Death of a Unicorn opens in theaters Friday, March 28. This review is based on a screening at the 2025 SXSW Film and TV Festival.

There’s an intriguing premise with the potential for entertaining moral conundrums at the center of Death of a Unicorn. First, corporate lawyer Elliot Kintner (Paul Rudd) hits a mysterious creature. Then, when it turns out the animal’s corpse has healing powers, Elliot and his conscientious teenage daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega) must figure out how to hide the accident from Elliot’s wealthy pharmaceutical boss. Unfortunately, this synopsis is about as far, as deep, and as detailed as it gets for the latest horror comedy from indie powerhouse A24. Despite featuring a number of fun performances – especially that of Will Poulter as the pharma CEO’s wily failson – Alex Scharfman’s feature debut quickly plateaus.

Death of a Unicorn’s emotional throughlines all seem to end where they begin. In the opening scenes, Elliot and Ridley land in the Canadian mountains by plane; as the college teen falls asleep on her father’s shoulder, only for him to shimmy out of the way to grab fallen legal documents, causing her to hit her head on the armrest. It’s a wonderful, hilarious encapsulation of their estranged dynamic. Ridley’s mother has passed away; in response, Elliot threw himself into his work, irrevocably changing his relationship with Ridley. Now, with his ailing boss Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant) looking for a proxy before he dies, Elliot has the chance to set Ridley up for life, but on the condition that he prove himself a family man as well.

En route to the executive’s isolated mansion, the father-daughter duo, distracted by their bickering, mows down a white horse with a single horn – a creature the characters collectively, and reluctantly, decide to refer to as a unicorn. This leads to strange, fantastical happenings – including hypnotic visions and magical healing – but not before some delightful, human-on-apparent-unicorn violence intended to put the injured creature out of its misery. Its bright purple blood splatters everywhere, but the imperfectly realized CGI beast (forgivable, considering the ruckus it causes) isn’t quite dead, which further complicates Elliot’s already knotty interview with Odell.

This setup has all the makings of a story that evolves in delightful ways, but Death of a Unicorn never progresses past the (initially amusing) philosophical debates kicked off by the Leopolds’ discovery of their guests’ fairytale roadkill. It’s a conversation-heavy film until its creature-feature final act, but none of that jabbering changes the minds of anyone on screen – least of all Ridley, the film’s ostensible conscience. Ortega delivers a wonderfully lived-in performance as a baggily-dressed youth withdrawn from the world, defined entirely by her activist leaning. She’s an actor capable of injecting great thought and subtext into any scenario, but Death of a Unicorn is too flimsy even for her talents, rendering Ridley something of a blank slate who ends up so unwavering as to be grating. (It's a bad sign when the voice of reason and compassion in an attempted cinematic takedown of ruthless billionaires makes you consider siding with the billionaires.) Then again, what else is there to do than consider alternatives that the film and its characters do not, since all its drama, comedy, and thrills swiftly flatline.

Bearing the brunt of Ortega’s ire, the typically entertaining Rudd delivers an exceptionally plain, checked-out performance. And that’s a shame, considering the color the rest of the cast manages to bring to the screen: Grant is delightfully animated, as is Téa Leoni as Odell’s opportunistic wife. Jessica Hynes and Anthony Carrigan, meanwhile, add lively dimensions as the family’s stone-faced enforcer and fed-up butler. But it’s Poulter who comes closest to rescuing the film from its malaise. Nearly every line he delivers is hilarious, owing to how deftly and energetically he balances his character’s slimy scheming with the insecurities of someone who’s never made it on his own. He’s also the only actor whose performance seems to evolve or transform in any way, even if this is courtesy the drug-like properties of a magical substance.

There’s some amount of imagination at play, and A24 is hardly in the wrong for throwing its weight behind a first-time filmmaker. The unicorn’s designs are imaginative, as are its magical abilities – even if their discovery is rendered useless by characters making erratic choices, and losing their key motivations when convenient. Its horror elements tend to be inconsistent, especially in tone. While some sequences are meant to pay homage to Jurassic Park, the outcome tends to align with that film’s lesser reboot, Jurassic World: Cartoonish villains and complex, relatable characters alike suffer vicious deaths designed for our enjoyment and applause. As a result, some of the intended revelry feels icky.

Scharfman clearly has a knack for staging and blocking physical comedy, even if the way he actually captures it is lacking here. The eye is seldom drawn to what’s funniest, but rather, to what happens to be in the center of the frame. There’s also the ingenious conceit of the creature’s presence messing with electricity, which allows the film to seamlessly switch into haunted house mode when necessary. However, the tension and humor of these sequences don’t adequately rise and fall, and the editing is squeamish about what little cartoonish gore it features. This renders Death of a Unicorn a passive and ultimately tiring experience, one that gestures frequently towards fun and interesting ideas, but rarely follows through on them.

The Accountant opens in theaters on Friday, April 25. This review is based on a screening at the 2025 SXSW Film and TV Festival.

You can tell from the way the title is stylized on screen – as a mathematical exponent, like Alien³ – that The Accountant 2 has removed the self-seriousness from its predecessor’s otherwise delightful formula. Gavin O’Connor’s sequel is a blast, building on the story and relationships of 2016’s The Accountant to reveal a touching, hilarious portrait of fraught brotherhood within a charged and politically relevant plot. All the while, it leans full-tilt into a goofy setup that’s executed with utter confidence: Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck), a.k.a. The Accountant, is a savant number-cruncher for the mob and part-time vigilante gunman whose autism is gently approached and realistically performed, but framed as though it were a superpower.

There’s less bean counting in The Accountant 2, but far more blood and bullets, starting with an opening scene in which former Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (or FinCEN) director Raymond King (J.K. Simmons) is gunned down while working a case in secret. Once the Commissioner Gordon to The Accountant’s Batman – fitting, as Affleck and Simmons have since played that dynamic in the DC Extended Universe – King has only been following leads in which he’s emotionally invested. His death leaves behind an intricate puzzle for Wolff to solve, alongside King’s Treasury Department successor, the returning Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson). The case that got King killed opens up a web of human trafficking between Central America and the southern U.S., exposing the ways in which undocumented immigrants who have little legal recourse are brutally exploited. Where the first film was mostly unsentimental about its central plot (which revolved around a robotics firm), The Accountant 2 conjures immense sympathy with its topical melodrama and the mystery of King’s death.

But as somber as this story seems at first blush, it’s also peppered with wildly amusing moments of character. That begins with Wolff’s re-introduction, during which he games a speed-dating algorithm by sprucing up his profile in all the right ways, only to botch every face-to-face encounter. It’s the perfect kind of silly, placing Wolff’s isolation front and center while setting up his impending reunion with his estranged brother, fellow contract killer Braxton (Jon Bernthal), whose help he seeks to solve King’s murder. Also assisting Wolff is his returning, remote, technologically savvy assistant Justine (Allison Robertson, replacing Allison Wright from the first film), a nonverbal resident of a mansion-like academy for young autistic students. She has her own legion of hackers-in-training this time, à la Professor X – who she even quotes at one point. Like I said: perfectly silly, even if the portrayal of neurodivergence constantly threatens to tip (but never fully does) into offensiveness.

A mysterious, scarily capable assassin known only as Anaïs (Daniella Pineda) seems to somehow be involved in King’s case, but The Accountant 2’s lopsided structure ensures that she disappears for lengthy periods. However, the layers it reveals to her seemingly single-minded character do retroactively justify those absences. After all, this is the kind of movie where no matter how many conveniences cause its jigsaw pieces to click into place, the result is no less entertaining.

Just like The Accountant, whose heightened tone and reliance on tried-and-true storytelling devices – enormous coincidences, long-lost family connections – wouldn’t feel out of place in a Bollywood movie,the sequel similarly runs a crowd-pleasing gamut. The action is capable and clear. The plot, while complicated in structure, takes the characters to interesting places (both geographically and emotionally). The comedy is fine-tuned and, most importantly, entirely character-and-performance based.

Things simmer on a medium flame until Bernthal shows up and instantly sets the screen ablaze. An actor long compared to Robert De Niro, he finally gets his own “You talkin’ to me?” moment in The Accountant 2, which paves the path for Braxton’s surprising vulnerability – he’s a lost, lonely soul who just wants his older brother’s friendship. Affleck, despite a voice that seems more influenced by The Simpsons’ Comic Book Guy this time around, returns seamlessly to the role of Wolff. Having retreated almost entirely to the solitude of his tricked-out Airstream trailer, he seems to want to connect as well, but his misreadings of his brother’s body language and intentions make this difficult. Braxton is frank and playful, and Bernthal imbues the character’s body language with an easy-going fluidity, which makes for an enchantingly funny contrast with Wolff’s unwavering stiffness.

The clashes between the brothers are the movie’s heart and soul – this especially comes to light during their downtime from vigilantism (and from Medina’s disapproval of their methods). One scene in an LA square dancing bar is a particular delight, between Braxton’s eagerness to throw hands, and Wolff’s wonderfully roundabout methods of flirtation, which involves him calculating his way onto the dance floor. It’s a sequence that demonstrates O’Connor understanding that movement and character are intrinsically bound, and in action cinema, you can’t really have one without building up the other.

The Accountant 2 is a surprisingly sentimental sequel, which keeps even the most scattered elements of its plot firmly glued together. It’s filled with the kind of unapologetic cheese that Hollywood action has long since replaced with irreverent, quippy snark, ensuring that its humor and drama go hand-in-hand at every turn, resulting in one of the year’s most well-rounded studio pictures.

Another Simple Favor streams on Prime Video beginning May 1. This review is based on a screening at the 2025 SXSW Film and Television Festival.

A sequel doesn’t have to be bigger, although many of them, including Another Simple Favor, choose to go this route. It doesn’t even have to be better, really, given the low expectations audiences historically have for follow-ups. What it has to be is more – specifically, more of whatever made the first film work well enough to justify a second one.

In the case of A Simple Favor, the thing that charmed audiences enough to bring in five times the budget was the effervescent chemistry between stars Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick (with some delicious bon mots and fabulous costume design as a bonus). The sequel delivers more of all these things: Kendrick is still tiny and spunky, the queen of the skeptical head tilt and sassy comeback. And Lively is still tall and unflappable, intriguing and intimidating at the same time.

The script gives them plenty of witty lines to volley back and forth, with enough left over for supporting players like Andrew Rannells, who tells his young daughter early in the film, “If you can’t be smart, be funny. If you can’t be funny, be pretty.” That’s typical of the script’s pithy, bitchy dialogue, written by returning screenwriter Jessica Sharzer along with Altered Carbon creator Laeta Kalogridis.

Another Simple Favor takes the action to Italy, where Emily (Lively) and Stephanie (Kendrick) reunite at the former’s wedding on the stunning island of Capri. At risk of spoilers, the natural question here is, “Didn’t Emily go to jail at the end of the last movie?” Yes, and true to the movie’s tongue-in-cheek tone, that’s explained away with a single line after Emily stomps back into Stephanie’s life in a pair of rhinestone-studded stiletto boots. Stephanie owes Emily – you guessed it – another favor, given the whole “sending her to prison after having sex with her husband, and then writing a book about it” thing.

Henry Golding is back as Emily’s errant now-ex-spouse, and his (unfortunately brief, for reasons best not explained here) appearance in the film is a comedic highlight. Weddings also bring family members back into the fold, and Allison Janney joins the cast as Emily’s estranged aunt Linda, who’s more conniving and dangerous than she appears. And of course there must be a husband, and Michele Morrone does his duty being hunky and a little scary as Emily’s betrothed Dante, who’s the heir to a massive fortune no one wants to talk about. (The Mafia. It’s the Mafia.)

Dante is using Emily, Emily is using Stephanie, Aunt Linda is obviously up to something, and bodies keep appearing in inconvenient places as this cutthroat crew prepares for the big day. One innovation Another Simple Favor brings to its Agatha Christie-esque plot is arranging events in a way that wrests them out of Emily’s control, and observing the shifts in her character and motivation that follow that change. This means that Stephanie is also out of control, which she hates, although her intelligence means that she’s never behind the curve for long.

There are a few too many plot threads for all of them to pay off – a subplot involving single mom Stephanie’s son Miles (Joshua Satine), conveniently away at a no-phones-allowed summer camp, goes nowhere, for example. And the film’s attempts to outdo its predecessor in intrigue are absurd in a way that’s sometimes fun, and sometimes off-puttingly bizarre. But this is Italy, birthplace of the giallo film. And intentionally or not, Another Simple Favor’s more lurid psychosexual twists are true to that particular genre.

If the plot escalations are variable, one area where bigger is unilaterally worse for Another Simple Favor is in the camerawork. Director Paul Feig is known for long takes designed not to interfere with his actors’ performances, and his lack of finesse with more complicated sequences is obvious in haphazardly assembled drone shots that sweep over the dramatic cliffs of Capri. This wouldn’t be that big of a deal, except that there are a lot of them, and they’re all nauseating.

Better to concentrate on what works: The performances, the script, and the costumes. Oh, the costumes. The contrast between Lively and Kendrick’s wardrobes tells you everything you need to know about their characters, with Lively’s breathtakingly luxe menswear-inspired ensembles contrasting with Kendrick’s momcore jean shorts and worn-out hoodies. She does get to wear some pretty dresses at the wedding festivities, in scenes that are smorgasbords of moneyed excess and natural splendor. Throw some slick Italo-pop on top, and you’ve got a piece of escapist entertainment that’s more clever than most. So what if it doesn’t always make sense?