Weekend Film Reviews: ‘Hope,’ ‘Practical Magic 2’

<p dir="ltr">There&rsquo;s no outrunning it. Anyone writing a monster movie must eventually decide whether or not they&rsquo;re going to show their monster. As Steven Spielberg demonstrated in <em>Jaws</em>, it&rsquo;s usually more frightening to hide the face of the beast. But if the credits roll and it&rsquo;s still hidden, the audience is going to be mad. In <em>Hope</em>, an alien movie set just south of the Korean DMZ, director Na Hong-Jin puts off the inevitable for more than 60 minutes as an anonymous force wreaks havoc on a sleepy harbor town. &ldquo;The first hour of this movie when we don&rsquo;t see the monster is incredibly intense and incredibly involving,&rdquo; but &ldquo;the CG doesn&rsquo;t hold up&rdquo; when the monster finally arrives, says <strong>William Bibbiani</strong>, film critic for The Wrap. <strong>Witney Seibold</strong>, senior writer at SlashFilm, says the visual effects looked &ldquo;about 30 years old,&rdquo; which made it feel like a B movie. &ldquo;For me, that worked,&rdquo; Seibold says. &ldquo;But I could see how it could also be very, very distracting.&rdquo;</p>

<p dir="ltr">Bibbiani and Seibold also review <em>Practical Magic 2, The Uprising </em>and<em> Black Zombie.</em></p>