Marvel Studios failed to get its Blade movie into theaters, but Mahershala Ali has since found a suitable replacement with Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother.
The action-packed movie arrives in theaters later this month and is helmed by Bassam Tariq, who was attached to direct Blade for longer than any other filmmaker.
Now, he and the Jurassic World Rebirth star reunite in a movie that also features John Cho (Star Trek), Abubakr Ali (Grendel), Laith Nakli (Ms. Marvel), Tramell Tillman (Severance), Tiffany Boone (The Chi), and Giancarlo Esposito (The Mandalorian).
Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother follows Latif, a devoutly religious hitman who struggles to balance work, faith, and fatherhood. When his wife dies, he embarks on a desperate journey across Houston to protect his children, confronting the forces closing in around him—and the beliefs threatening to unravel within.
The reviews are in following an early screening at the Toronto International Film Festival, and Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother has debuted with a perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
In Deadline's review, it's said, "Though 180-degrees from his debut, Mogul Mowgli, Tariq’s film shows a similarly inventive depth to its writing, and it’s tempting to wonder what that film’s star, the intense but spiritual Riz Ahmed, could have done with the same material."
The Wrap notes, "What Ali, Tariq and the collaborators have assembled feels not just like kismet but divinely ordained, as if this was the movie they were always meant to make."
"Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is a film about faith, grief, fatherhood, and stabbing people to death, and it whips ass in a way that makes its origin story feel downright serendipitous," writes Vulture, with Next Best Picture adding, "His work here, as always, is fantastic, but the layering in Tariq’s writing allows an actor of Ali’s caliber to really dig deep into the incorporeal battle he’s toeing the line with."
IGN also praised the movie, writing, "Beats with a lived emotional authenticity, while unfolding against a borderline satirical modern United States whose religious and cultural concerns inform the movie’s sprawling drama."
It doesn't seem unfair to say that Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother proves Marvel Studios made a major misstep by not keeping Tariq and Ali for its Blade reboot. Still, for a better idea of what might have been, this movie will fill the void left by the Daywalker's MCU absence.
Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother begins arriving in theaters on September 25.