IF (2024)

‘IF’ only John Krasinski could have made a better family film. John Krasinski writes, directs, and co-stars with Ryan Reynolds in the well-intentioned but poorly executed ‘IF,’ which works too hard for too little.

After spending most of the past decade following the end of ‘The Office’ in “tough guy” mode, playing a soldier, a spy, and an alpha male patriarch (perhaps to distance himself from his nerdy image as Jim Halpert), John Krasinski pivots into family film mode with ‘IF,’ an original live-action feature that he wrote, directed, and co-stars in. But while Krasinski showed some filmmaking flair with the intense ‘A Quiet Place’ and its sequel, his heavy-handed attempt to make a would-be family classic is overwrought and underwritten, giving the usually charismatic Ryan Reynolds and spunky young star Cailey Fleming little to do but stare at some Pixar-esque CG creations.