Turns out IF stands for “It’s Fine”

This seems like a fake movie that would be in a different movie

Imaginary Friends movie with a protagonist named Blue??? That has nothing to do with Fosters Home? Wow.

I would like to point out that this has the same basic premise of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, a cartoon whose main imaginary friend is named... Bloo. Kinda weird.

Definitely like the idea of Dan doing more spoiler reviews. As he said in The Marvels review he's a very story- focused guy, and he's very good at analyzing narrative beats, character arcs, setup and pay-off, etc. Definitely would be interested in seeing more of these type of reviews.

Krasinski ripped off fosters home for Imaginary friends and thought no one would notice.

I’ll echo the comments of I love the non-spoiler/spoiler format! Please keep doing this as I personally tend to see movies as soon as they release and love hearing spoiler thoughts asap.

I kept thinking about how Where the Wild Things Are while watching IF. To me that handled the concepts of imaginary friends and childhood anguish so much more authentically, and despite being more abstract was actually a lot easier to follow. Very underrated movie.

We have "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends" at home

IF gets a score of IF. What perfect symmetry.

Oh this movie was real? I thought it was a joke like Ryan Reynold's commericals or John Krasinski's news show

That's a shame. Krasinski and Reynolds involved in the same movie, I would expect a better movie than just "meh".

There's a solid cartoon that aired in the mid 2000s, Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends, that I'd recommend children watch over this. Still really holds up with good laughs, characters, and basically the same message but given more time to build up and pay off. One of the last great cartoons Cartoon Network produced.

We went last night with our six kids, age 8-18. Most of the emotion was lost on the 8yo, the next oldest kept trying to predict things (and she was pretty close), and all the other kids took what resonated with them and mostly ignored the rest. My wife cried. I laughed and got musty eyed. The way I see it, Bo’s mom and dad brought wonder into her life, and that’s what brought in Cal when she was little. Her mom died when she was young, so she had to grow up fast. Cal came back in as a stand in for her father ti tell her it’s okay to be a kid. And it was evident early in the the sequences with her mom, that she had a a gray imagination and was good at crafting things. Her transforming the retirement home into a more fun, wonder-filled place was her tapping into that again and showing us she may be able to do the same for others. Her dad kept trying to remind her to be a kid each time she’d visit him in the hospital, so Cal was there as a stand in for him. I see her as like the “most powerful imagination user,” so that’s why she was tapped to help the other IFs reunite with their former kids. So yes, you have three movies, BUT it’s like a trilogy in one film. I liked it a lot.

Ryan Reynolds even makes movies to promote his phone company now?

Who else is just hanging for Dan’s Mad Max Review?

If I had a nickel for every imaginary friend movie in 2024, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot but it's weird it happened twice.

I don't understand the point of hiring big name celebrities to do voices in kids animated movies. The kids won't know who these people are. Do adults really care if they recognize someone's voice? And hasn't it been shown that outside of maybe Tom Cruise, celebrity names don't really pull in people to theater anymore? Why not hire professional voice actors?

I love the idea of having a spoiler section! I always watch reviews after I see the movie so it’s nice to hear your more specific thoughts about it

And then the next movie in the series of If, then “But” will be “If/Then”, and it’ll be all about writing acceptance criteria for software development project tasks

Mom, can we have Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends? No, we have Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends at home. Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends at home:

Dan going into his Dad joke phase, and I'm here for it. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Great video Dan!

Ackwafina, again. Third movie this year she’s had a prominent voice role. Please make it stop

I just saw If tonight with my kids. Your review is so spot on. You are almost verbatim describing my inner dialogue as I was watching the film. Great job.

Love the non-spoiler/spoiler format Dan!👍🏻

Really love this format Dan, non-spoiler and spoiler, as always thank you for the content.

Love hearing your spoiler thoughts!! 👍👍

Thank you Dan for this review! It helped me decide whether to see it or not. Also, I like the new format of the full review with no spoilers and then spoilers at the end.

Just want to say I love the idea of doing a non spoiler and spoiler review all in one. I often watch the movie on Thursday or Friday and end up watching your review after I've already seen the movie. So this will be a great way for me to also hear your complete thoughts on the full movie. ❤️

It feels like the collaborative process of creative oversight in film making is like editing in publishing. Something that can polish and enhance the final product. Constraints feed creativity, something that we see time and again - there’s nothing like a deadline to break down writing blocks (says the person who wrote a well-received eulogy a couple of days ago, about two hours before the funeral). So it would be nice if the importance of constraints and boundaries, like budget or studio approval, were more widely recognised in the industry.

😂😂😂 loved the opening bit

Took my family to see it, and we all enjoyed it. Anything that can hold the attention of a 7 and 4 year old is worth the money.

Really curious to see how this movie is going to perform. I struggle to remember a movie where I've been bombarded with promotional material like this for months and months, despite being the opposite of the target audience. So I guess the studio has high hopes for the film, despite it now being a bit mid apparently.

I liked this format! There’s some movies that I already know I don’t really care to watch, and I want to support you and watch all your videos, but I’d rather have the no spoiler and spoiler reviews combined in one video.

Bummer..was Looking forward to this one

Sometimes I think your intros are too clever for your own good hahaha

Thanks for the review, I do wanna see this film, but I’ll wait for IF to stream

Good conjunction joke, Dan. You got me. 😅

You almost had me with that intro 😅

I can always tell what your review is going to be by your face on the thumbnail. Makes me chuckle.

The trailer for Wicked just came up. That looks good! Is the new movie based on the book/play?

I just got out of IF and I’m glad to know my opinions are reassured now after seeing your review. I was just left confused cause in the areas where there should be exposition, there’s barely any. I really wanna know what was left on the cutting room floor

I personally loved it. One of the best I’ve seen in a little while

Can we all agree that this was a better imaginary friend movie than “Imaginary”?

I figured it out pretty much when they showed the book mark

1:40 So, this is just Foster's? Interesting.

I just keps thinking, why is a 12 year old walking around alone in NYC, or taking a bus or going out at night🤦‍♀️

Finally Dan I am always waiting for your reviews

I haven't seen the movie, but most of the problems that it seems to have are exactly what a good editor is there to solve. They are the unsung heroes of every good movie ever made. They are the movie storytellers. It's the reason so many famous directors find and then stick to a certain editor for all or most of their movies.

Will be interesting to see how this does at the box office. We have not had a lot of big live action family movies like this for a while (that are not remakes like Aladian or IP franchise movies like Sonic etc). I wonder if familes will show up, or like a lot of movies recently , hold out for some more familar like Garfield , Despicable me 4 etc for wait for IF to hit streaming

The way this movie is shot is weird to me. I saw someone say it looks like a fake movie inside a real movie and I agree.

I just seen it yesterday and the kids that sat next to me around 5-7 kept saying I don't understand. At the end me and my husband said I don't understand lol 😂. Like there was emotional parts but felt like something major was changed and never fixed

This would have worked as an after school special. Ryan made it feel like a long Mint Mobile commercial.

lol. Your review here was virtually Word for Word. My thoughts on it as well. Decent movie, but could have been great with more direction and a tighter story. I thought SteveCarell, who I normally love struggle here “trying“ to deliver something magical.

I mostly agree with your review but the emotion really landed for me so I loved it. I thought the score was incredibly charming as well. I’m recommending my friends with kids to go see it

If is a great movie is about imagery friends and how incorpating those childhood imagination to adult life to inspire us to create and hope for a better future. Each human creates an avatar for each experience and the one that is used the most is the one that bring the dopamine and the avatar that does gets discarded. By incorporating each of ourselfs into a whole being.

So it's a movie about how it's okay for a preteen to go off with a late 40's guy to go looking for imaginary friends? I guess this is why it received five stars from "Child Pageant Fan Monthly".

Best pun opener yet... Hahahaha

I'm not gonna see it, but i'm at least amused by the brad pitt story - I can get behind that invisible brad recurring role lol.

totally agree with you on all your points!! The movie seems to try way too hard to extract emotion from you but the story just didn't flow naturally. You know there is a problem when the movie has problems explaining the concept of the IF placement. What if they're not placed, what if they don't want to leave their kid, etc. Would have been more interesting just exploring the IF premise than this mishmash. Also, why make the father's sickness so mysterious? So many things done with no payoff, leaving the audience (at least me) unsatisfied

I'm all for reviews that split themselves into Non-Spoiler and Spoiler after the movie or show has been released. Something like IF where I don't care about spoilers, it is nice to have your full thoughts. For shows like Fallout, I watched the non-spoiler part of your review, then came back for the spoiler portion when I finished the show.

I just went to see it. It was worth watching once. I can't imagine watching it over and over. I really would have loved more of a story focusing on the IFs. There were some pretty fun ones. I loved the old bear and the spy the most. I honestly feel they should have left the whole health issues with dad story line as that slowed it down and moved everything away from the Ifs.

it's like a live action Pixar movie with a good cast

So this is basically Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends?

Just tell me if its a secret Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends tie in. If not it will lower the score for “spitting in the face of my childhood and all I hold dear”

rehoming imaginary friends and a main imaginary friend Blue... i think the makers of Fosters home of imaginary friends has a case j/k; but gotta say this puts me in the mood to try and rewatch Fosters

Dan, love your spoiler talks. Keep them coming after the movies are out. If Quiet Place was not done, I would say this is an okay directorial debut. But after 2 Quiet Place movies, this could and should be a lot better. As an adult, it is a Sixth Sense movie, and the hint was not every subtle. I think John Krasinski wants to do a movie for the whole family, but I agree with you, it is too slow for kids and not enough stuff for adults.

My 12 year old pointed out to me that she thought it was creepy that a grown man was sneaking into a little girls bedroom and hiding under her bed then having a bunch of kids pictures on his desk. Then she didn't understand why a little kid would go with a strange man on a bus to a abandoned park.🤔

I enjoyed this move a lot

Sounds like this movie should have been a show/series on a streaming service. That way, John Karsinski would have more time to develop the story and characters.

Woah, the premise is totally like this one good cartoon show i watched as a kid but just focusing on the imagery friends...

I went with my family (2 kids, parents, grand parent, and great aunt). Kids both really enjoyed it (though one was too young to understand the opening fully, but knew what the later scene with the dad meant). Biggest complaint would be the ads/trailers did not really convey the movie at all - it was more mature than expected, more serious, and less goofy fun. Think the whole group liked it though, overall

See the better version, it’s called Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends.

The whole time the movie was going I could hear Furiosa next door, made me dream of being next door, otherwise, Dans right they needed to pick a lane and reuniting IFs with their adults should have been the whole movie from 20 mins in.

This is the second movie of this title, technically Lindsay Anderson’s is called *if…* which made Malcolm McDowell a star, back when (1968) the weird idea of schoolboys machine gunning their teachers was just a fun fantasy. Not a remake I guess 🤦🏻‍♀️

I think there was something wrong with the projector when I saw this. The film was zoomed in too much and we couldn't see the names of half the filmmakers in the opening credits.

i asked mama for a Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, she brings me IF. lol gonna go see it

I genuinely liked “IF”, it reminded me a lot of “My Neighbor Totoro” where it is about an imaginary friend and a girl dealing with the trauma of loss of family. I think the strange pacing is intentional, as it feels like Miyazaki’s other more recent movie “Boy and the Heron” where it’s hard to tell what is real and what was maybe in her imagination. It all feels very dream like in it’s pacing. Not saying this is as good as Miyazaki film, but I feel like Krasinski took inspiration from those films and tried to translate them to an American audience.

You’re so right that SPOILER The film would have been so much better if the entire thing was about Bee reuniting IFs with their adults.

From the movie trailers I assumed the man was the girl’s father. Finding out he is not brings a weird vibe to it all. Point blank period.

If’ is clearly borrowing a lot from cartoon network classic fosters home for imaginary friends! That has same concept and even has main imaginary friend called ‘blue’. This is shameless movie

IF should stand for It’s Forgettable

It did bring up some strong emotions at a few points, and seeing the IFs was kind of fun, but the plot was so disjointed, I felt like I was watching some selected clips from a TV series rather than an actual movie. Like the whole subplot about the father's surgery turns out to be inconsequential, they could have cut Krasinski's character entirely and just had Bea living with her grandma after losing her parents, and it would have been basically the same movie. The whole sequence in the IF retirement home was entertaining, but it didn't do anything to advance the plot. I would have liked to see a lot more IF-kid reunions, I kept waiting for Bea to get into the swing of things and reunite every IF in the home with their kid, so it was pretty underwhelming that we just got 2.

Sad state of movies I actually was like what's the conjunction universe it wouldn't surprise me.

My family loved it

I agree. Who was the intended audience? Based on trailers, I assumed it was children. I expected it to be about Blue and rehoming his (imaginary) friends. (No trailer gave me the vibe it was about reuniting with their child, now adult.) The family drama stuff was unexpected and felt like a bait & switch. I could have done without that. Honestly, I thought it was going to have the same vibe as "Sing." At the end though, it felt more like "Homeward Bound," a movie that seems for children but punches you in the gut. In the movie, on the Grandma's TV, she's watching "Harvey," I think, so the movie definitely had lofty goals. I figured out pretty early on what the twist was.

I liked the movie well enough it was one of the two movies that i watched this year so far in theaters. (Other one being Ordinary Angels)

02:38 We got Soyjak Ryan Reynolds before GTA 6

i'll return for the spoiler part after i watch the movie, thanks for this dan

I feel like that one promotional spot where Randall Park plays John Krasinski is the only thing that makes this movie worthwhile

Wow, I literally guessed the plot twist from the trailer. le sigh.

Im glad to see that im not the only one who felt like this kinda ripped off fosters home for imaginary friend, alot of other comenters thought this too!

9:20 (THE SPOILER STUFF) i kind of had a feeling Ryan Reynolds might've been an imaginary friend. Mostly from the trailers with him being in that whole Immaginary Friend house. seems like it could still be an ok movie. I don't know. I'm teetering between waiting to see where this shows up on streaming and maybe seeing it.

Based on their previous projects I don't think Krasinski and Reynolds are filmmakers capable of something as emotionally profound with an ambitious complex mix of themes. It seems like a concept better suited for Spike Jones, Taika Waititi, or even Guillermo del Toro (but with GdT the monster will be monstrous).

Everyone in our theater LEFT about an hour into the film. Thats how bad it was. Not a single laugh throughout. My family and I only stayed because we had nothing better to do at that point - but we were all so incredibly frustrated and bored!!!! So many plot holes and things that the film just didn’t want to explain! We could never get emotionally connected because we never really understood wth was at stake here. By far the worst movie we’ve ever seen in theatres.

I loved it. It’s weird because with movies where we’re not in lockstep, I don’t really disagree with your points. They just don’t seem bother me to the same extent. I do wonder how kids will receive the film. I think adults will generally like it.

animation is for all ages not just kids

I saw it tonight and it was a little strange. It felt like the editing was unfinished, and there were tons of fade to black transitions.

Rarely agree with Dan's criticisms as I am an easy mark. However I'm checking which studio put this out and if I'm subscribed to them