Movie Review

Stellar cast delivers campy witch fun in new movie Forbidden Fruits

Alexandra Shipp, Lili Reinhart, and Victoria Perfetti in Forbidden Fruits.

Photo courtesy of IFC

There was a time when Dallas was a prime location for movies, whether it was for films set in and around the city, like Tender Mercies, or ones that used it to stand in for other locations, like Robocop. Dallas is getting its first notable shoutout in a long time thanks to the new film, Forbidden Fruits.

Set mostly in a NorthPark Center-like location called Highland Place Mall, the film centers on a group of young women known as the Fruits. Apple (Lili Reinhart), Cherry (Victoria Perfetti), and Fig (Alexandra Shipp) all work at a clothing store called Free Eden, with the three of them essentially lording over everyone else in the mall. That includes Pumpkin (Lola Tung), who works at the pretzel store Sister Salt’s and who wants to join their group.

Pumpkin soon discovers that, apart from being an entitled clique, the group also claims to be a coven of witches, with Apple especially using their combined power to get back at anyone who’s wronged them. When Pumpkin starts noticing Cherry and Fig going astray of the group’s code, she uses this knowledge to get in tighter with Apple, although she’s unprepared for how far Apple will go to protect her interests.

Written and directed by Meredith Alloway (who grew up in Dallas and graduated from both Lake Highlands High School and SMU) and co-written by Lily Houghton, the film seems to have the aim of combining movies like Mean Girls and The Craft. The peer pressure of being part of an exclusive group is evident from the start, as Apple essentially forces the others to live by her code or be ostracized (or worse).

One of the biggest problems the film runs into, though, is that any conflict comes from within the group itself. With no pressure coming from other friends, family, or co-workers, the group has to create its own drama. The story quickly gets redundant and stagnant, with almost no plot movement until the final act of the film, when it’s almost too late.

Alloway is clearly aiming for a campy vibe with the film, but the execution leaves something to be desired. The four characters are established in a perfunctory manner, and even as they get fleshed out as the film goes along, there’s nothing to compare them with, so it’s as if they’re just acting off-the-wall in a vacuum.

Those who know the Dallas area well will enjoy the local references (the women hail from Plano, Irving, Grapevine, and Highland Park), and Alloway makes sure to include the looming threat of a tornado into the plot. But since the film was actually filmed in Toronto, there are no visuals that make it feel like Texas, and so any goodwill she gets from setting the film in the city is muted by that lack.

While Reinhart (Riverdale) and Shipp (Storm in X-Men movies) have been around longer, both Pedretti (You) and Tung (The Summer I Turned Pretty) have made big impressions on streaming shows in recent years. The foursome play off each other well even when the story is not that compelling.

If there was a message in Forbidden Fruits that Alloway wanted to get across, she didn’t communicate it clearly enough. Her solid cast can only do so much to sell a story that doesn’t have enough on the bone to be filling. It would have been nice for the movie to be filmed in Dallas, but such is the way of the world in modern Hollywood.

---

Forbidden Fruits opens in theaters on March 27.

movies film

Movie Review

Despicable Me sequel Minions & Monsters keeps franchise's goofy vibe

Photo courtesy of Illumination & Universal Pictures

Henry and James in Minions & Monsters.

The Despicable Me franchise is one of the most enduring of the 21st century, now reaching its seventh film in the past 16 years with the release of Minions & Monsters. The Minions, which were originally mere sidekicks to the supervillain Gru, have now arguably become the face of the franchise, even more so when they get their own movie.

Minions & Monsters purports to give even more history for the little yellow pill-shaped beings who want nothing more than to serve bad guys. Instead of fan favorites like Kevin, Stuart, and Bob leading the way, this film features James, a Minion who can’t stop causing chaos, and his best friend, Henry (all Minions are voiced by series creator Pierre Coffin).

After a prologue showing the Minions teaming up with various baddies over centuries, the group shows up in early 20th century Hollywood, gaining attention from filmmakers like Max (Christoph Waltz) and producer brothers Frank and Edward (both voiced by Jeff Bridges). They quickly rise up the ranks, with adventures coming to involve actress Debbie (Zoey Deutch), robot Dort (Jesse Eisenberg), and a Cthulhu named Goomi (Trey Parker).

Co-directed by Coffin and Patrick Delage and co-written by Coffin and Brian Lynch, the film is the loosest one of the franchise to date, using a barely-there story as an excuse to have the Minions engage in as much mayhem as possible. The prologue is the most successful part of the film, as they meet a cyclops, wizard, bank robber, and more, with each sequence getting wilder and funnier.

The 90-minute film is just as interested in entertaining kids with its craziness as it is in giving adults references to early film history. Among the films and actors that get shout-outs are the first-ever movie, The Horse in Motion, Georges Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and more. Whether including those historical relics will have kids wanting to seek out the real deals is questionable, but at least it shows the filmmakers know they owe a debt to the greats of the past.

The second half of the film becomes less coherent as the Minions split into different factions. James, Henry, and a hard-of-hearing Minion named Ed go in one direction to make a monster movie, while a larger group led by their antagonist named Dick goes in another. There’s no real purpose to either side’s journey other than to serve up laughs through the Minionese language (which seems to lean toward Spanish, as one scene acknowledges) and their antics.

Anyone purposefully going to a Minions movie likely enjoys Coffin’s performance of each character, each of which is subtly different. The rest of the cast, while star-laden, never truly sounds like the actors portraying them, which is strange when you have distinctive voices like Waltz, Bridges, and Eisenberg. The only people who stand out are Allison Janney as the narrator, Bobby Moynihan, and a cameo by George Lucas.

While Minions & Monsters doesn’t offer up an overly compelling reason for existing, it’s also harmless fun that has the side benefit of exposing kids to bits of film history that they might not have known existed. It also tries something different from the tried-and-true format of previous films, and experimentation should be appreciated even if it’s not fully successful.

---

Minions & Monsters opens in theaters on July 1.

movies film