The Movie Guru: ‘Solo Mio’ unexpectedly sweet, while ‘Iron Lung’ a too-faithful adaptation 

Solo Mio (in theaters)

I’ve never thought of Kevin James as a romantic lead before, but I’m happy to be wrong. 

He does an excellent job in “Solo Mio,” a charming, thoughtfully mature romance that he also helped write. It’s a little off from the usual genre conventions, mostly in a good way, and though the ending is too abrupt, the pathway to get there is lovely. James’ chemistry with costar Nicole Grimaudo is fantastic, warm and steady in a wonderfully realistic way. Add in a fun supporting cast and a gorgeous portrayal of Italy, and you have an unexpected romance more than happy to sweep you away. 

We open with James proposing to his fiancée, played by Julie Ann Emery, and their beautiful destination wedding in Italy. When she leaves him at the altar and he can’t get a refund on the Italian honeymoon, James’ character decides to take it himself. Though he’s grieving his lost relationship and considering trying to find his missing bride, he manages to make new connections and rediscover some joy and wonder. 

James does an excellent job tracking his character’s healing, and while he has some lighter moments most of the humor comes from the supporting cast. Kim Coates and Jonathan Roumie are both particularly funny, two men with opposite personalities who both decide to befriend James. 

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The movie is being released by Angel Studios, as part of their new spate of purely genre releases. That means the movie conforms to Christian values without actually broadcasting them, which means it’s safe for you to take your grandma to. If she’s a romance fan, she’ll enjoy it. 

Grade: Three stars

Iron Lung (in theaters)

The problem with adaptations is that different mediums are good at different things. Movies give you access to visual spectacle and wordless subtlety, while video games give you the frustration and satisfaction of a lived experience that automatically deepens and enriches the story.

This is also one of the reasons why we’ve had so many problems with video games being adapted into movies. The new movie “Iron Lung,” made by YouTube gamer Mark Fischbach (known online as Markiplier) offers a new variation on the problem, replicating the video game so faithfully that Fischbach forgot he switched mediums. 

The endless little tasks that are so engaging in a video game are desperately boring to merely look at. The lightly sketched world building that’s no barrier in a video game are an inadequate replacement for a plot in a movie, especially one with a two hour plus runtime. A POV protagonist works just fine in games, since the player imagines themselves there instead, but in a movie we need an actual character.

Based on the 2022 indie video game by David Szymanski, the movie is set in a post-apocalyptic future where nearly all the stars and planets have vanished. Humanity’s only hope lies on a moon with a blood ocean, and they’ve locked a convict in a sub in order to explore it. 

This might be an interesting movie concept if we ever saw anything more than the convict and the inside of the sub. “Moon” (2009) managed it with as limited a cast and almost as limited a setting, but it also had an excellent script and the incomparable Sam Rockwell. Fischbach is a decent actor, but he doesn’t have nearly the nuance to make us care about his character without a better script to back him up (he’s also the writer). 

Grade: Two stars

Jenniffer Wardell is an award-winning movie critic and member of the Denver Film Critics Society and the Utah Film Critics Association. Drop her a line at themovieguruslc@gmail.com.