HBO Max is the place to be if you want to watch buzzy movies like Weapons and Materialists, but it also has some films you might not have seen or heard about.
Watch With Us is here to highlight three overlooked HBO Max movies that are worth your time this weekend.
If you’re a fan of Tom Hanks, you should check out A Man Called Otto, a 2022 drama that features one of his best performances.
History meets horror in the irreverent comedy Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, while Sucker Punch delivers the kind of action thrills you expect from director Zack Snyder.
‘A Man Called Otto’ (2022)
Otto Anderson (Tom Hanks) is a 63-year-old widower who doesn’t like life that much. He’s still mourning his late wife, while his forced retirement leaves him with nothing to do but contemplate his own suicide. His life is shaken up by the arrival of his new neighbors, Marisol (Mariana Treviño) and Tommy (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), who slowly begin to thaw Otto’s ice-cold heart. As he slowly comes out of his shell, Otto remembers the good times he spent with his wife and wonders if he has any left without her.
A Man Called Otto walks a tricky line between a depressing drama about a suicidal man and a sickly sweet sentimental movie about a cranky man who transforms into someone lovable. It works because of Hanks, who doesn’t ask for his audience’s sympathy but earns it. His Otto is impossible to deal with, but he subtly reveals why his wife stayed with him for all those years. Somewhere beneath his scowls, Otto is a good person, and it’s a credit to Hanks that he shows him at his best and at his worst.
A Man Called Otto is streaming on HBO Max.
‘Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter’ (2012)
HBO Max was a little late adding Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter on November 1, but just because Halloween is over doesn’t make the film any less fun to watch. Less scary and more comedic, the horror satire stars Benjamin Walker as America’s 16th president, who started as an idealistic lawyer and, yes, vampire hunter. He teams up with the mysterious Henry Sturges (Dominic Cooper) to take down Adam (Rufus Sewell), a master vampire who is using the slave trade to grow his undead army. Determined to abolish both slavery and creatures of the night, Lincoln perfects his fighting skills while rising in power as a masterful politician.
Believe it or not, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is actually a pretty faithful retelling of Lincoln’s life and career, minus all the vampire bits. And it’s fun to watch how the movie embellishes fact with supernatural fiction, like how Confederate President Jefferson Davis recruits vampires (!) during the Civil War to fight the Union. It’s that kind of movie, but it’s an action romp that’s intentionally stylish and nutty. If you ever wanted to relive American history, there are worse ways to do it.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is streaming on HBO Max.
‘Sucker Punch’ (2011)
Sometimes, you need to see a movie that’s pure adolescent fantasy, and who better to deliver that than Zack Snyder? The 300 director has made a career at fulfilling the dreams of immature 12-year-old boys, and it doesn’t get more ridiculously over the top than in Sucker Punch, a mishmash of fantasy, cyberpunk and exploitation movie designed as a feminist call-to-arms for all the badass gals in the audience – and the boys who lust after them.
A young woman known only as Babydoll (Emily Browning) is wrongly committed by her greedy stepfather, who wants to lobotomize her so he can steal her inheritance. While awaiting surgery, she fantasizes that she’s in a brothel and her fellow female patients are sex slaves. She convinces them to escape, but they’ll need to start a fire, find the right key, get a map and arm themselves with the right knife. It’s all a big scavenger hunt to get them to take down the mysterious Blue Jones (Oscar Isaac), who, in reality, is an orderly at the asylum working for Babydoll’s father. Can these five females all escape with their bodies, minds and souls intact?
Sucker Punch is a cinematic equivalent of a hyperactive child with ADD – one moment, Babydoll is fighting three cybernetic samurai in feudal Japan and minutes later, she’s storming a castle and fighting Orc-like monsters. Sucker Punch is all over the place, but Snyder has a talent for creating dazzling, slow-motion visuals, and he clearly likes giving his mostly female cast heroic things to do. It’s silly, but also oddly sweet for a modern action film.
Sucker Punch is streaming on HBO Max.
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