This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Nancy Drew Online
Plot Overview
Liberated 18-year-old June Allen (Storm Reid) of Van
Nuys, California parties hardy when her fretful mom Grace (Nia Long)
goes to Columbia for a romantic getaway with her new flame Kevin
Lin (Ken Leung) of questionable past. When she fails to return, June
hacks into Kevin's online accounts to find he has a whole slew of
women clamoring for their money back, that he's in fact a con artist
with a record who uses different names. However, since he's been out
he's kept current with his parole and has been using his real name
with Grace. How reassuring. Maybe it's true love.
I once rented a room from which I observed a so-called “Hungarian chef” take an interest in my widow landlady. Two things stood out about him: he made a wicked steak, and he didn't want his picture took. My canny landlady inquired of the police to learn he had ties to organized crime and routinely married dames to drain their accounts. Making a good steak isn't all that difficult, mostly just too expensive to do often. Same for finding background information on women—whose online data is protected by weak passwords;—one just has to look and/or guess. Their dating site gave these two lovebirds a 97% compatibility rating. What are the odds? But Kevin sure did not want any interview with any cops, no way.
Ideology
June had disobeyed her away mother and then she disses her hired Columbian help Javier Ramos (Joaquim de Almeida) who in an earlier movie “Searching” (2018) was played by John Cho, a father looking for his daughter. He seems like a father figure to June here. She'd thus put herself in jeopardy according to, (Prov. 30:17) “The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.” She is not unique, at least not in literature. Novelist Ted Bell writes of a chief inspector who “had been beaten to within an inch of his life and nearly pecked to death by countless killer ravens. All the while locked inside the cage of a Victorian aviary” (357). The student of proverbs might expect to see June mutilated before the movie's end, but there's another possibility.
There's a parity of eye loss and servitude
given in, (Exodus 21:26) “And if a man
smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish; he
shall let him go free for his eye's sake.” Free-spirited June might
survive unscathed but lose her precious liberty before the movie's end.
Production Values
“” (2023) was written and directed by Nicholas D. Johnson and Will Merrick, with story development by Sev Ohanian. It stars Tim Griffin, Ava Zaria Lee, Nia Long, Joaquim de Almeida, Storm Reid, and Ken Leung. The casting was faultless for picking photogenic actors & actresses to fill flat computer screens that couldn't display angles or body movement. Storm Reid gave a great performance, conveying her primitive emotions to a tee.
The editing was expert combining a tension
building sound track with smoothly integrated screen shots of June's
computer quest. Some editorial license was taken to grease the skids
of computer response time to prevent holding up the pace. It's a
tradeoff that can be forgiven.
MPAA rated it PG–13 for some strong violence, language, teen drinking, and thematic material. If you pay close attention, you'll be one-up on the plot. It has a running time of 1 hour, 51 minutes.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
The lesson of consequences for disrespecting those in one's parents' shoes is the same one that tragically happened to Ham, Noah's youngest son, affecting his line for generations to come. I've treated that one more fully in other reviews. This movie's resolution provides an elixir for modern angst as described by novelist Ned Calmer, “quoting a report by the National Committee for an Effective Congress”:
America has experienced two great internal crises in her history, the Civil War and the economic depression of the 1930s. The country may now be on the brink of a third trauma, a depression of the national spirit.—
“[T]he nation is confused, disillusioned and cynical in the wake of the Vietnam War, due mainly to the inadequacy of our leadership to the problems of Vietnam, race conflict, inflation, and crime, associated in the public mind with riots.” (123)
This movie, however, is up to a Hollywood ending of sorts. It's a welcome break from the depressing news media.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Decent action scenes. Suitability for Children: Suitable for children 13+ years with guidance. Special effects: Amazing special effects. Video Occasion: Fit For a Friday Evening. Suspense: Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Overall movie rating: Three and a half stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture quoted from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software.
Bell, Ted. Patriot. Copyright © 2015 by Theodore A. Bell. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. Print.
Calmer, Ned. The Anchorman. Copyright © 1970 by Ned Calmer. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1970. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org