Pretty, lighthearted, charming, and as fleeting as its namesake, Bullet Train is also a pointless exercise in action filmmaking from 25 years ago but has little to offer today. Filled with nameless, unformed characters thrown back in and forth in time in a constant struggle to provide both context and surprise, Bullet Train‘s inability to…
Jordan Peele’s third film, Nope, is another intense thriller, full of context, theme, and flourish. Comparisons to Steven Spielberg or John Carpenter are accurate; Peele uses similar tricks and skills to entertain, frighten, and captivate audiences. He also has a need to tell stories full of metaphor and social awareness, but he also doesn’t want…
Regency-era romance fans, we are being fed well. Shondaland’s Bridgerton series has captured the hearts and titillated the senses of viewers everywhere, which has had the benefit of getting similar projects greenlit. We have an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion coming to Netflix on July 15, and — at long last — we are finally…
Vital Thrills got a chance to catch up with the Lightyear cast and crew to chat about the highly-anticipated new Pixar Animation Studios film. The film opens in theaters later today. The definitive origin story of Buzz Lightyear, the hero who inspired the toy, Lightyear follows the legendary Space Ranger after he’s marooned on a hostile planet…
Vital Thrills got a chance to talk to the Ms. Marvel cast and crew. The new Marvel Studios series, starring Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel, is now streaming on Disney+. “I mean, this is all very, very trippy,” said writer and producer Sana Amanat. “When Willow [character co-creator G. Willow Wilson] and I were…
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is Too Much, Too Little. For all the bombast and activity in this movie, the film feels strangely empty, a story in search of thematic meaning and spiritual resonance. This movie isn’t really about anything, while the first one, though smaller in scale, has more on its mind….
Franchise movies with the word origins in the title don’t have the best track record of quality, but that doesn’t stop studios from making them; a case in point is Snake Eyes: GI Joe Origins, which promises to tell the backstory of the fan-favorite character from the GI Joe animated series and Hasbro toy line….
Vital Thrills got a chance to chat with showrunner/executive producer Kevin Smith and the cast of the Netflix series Masters of the Universe: Revelation, including Chris Wood (Prince Adam / He-Man), Sarah Michelle Gellar (Teela), Tiffany Smith (Andra), Tony Todd (Scare Glow). The highly-anticipated series will premiere on the streaming service on July 23, 2021, and…
This Black Widow review should have been written a very long time ago, and I’m not talking about the pandemic-delayed release of the film. The character and Scarlett Johansson deserved this film long ago. Whatever Marvel Studios’ reasons were for waiting until Captain Marvel for a female-fronted superhero film, it was the wrong decision. We…
There are particular buttons in a movie that, when I see them, automatically elicit an emotional response. It’s Pavlovian – if you make a movie about fathers and sons, for example, I am almost certain to react with tears. It’s just hardwired into my moviegoing DNA. Thus, Pixar Animation Studios’ Onward was almost guaranteed to make…
In the run-up to the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and the end of the Skywalker Saga, we will be taking a look back at all of the Saga films and re-evaluating them and their legacy as a whole. Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope Or just Star Wars. Or A…
What makes Maleficent: Mistress of Evil so boring? Is it the ramshackle plot that flits from character to character, building up a giant climax without stakes or interest? Is it the strangeness of grafting large action pieces and violent character death onto children’s story characters? Is it the focus on world-building and mythology over character…
We finally have the new trailer for Captain Marvel, the long-awaited film from Marvel Studios and Disney. This is the first female-fronted live-action superhero film. Fans know and love her, but what if she’s new to you? We’ve got you covered. Here’s all the essential info about Captain Marvel, aka Carol Danvers. There have been…