Most sequels operate under the Law of Diminishing Returns, but not the Mission: Impossible franchise, at least, not since Ghost Protocol. I enjoyed the first three well enough, but once Ghost Protocol hit, and with each entry since, this series has strived to top itself in spectacle, story, stunts, spontaneity, and sincerity. Tom Cruise and…
Joy Ride, Adele Lim‘s extended road trip through China, is an enticing meditation on the complexity of identity within the immigrant experience that is unfortunately saddled with banal modern comedic tropes that undercut rather than enhance the journey. The phrase ‘immigrant experience’ itself seems overused at this point, a short-hand attempt to quantify a reality…
Let’s be honest and lay the cards on the table – the Indiana Jones movies are a trilogy. Yes, there are five movies in this trilogy, so the math doesn’t quite check out, but Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny are more epilogues than…
It’s easy to put charismatic actors in a romantic setting and let them quip at each other. It’s difficult to make anyone care for them or their plight or generate genuine charm. It’s easy to create gags that tug and pull at the edges of societal norms, aiming to shock through sheer outrageousness. It’s difficult to resist…
In 1969, Henry Jones Jr. is at a low point in his life. Well past his glory days, he now is disrespected by his younger neighbors, slowed down by aches and pains, forced into retirement by his college, and ignored by his students. Indy is a man out of time and the world moves on…
I’ll be the first to admit that, when I initially looked at Elemental in my inbox, I was hesitant. Over the years, Pixar has struggled a bit with its films, some of which suffered from being shoved onto Disney+ during peak COVID but also due to execution of ideas. From the lackluster Lightyear to the…
It seems hard to believe that everything that could be coaxed out of a world-spanning story of giant alien robots battling for supremacy has been even across seven films, but here we are. The newest attempt to revive the Transformers franchise remixes and regurgitates a lot of the pieces from the previous films, attempting to…
A couple of years after the events of Justice League, Barry Allen is starting to master his powers as The Flash. Unfortunately, not much else is going well for him. He feels like a fourth-rate member of the superhero team, he is not respected at his job as a forensic scientist, and his love life…
The Little Mermaid is arguably one of my favorite Disney Princess animated films. Not only did it introduce a lifelong obsession with mermaids, but it was also the hook that pulled me into all things Disney. Going into the live action, there was some hesitance. Disney’s live-action attempts have not been the greatest. In multiple…
One of the major contention points of the current writers’ strike is the use of artificial intelligence to write scripts. The writers, rightfully, would rather not see studios use AI to craft films or television shows, and they see it as a threat to their jobs and to the entertainment industry as a whole. AI…
In this age of serialized storytelling, of multi-film arcs that take years to resolve, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is in real danger of doing something that the comic books these films are based on have struggled with for decades – keeping the status quo. There’s a resistance to change, of not shaking the tree too…
Citadel is the latest action-spy thriller to grace Prime Video. Clocking in at just six episodes, this latest series executive produced by the Russo Brothers’ AGBO looks enticing. With flashy visuals, tight-boxed action sequences, and a cast dialing into the over-the-top story points thrown at them, it has the makings of comfort food watching. As…
Evil Dead has a strong legacy. With each installment to the franchise, fans get to see how the mythos build while also reveling in delightfully fiendish gore and effects. A decade has passed since the last Evil Dead film, a film I will defend until my dying day, and we now have Evil Dead Rise….
After abandoning his family and becoming Dracula’s servant for a hundred years, Renfield starts to have some regrets. Overworked and underappreciated, he begins to see his vampire master in a new light. When he stumbles upon a support group for people in toxic relationships, he realizes that Dracula has been using him in an abusive…
Colorful, energetic and empty as a sugar-laden breakfast cereal, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is the kind of kid film that gives kid films a bad reputation. It preys on a younger audiences’ capacity for easy joy, the kind that can be easily filled by bright colors and loud noises, by offering nothing but a…
Are you vying for some more action coming off your viewing of John Wick: Chapter 4? Well, Netflix has something up their sleeve with the arrival of Kill Boksoon. Starring Crash Course in Romance‘s Jeon Do-yeon, writer/director Byun Sung-hyun crafts a film that feels familiar, yet still manages to excite with its beautifully-choreographed and shot…
Some warning: the first three rows reading this review may get some nerd on them. I normally hate doing this sort of thing, talking about how much a property means to me – all those personal anecdotes when a Star Wars or a comic book movie comes out and how much the source material was…
Not long after the events of Shazam!, Billy Batson and his foster siblings are still trying to figure out the whole superhero thing… with mixed results. While they manage to save many lives, there’s plenty of collateral damage along the way. Billy does his best to lead his new superhero team, but he has his…
Based on statistics that I can in no way verify, if the internet counters are accurate, the total amount of kills in the John Wick franchise (at least before its latest entry, John Wick: Chapter 4) stands at 299. That’s important, because the 300th kill is a significant one, and sets the events of the…
I may be showing my age a bit with this review. It’s easy to forget, in this modern age of cinematic universes and big budget extravaganzas, just how much Star Wars shifted the paradigm, and how much movie studios tried to follow in its success in the 1980s. A lot of it died on the…