movies like Fantasy Island, Truth or Dare and Kick-Ass 2, which all I’ve seen but I don’t remember much. And neither will you. While the idea of what he and co-writers Greg Erb and Jason Oremland have constructed is noteworthy, it really seems like it’s been borrowed (or should I say ripped off) from Alice in Wonderland and Coraline. He relies too much of jump-scares and very dark lighting.
At the end of the movie, I never really understand what has happened nor do I care. And probably neither will you. Imaginary made over $43 million worldwide about three times its budget. My guess is everyone went in expecting something like Ted but where the bear is evil. Yet a lot left halfway through when they realized what was really happening. Or they bought tickets to get in to Dune: Part Two when they told tickets were sold out. Seeing how the Fremen in that movie suck all the body water out of dead people had more creepy chills than this movie.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 