IF Review

 

IF is a live-action/animated fantasy comedy movie, that's produced by Sunday Night Productions and Maximum Effort and distributed by Paramount Pictures. IF is written and directed by John Krasinski.

The story is, a young girl named Bea is going through a rough time in her life and then out of nowhere she can all of sudden see imaginary friends ('IFs" for short). She also learns her neighbor Cal has the same ability. Together they decide to team up and help these lost friends reunite with their former kids.

Initial Reaction

The reason for wanting to see IF was because I was curious what John Krasinski was going to do. Obviously this is very different from his A Quiet Place movies. Also, the whole thing with the imaginary friends did remind me bit of Cartoon Network's Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.

Cons

I've got nothing.

Middle Ground

One gray area was the humor. I'll admit sometimes I was just watching in complete silence, but there still were some funny moments. Like how one imaginary friend who's a glass of water almost got drank out of. Then there's the characters. Our main character, Bea has this really rediscovery story. Cal doesn't get too much development, but he is entertaining enough to forgive that. The weakest definitely went to the imaginary friends. Don't get me wrong or anything, I still liked them, but they could've used more. Like we heard how much they miss their kids, but we didn't dive anymore deeper than that.

Pros

First thing goes to the performances, mainly from Cailey Fleming and Ryan Reynolds. Now I don't recall watching anything with Cailey in it. I heard years ago she played Judith Grimes in The Walking Dead, but I haven't watched that show in the longest time so I can't say anything. But what I can say about her in this movie was she's pretty good. She was great in the more happier moments, but was also really good for the more sadder stuff. I hope she gets more work after this, because she truly did good. Then there's Reynolds, typically he plays a smartass. Not here though. Sure he still has his charm, but the character he's playing this time around could be quite the grump. While I'll always enjoy him playing the smartass, seeing him in a role like this was a nice change of pace. Now typically I hate the phrase "Fun for the whole family", because sometimes that's just not the case. Sometimes a movie is strictly made for kids, not with this. I truly think this is something the whole family will enjoy. The kids will love the more whacky and colorful things, while the adults can look forward to aspect of the story where we realize at some point in our life we for one reason or another let go of our imagination. When we shouldn't have, because an imagination can be a great thing to have.

While IF does have flaws, I actually felt like there was passion put into this and wasn't something just thrown together by the studios to make a quick buck.

My final rating is, Good.

That's all for now. Come back on Monday, May 20th, for a brand new Differences Between. This time around I'll be tackling All-Star Superman. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.