Ace Wonder: Message from a Dead Man (not rated)
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streaming sites: Amazon; Peacock; Vudu

Occasionally when I'm looking through Amazon's list of upcoming DVD releases for titles to include on my website's monthly calendar, I discover some obscure thing I probably never would have heard of any other way. If it sounds interesting, I may add it to my list of movies I want to see someday. This is surely one such discovery. Although, sometime after I learned of its existence, I was looking through DVDs at Family Dollar, and saw this for $3, but I couldn't recall if it was something I wanted to see or not. I decided to buy it anyway. Later, when I looked at my list of movies, it wasn't there. So, I probably had decided it wasn't worth it, when I first discovered it. But whatever, I owned it now, and it's not like I'd miss three dollars. In any event, I watched it, and it wasn't bad. I wouldn't really call it good, but it wasn't bad.

So... this old guy named James Morton dies. At his funeral, his grandson, Derek, finds a note addressed to him in the casket, which is pretty strange. And the note is in code, which Derek can't decipher. Still, he wants to investigate it. (Derek, incidentally, is played by an actor who kinda reminds me of Jeremy London.) Meanwhile, there's a 10-year-old kid named Gator Moore, who's on a road trip with his family. Gator is an aspiring graphic novelist, who has created a noirish private eye named Ace Wonder, who is probably around Gator's age. But he's having trouble coming up with a storyline. The Moores' RV breaks down in the small Tennessee town where Derek's family is currently staying. Derek's father, Jim, had inherited a bed & breakfast from James, in spite of being estranged from James. And the b&b is apparently more trouble than it's worth, so Jim is eager to sell it. And James's friend Marcus DeWitt is eager to buy the property.

The Moores are going to need to stay in town overnight, while their RV is being repaired. And they end up staying at the b&b, with the Mortons. Gator latches on to Derek as a "client," acting as if he himself is his P.I. character, Ace. He hopes to solve the mystery of the note left for Derek by his grandfather, and use it as inspiration for his graphic novel. Derek is reluctant at first, but Gator soon wears him down. Anyway, the first note Derek had found is not the only clue left by his grandfather, and he and Gator work together to figure out what's going on. They also get a bit of help from Gator's older brothers, who I guess to be around Derek's age- that is, late teens. (Incidentally, Gator also has a sister who looks to be somewhere between his age and that of their older brothers. And Derek has a sister who looks to be somewhere between Gator's age and his sister's age. Whatever, the two girls are, unfortunately, of no particular importance to the story... although they do unwittingly help Gator figure out how to decipher the first clue.)

Anyway, the case leads Gator and Derek to a library run by a strange man named Logan (who vaguely reminds me of the librarian from the Roxy Hunter TV movies). And they learn that James was actually a genius scientist, a fact that had been completely unknown to Derek, who thought he was just a woodworker. They also learn that James had an enemy, and it seems that either Marcus or Logan was that enemy. So Gator and Derek have to figure out which it was. Meanwhile, there's a certain degree of estrangement between Derek and his own father, which is an important subplot that may be resolved through Derek's investigation of the mystery surrounding his grandfather.

Beyond that, I don't want to reveal anything. I will say that the DVD case just calls the movie "Ace Wonder," though the apparent subtitle "Message from a Dead Man" suggests that this could be the first in a planned series. I tend to doubt there will be any more movies, though. It's kind of a shame; I'd have a mild interest in seeing more, but... it doesn't really matter. Like I said, I don't think the movie was either good or bad. But it had a certain low budget, family-friendly charm, I guess. And I really liked the bit where Derek was commenting on Gator/Ace's narration.