When an actor wants to spread their wings a little and flex their muscle to try performing in ways they perhaps aren't known for, genre movies are often a great way to go. You only have to look at Hugh Grant's new villain era to see how transformative a good role can be in a new genre.
Channing Tatum's another case in point, with a completely creepy performance as a confusing, at-times friendly but at-times manipulative billionaire in Don't Blink, which hit theaters last year. Now, it's coming to Prime Video at no extra cost for subscribers, on 21 January.
That means you still have a few weeks to wait before you can sink your teeth into it if you missed it in cinemas, although the trailer above gives you a pretty good sense of what to expect. Naomi Ackie is the real star, as a young woman who falls into Tatum's orbit and gets a surprise invite to come to his island with some of his other friends.
She goes with her own best friend, but what starts as an unbelievable window into the lives of the ultra-rich soon starts to feel more sinister. A no-phones policy means they're cut off from the world, and she starts to see cracks in the facades of the other guests. When her best friend completely disappears, things start to get even freakier.
This is one of those movies that sits in the fun gap between the horror and thriller genres, and it reviewed really quite well when it came out last year. A 75% score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, paired with 70% from audiences, means that you're looking at a film that the consensus agreed was super slick.
Blink Twice was also directed by actor Zoë Kravitz, most recently known as the latest Catwoman in The Batman, making it doubly impressive as a debut feature. It's a textbook example of the sort of power that Amazon gets to flex because of its ownership of MGM – quickly getting big films on what it hopes is the best streaming platform in many people's eyes.
