Reviews

Pros:

• The included story was well written and told, and there were good morals taught in the movie. The characters were well written and I enjoyed seeing the main protagonist's character transformation. The song pieces were also good.

Cons:

• The movie did not really have an ending, it just abruptly cuts off. Because of this, none of the antagonists are given their comeuppance and it just abruptly ends with a bunch of good people dying while the antagonists cheer on. Not a good thing to teach kids.

• The film as a whole was much more kid-unfriendly than I expected, with a lot of the deaths with blood spurts shown onscreen, including multiple protagonists and innocent people in upsetting ways. Whoever thought showing a baby and their mother getting thrown into a fire was a good idea to include in a KIDS CARTOON should not be writing kids cartoons. Would definitely not show this to kids below 9 or 10, as there are plenty of more kid-appropriate, Islamic films for those younger.

Pros: For the most part, I really enjoyed this movie. Phoebe's interactions with and effects on her parents and sister were written and acted particularly well. The progress of her Tourette's was also shown quite well from Phoebe's point of view. The school parts involving the play were well written and acted as well.

Cons: The school parts outside the play were unrealistic, which took me out of the story. Any school that lets 10 year olds casually access and play on their rooftops with no safety features unsupervised would be sued to the ground (at least in the U. S.). The teachers and principal in this move were completely incompetent and unsympathetic. Teacher sees kids harassing and yelling at Phoebe that she's a "killer" and has no problem whatsoever, but when Phoebe spits at one of them, she gets punished big time. As for the principal, I have no idea how/why he even got his position, as he's completely incompetent and unlikable when dealing with both kids and teachers alike. Some more realism would have gone a long way here.

As others have mentioned, the traps are very similar (almost the same) as those in the original Cube and the traps themselves are very unmemorable. This one also renders the original entirely pointless. People who escape the original cube apparently are asked "Do you believe in God?" and get torched if they say no! What exactly the point of this, or the entire cube, is is not revealed at all. What idiotic country/group would have and spend that much time, money, personnel, etc. Building giant death cubes all for testing if a person believes in God, and what exactly are they achieving by doing that? There's countless easy ways to achieve the exact same result. None of that is answered and instead we're given a goofy looking villain who looks and acts like he came straight out of a cartoon who shows up for a total of 5 minutes on screen and is given no explanation regarding his intentions.

Having watched the original Zombie Island movie during my childhood and it being one of my favorite in the series due to its actual scariness and real monsters, this fail of a sequel is a complete mess in comparison.

The characters are completely unlike their original movie/series characters and more like Marvel's current 'bad one liners every other sentence' characters. Velma is portrayed as an extremely annoying, hyperactive, babbling, loudmouth, which is 180 degrees what she was in the OG series/movie. This combined with the extremely goofy remade appearances of the zombies and cat people, just kills any kind of seriousness and tension, which are what made the original so unique among Scooby fans.

This movie also completely ruins the original one's plot. The cat people and zombies are retconned to be real people in costumes (except for one, for no reason other than conveniently showing up for nostalgia). The villains are retconned to be the typical 'scare everyone away to get treasure' type that have been done to death already. It explains away the magic in the original movie as "swamp gas." (Are you serious?!? - Apparently swamp gas drains your lifeforce and gives people mind controlling and shapeshifting powers, who knew!).

Skip this mess and watch the original Zombie Island.

Pros: The action scenes were, as expected, fun to watch, especially if you like watching the hero mow down hordes of mooks running at him. The story was ok, and although not original (See below), is was easy to follow and had a satisfying ending. The characters well well devloped and each felt like they had their own personality, even with the "no feelings" rule.

Cons: The story was pretty much a copy-paste of Fahrenheit 451 (Book and art burning, ragtag resistance group of hippie scholars/artists), The Giver (enforced emotionless society), and 1984 (Big Brother is watching you 24/7). There wasn't really anything "new" about this movie that hasn't been done before to draw me into the plot.

Second, the "no feelings" rule didn't really come across well and was applied very inconsistently. Loyalty is an emotion (people saluting the president), anger/pride are emotions (why are they killing those they are against otherwise?), fear is an emotion (guards constantly running away from danger). I couldn't tell if it was the script or the acting (or both), but so many character were constantly breaking the "no feelings" rule that's the basis of the movie. Brandt constantly smiled, was arrogant, and even went off on a raving angry speech, all in public view!, and nobody batted an eye at him, but someone briefly smiles or cries in a crowd, the mob is hanging them? Makes no sense.

Pros: The story made sense and was well written I liked seeing the kids' abilities in action (although they were underutilized).

Cons: The characters were too off-character. Logan's death makes no sense in the way he died (How does a tree pierce metal???) and he was pretty weak in the fight scenes in general compared to his previous movies. Professor X being a brash old man throwing F-bombs every other sentence with no control of his abilities made zero sense and there was no indication in this or the previous movies to this kind of character development. I do not believe aging would make his personality change 180 degrees from the intelligent and respectable character he was in the previous movies. The kids' abilities were only used at the very end and could have been much more utilized, as they looked cool in general and had variety.

Like the title says, this movie was completely unoriginal (thus completely predictable) and has been done many times in a better way.

The only person I felt sorry for during the movie was the girl and the nanny's husband. I felt more for the nanny than the couple tbh. The mom, in particular, annoyed me throughout the movie, as after almost losing her young daughter in a playground due to talking on the phone (and for some reason turning to face away from her daughter (???)), does the EXACT same thing a second time! What a great mom /s (Also, who keeps calling her at the exact moment she's in the same playground multiple times lol?) The dad was a typical dumb and useless Lifetime Movie dad so he's automatically unlikeable.

I had two main issues with this movie: unlikable characters and completely ridiculous plot.

Unlikable characters: Pretty much every character in this movie, except the girlfriend (who is bland anyways) is unlikable:

Ben: Makes unbelievably dumb decisions and is one of the most spineless male protagonists I've seen. It took him 20 or so minutes to outright reject Madison and for some reason, he decides to hold her in a stranglehold to do so in a public library (?!?). Whenever he's accused of something Madison did, he just quietly accepts the punishment and doesn't even protest or mention her, even to the police or his mom.

Madison: Has a single bored facial expression through the whole movie and is given no motivation/backgrounds for her being psycho.

Ben's friend group: Includes a stereotypical geek-hating jock and a constantly angry looking Black girl that seems to only serve the purpose of being the only non-white character in the movie and literally only has a single line and shows up for < a minute on screen.

Ben's mom: Comes off as cold and doesn't seem to have any kind of trust or appreciation for Ben.

Madison's mom: Completely useless character who only purpose is to pick up a phone for her and has nothing to do with the plot (why even include her?), despite being entirely relevant to it.

Unbelievable Plot Points: -Why are these high schoolers constantly at school in the middle of the night by themselves? I don't know a single real high school that would allow that kind of free access. There don't seem to be any cameras as they can apparently strangle and kill each other freely without being seen. What's preventing someone from just robbing this nonsense school empty at night?

-What was with the baseball bat? Why is a guy on the swim team carrying around a huge baseball bat with him and keeping it in his swim locker? The moment it was shown, it was completely out of place, and was very obviously going to be used as a weapon later in the movie.

-Train starts passing the road the moment the cop car with arrested girl shows up, then leaves the moment the officers are dead? What miraculous timing is that...?

-Teenage girl in handcuffs can grab a gun off a cop then shoot two cops, free herself, and steal their car without alerting the officers on the radio that is kept turned on? Sure...

-Girlfriend tied to a chair and pushed into a deep pool sinks, goes unconscious, and survives for minutes underwater, but the villain who can't swim falls in and flails, dies in 5 seconds without even falling unconscious?

This movie really keeps you on your toes and guessing who can be trusted vs who's in the multi-billion dollar company's pocketbook throughout. The acting for the most part was solid and kept up the suspense. I really enjoyed this one up to the ending, at which point big plot holes showed up:

1) Why does the fiancé, who's been kidnapped for days by people who control an entire town and its police force, look perfectly well dressed and has not a scratch on him when he's exchanged for the fraud evidence? Must be some nice friendly captors...

2) The captors are trying to shoot the couple in a secluded location when they're literally 1 foot away from them in a narrow passage, but they're chasing them around with guns pointed right at them?!? If they were trying to lure them to the car for a quiet kill, why are they chasing them around waving guns in the air in public where there's plenty of witnesses and knocking baby strollers over in the process causing a huge scene? The villains' actions make no sense in the end confrontation.

My first main gripe with this move was how the villain was revealed. There was literally no lead up to it, and them and their entire plan is revealed at around halfway through the movie. At that point, what's the point of watching the rest of the movie if we already know pretty much what's going to happen?

My second gripe was with the mom. I did not like her at all and she seemed to show zero remorse for what she had done (and even continues to stalk her daughter in the end!). As other reviewers, I was also rooting for the villain by the final confrontation. After the mom let the villain go after it being blatantly obviously clear the villain was going to just run, I stopped caring at all whether she lived or died, because at that point she's both very unlikable and guilty of ruining a family's life with no remorse, but also a complete idiot. IMO, ihe ending would have been far better if she and the villain had killed each other (and more realistic than mom surviving a bomb by jumping into a conveniently placed shallow pool with less than 1 second left on the bomb).

Movie was pointless torture porn. You sit through 90 minutes of a girl getting tortured and abused and literally nothing positive happens during this movie. At the end, when you are waiting for the guy to get arrested and locked up, as he does, all you get is a 5 second epilogue text and the guy sitting and crying pitifully in his room. Skip this one.

The premise was good, albeit done much better many times in other similar movies.

Pros:

• The psychological manipulation by the older brother on the younger one worked well and you can tell the latter is conflicted by what he's doing.

• The friend's acting was well done and his plot made sense.

Cons:

• The mother-daughter relationship felt very fake/forced and stiffly acted.

-Their argument about the ski resort came out of completely nowhere and made no sense. How would a group of teens rent out/plan an entire ski resort trip without any kind of chaperone (even though one was clearly shown later on in the movie!)?

• Both the girl and mom acted dumb and made stupid decisions throughout the movie. Some examples:

-Unstable captor with a gun is giving you orders. What do you do? Spit in his face according to this girl!

-Mother has the captor's name and address. What does she do? Charge in with a TIRE IRON. This was one of the dumbest decision's I've seen made in a Lifetime film. If this family's so wealthy, surely they'd have a gun/other weapons around (See next point).

• How does this family have $250,000 to give the captor (not including anything from their house apparently)? Why is the daughter walking around in ragged clothes and has to be choosey about what clothes she's getting because the mom hasn't gotten her paycheck yet? Did their family seriously get $250,000 together in less than a day?

• The dad called the cops at just the exact moment for them to arrive when the captors have been defeated. Sure...

The movie was good and kept the suspense up throughout.

My main problem with it was that it was too predictable. I knew who the real antagonist was going to be within the first 1 minute, just by looking at them (Hint: it's the rugged looking strong/rich guy giving off creep vibes 95+% of the time). Based on that, the whole plot becomes very obvious in the first five minutes of the movie. If it had been a different, more innocent looking actor for the villain, it would have been much more solid/suspenseful.

You pretty much know who the baddie is 15 minutes into the movie, while the characters take an hour or so in to figure it out. As others have said, there are no red herrings, just the obviously shady villain who is shown to be off the first time they are shown. The movie gets very tedious and boring very quickly because of this. Another big issue with the ending, the villain gets whacked straight in the head with a hammer, but is running around after the protagonists 10 seconds later. They didn't even think to whack him more than once or even take away his gun (!?!).

Story was good, but is based on the premise that these teens want to be on the cheer squad so badly that they are willing to get tortured and even force others to be raped for it.

This premise was not really shown, and I was confused the entire time why anyone in their reasonable mind would not just walk out (not even one of them quit or even seriously considered quitting?!?), where the only consequence is not being on the cheer squad (which itself doesn't even seem to have any kind of high standing among other schools' or lead to scholarships as far as it's shown).

First the positives: The overall story concept was good, and I really liked the dynamic between the characters, such as the three Peters. The special effects and action were also above par.

Now for the negatives. I still have no idea why anyone would think trying to "cure" a bunch of villains who shouldn't even be in your dimension in the first place, is a good idea. Much less Peter, who's supposedly a genius. After he made this decision, I just stopped caring about anything that happened to him because it's pretty much his own fault for making a really bad decision and then sticking with it, despite having had hours of opportunities to do so with the click of a button. How many countless people did he sacrifice, just so a few villains from other dimensions could get "cured" and possibly (it's not even guaranteed) survive back in their own?

The dialogue was also very hit and miss. Some lines just made me facepalm. Off the top of my head, two particularly bad ones: the three Peters cracking cringy web jokes right before the final fight, instead of you know, coming up with a plan, and the random completely out of place "racism" comment about there being no Black Spiderman said in the middle of a fight scene.

The concept for this movie was solid, but there were too many "typical Lifetime movie" clichés that just made the plot too predictable and too many unrealistically dumb character decisions. Some of the main ones (Spoilers ahead): 1. It was way too easy to guess the real villain (almost as soon as you're introduced to them within the first half hour or so), since there were so few characters and you know a twist will happen (it IS a lifetime movie after all), the only character left has to be the real villain.

2. Why would anyone buy a house from this rando realtor they just met who has red flags all over her within the first 5 minutes of meeting her. It's mentioned that the old owners disappeared when they first stepped into the house, but it's not even considered as a factor when buying it. That and the realtor immediately asking personal questions about the couple's relationship with each other would have made me walk out the door immediately and get as far away as possible from that realtor. If the couple was looking at it as a last resort buy, it would have made sense, but they were literally just starting to look at houses to buy. They probably had a ton of other options to choose from, considering their job incomes.

3. You know what is really in the "newly made wall" the second it's mentioned in the first 10 minutes of the movie. No surprise at all when it is revealed.

4. Husband immediately leaving the wife outside by herself to go get car keys, when there's a police car RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM, possibly even with a police radio and keys in it. It would have made sense if they had at least checked the car and officer's body to see if he had car keys or a radio, or even a weapon, on him.

2 stars for a good story concept, but the execution was awful.

You can very easily predict how the rest of the movie will play out after the first 30 minutes because the movie beats you in the head with obvious hints about what will happen in the remaining hour. Some examples:

• It is very obvious who the kidnapper(s) will be within the first 15 minutes of the movie. The villain (who is already shown to be shady) hits the kidnapped girl on purpose, so you can clearly tell who it will be.

• Within the first 30 minutes, the villain offers someone shady looking gloves while right next to the known crime scene, which turns out to be right next to a cliff. The cliff is blatantly discussed by the characters. Wow, what a coincidence, what could have ever happened there and by whom /s?

• The main villain(s) are officially revealed around halfway through the movie, instead of at the end as is usually done in these kinds of movies to keep the suspense going.

There aren't even any red herrings dropped in to keep you guessing in this one. The storyline pretty much ends 30-40 minutes into the movie and the rest is a waste of time to watch because you know exactly what is going to happen and to whom it will happen.