If you held a gun to my head and made me pick a favorite genre of movie, I'd say horror, but if I got to pick another one, I'd say the genre of Lowered Expectations. The best example I can give is "The Royal Tenenbaums," where everyone is talented and brilliant in their own ways but is too sad or broken to be anything other than a big batch of wasted potential. Getting to watch characters rediscover their worth is a beautiful thing to me. I've been hearing about this new movie called "The Kid Detective" that sounded like it fit the bill perfectly, so I went down to my friendly neighborhood Blockbuster and rented it. Holy hell, everyone, this one checked all my weirdly specific movie boxes. It's sad and funny and exciting and dark all at the same time, while having a legit mystery at its center that can be figured out by intrepid viewers who are amateur sleuths themselves.