Adam Brody has been a high point of two recent fun genre flicks. In Shazam! he was the grown-up superhero version of sidekick Freddie. And in Ready or Not he was the brother-in-law that gave Samara Weaving’s bride a chance at survival in a crazy mansion of killers. In his next movie, last year’s late pandemic year theatrical release The Kid Detective, the former Gilmore Girls and The O.C. actor plays Abe Applebaum, once a kid detective in the style of Encyclopedia Brown, he’s now a 32-year-old has-been, not cutting it as an adult detective. Unfortunately, what could have been something clever, fresh, and new, ends up pitifully bad–a film that can’t decide what it wants to be, a humorless experimental film that might have made a good effort as a film school project. It’s streaming now on Starz and other platforms.
