IF – REVIEW

I’m not exactly the biggest Ryan Reynolds defender here, but he’s certainly not worn out his welcome with me. Sure, it’s a big thing on the internet to clown on him for being annoying, but I think that break for the last year of any major roles helped me out. What’s funny about that is that it never felt like a break. His last leading role was Spirited back in 2022, which I think was a fun enough movie for a straight-to-streaming holiday musical thing. Ever since then, all the movies he’s been in have been cameos like Bullet Train or Ghosted, which is all on top of his Mint Mobile commercials and his venture into football club Wrexham A.F.C. with Rob McElhenney (and its accompanying show). So, it’s never felt like a break in that regard. However, on the flip side, I’m actually curious to see what John Krasinski could have up his sleeve as a director outside of A Quiet Place. I think he’s done a pretty good job with those movies and it feels like Krasinski wants to show off some versatility as a writer and director, which is admittedly something I’ve thought about, even if that means we gotta wait for A Quiet Place: Part III even longer. Now, though, we have IF, or Imaginary Friends.

IF follows Bea, a young girl who’s living with her grandmother in her apartment as her father is preparing for a big heart surgery. While she’s in that apartment building, she begins to see a couple of strange creatures running around, all being corralled by a man named Cal. Without going into spoilers, things go down that endanger the imaginary friends, and Bea and Cal have to try and save them by giving them new kids to be an imaginary friend with. It’s a relatively simple plot that feels straight out of a Pixar movie, but its premise feels at odds with itself throughout the movie.

I can sum up a majority of its problems with this statement: I think it’s too boring and even depressing at points for younger kids, but I also think it’s very corny and, for the lack of a better description, childish. It’s stuck in this gray area that I didn’t expect would be the biggest problem for the movie. On the good side, though, it’s actually shot incredibly well. There were many moments where I thought to myself “Wow, some of these shots deserve a better movie,” and at that point, I wasn’t surprised to see that Janusz Kamiński shot this. Kamiński’s shot a lot of Steven Spielberg’s movies, so for this kind of idea, it feels like Kamiński is operating pretty well. Outside of that, it just feels surprisingly artificial, almost like you’re watching a Pixar movie that you don’t end up being a fan of, but they’re still trying to tug at those heartstrings. It doesn’t happen, though, because for me, IF didn’t earn any of it.

That’s not to say that it’s all bad. I enjoyed Cailey Fleming as Bea, as well as the roles that are practically cameos from Alan Kim and Liza Colón-Zayas (who’s great in The Bear). I’ll get to all the voice roles soon because we have to talk about Ryan Reynolds now. I mentioned at the top that I’ve been fine with Reynolds and haven’t really flipped on him in the years since Deadpool, and even as someone who enjoyed more of a serious turn in this era like The Adam Project, his performance as Cal just wasn’t that good. He got one good laugh out of me, but it all felt strangely sour this time around. Maybe it’s the role he’s playing, but even though he’s a producer on the movie, it just didn’t feel like his heart was in this one. Should that make me worried about Deadpool & Wolverine, my most anticipated movie of the summer? Probably not, but I can’t lie when I said the thought crossed my mind of it falling apart.

Okay, now we’re onto the voice actors. I’m man enough to admit that every once in a while, the key-jingling cameos that Ryan Reynolds-led movies like Free Guy and even Deadpool 2 can be a little fun to spot. Pretty much every single imaginary friend here is voiced by someone famous, but the main two are voiced by Steve Carell and Phoebe Waller-Bridge. They’re both fine enough, but it’s about what you expect from cartoon characters voiced by Careel and Waller-Bridge. The multitude of other voices here are fine too, but practically cameos. The one that actually stood out to me was Cosmo, a detective made of shadows voiced by Christopher Meloni. I’m not saying that I’d wanna see a whole movie with him or something like that, but he’s probably the one I remember the most.



By the time the movie came to a close, IF felt shockingly cheap. Sure, I wasn’t expecting the world from this thing, but I at least expected something cute like a good Pixar movie. It didn’t even have to be an all-timer of a Pixar movie either, just something nice. IF feels like when you watch that very strange Buzz Lightyear movie from a few years ago and they basically do the sad parts of Interstellar with a beloved animated character. While there’s certainly some good enough things in IF, it was just so strange to witness something in such a gray area. I just hope Krasinski goes back to horror after this because as much as I respect an attempt to be versatile as a writer and director, this just didn’t land.


IF is now playing in theaters and is already up for preorder on digital platforms. It’s expected to hit Paramount+ later this summer.