Here at Watch With Us, we’re ready to fire up our HBO Max subscription and risk it all for family, love and a decent movie.
The streamer has tons of great movies to choose from, but we’ve selected three underrated movies to watch this weekend.
Disaster flick fans will surely like The Wave, a European movie with a Hollywood blockbuster plot, while Gen Xers can relive their glory years with the oddball high school comedy, Better Off Dead.
If you’re an Anna Faris fan like we are, then check out What’s Your Number?, a sweet rom-com costarring Chris Evans.
‘The Wave’ (2016)
Geologist Kristian (Kristoffer Joner) is about to leave the Norwegian mountain resort where he works before a discovery stops him dead in his tracks. He realizes that activity inside a nearby mountain strongly suggests an avalanche is imminent — and capable of mass destruction. Because of where the mountain is located, the avalanche will cause a megatsunami that will blanket the resort in a wall of water and drown all its inhabitants. In a race against time, Kristian tries to warn everyone and evacuate his family before it’s too late.
With its natural disaster plot and emphasis on showing scenes of mass destruction, The Wave looks and sounds like a typical Hollywood blockbuster. But what separates it from big-budget movies like Earthquake with Burt Lancaster and Dante’s Peak with Pierce Brosnan is that it never loses focus on its central characters. Kristian isn’t a stock hero — he’s just an ordinary man trying to save as many people as he can. His good intentions sometimes aren’t enough, and you really feel the high cost of lives being lost. The Wave is an impressive action spectacle that never feels cheap or exploitative.
The Wave is streaming on HBO Max.
‘Better Off Dead’ (1985)
Lane Meyer (John Cusack) is a depressed teenager whose girlfriend, Beth (Amanda Wyss), just dumped him for the captain of the ski team he so desperately wants to join. Despondent, he tries to half-heartedly kill himself but fails every time. Believing he has nothing to lose, he challenges Beth’s new boyfriend to a ski race on the town’s intimidating mountain to either win Beth back or put Lane out of his misery for good.
Even though it has a lead character who is suicidal, Better Off Dead is a light, goofy ‘80s movie that’s odder than your average teenage comedy. (The movie’s treatment of suicide is a bit dated, but harmless.) Lane’s family is an assortment of oddballs, with a father obsessed with fighting an annoying paperboy and a mother who cooks outlandishly disgusting meals. The climax, which involves a race to win the heart of the film’s heroine, has been parodied in shows like South Park, but it still works after all these years.
Better Off Dead is streaming on HBO Max.
‘What’s Your Number?’ (2011)
Anna Faris is one of the most gifted comedians working today, but she’s never starred in a big enough hit that would put her on the A-list with Julia Roberts or even Dakota Johnson. One of her should-have-been-a-hit films is What’s Your Number?, a charming if silly rom-com that paired her up with Captain America himself, Chris Evans.
Faris stars as Ally, a thirtysomething woman who is tired of sleeping around and doesn’t want to be single anymore. After encountering an ex who has gotten his life together with another woman, Ally is determined not to sleep with any more new men and look up all of her past loves in the hope of finding one who is now marriage material. Womanizing next-door neighbor Colin (Evans) agrees to help her, but somewhere along the way, their friendship turns into something more. Will Ally abandon her “no new men” rule to give Colin a chance? And will Colin stop sleeping around to commit to Ally?
It’s a standard rom-com plot, and the ending won’t surprise anyone who has ever seen a movie — any movie — before. But What’s Your Number? works because of Faris and Evans, who radiate old Hollywood charisma with a modern edge. They play characters a bit bruised by love, and just want to find someone who will accept them for who they truly are: a little vain, slightly neurotic, but genuinely good. The movie is satisfying in a way that only major Hollywood movies can be, which is why it’s all the more perplexing that this wasn’t a hit back in 2011.
