An intriguing premise is the only aspect a film needs to grab attention. That said – and unfortunately, if I may be honest – it’s the names of directors, screenwriters, and especially well-known actors that ultimately become the biggest draw for the general public. Jackpot! truly hits the jackpot by …
Doug Liman is known for kickstarting the Jason Bourne franchise with The Bourne Identity, but perhaps even more for what’s often considered one of the best action films of its decade, Edge of Tomorrow. Unfortunately, since that 2014 release, the filmmaker has been inconsistent with his work, producing reasonably satisfying …
Marvel ended Phase 3 of its cinematic universe in 2019 on a high with Spiderman: Far From Home and promised that Phase 4 would bring new stories along with new heroes. Fans were excited for the new era. However, things didn’t turn out to be as good as fans wanted. …
The animated world of Batman is growing, with the latest series, Batman: Caped Crusader, that recently hit Prime Video. The ten-episode series from showrunner Bruce Timm, written by Greg Rucka (Harley Quinn, The Old Guard), delivers a new grounded animated series with Hamish Linklater voicing Batman/Bruce Wayne. Does the animated world …
An uninspired plot and several phoned in performances makes Borderlands a huge misfire. Adapting a story from one medium to another is tough. Whether the source material is a novel or a comic or a twitter thread or a game, there are many choices that need to made because while …
In 2020, director Lee Isaac Chung made Minari, the story of an immigrant family in Arkansas with dialogue almost entirely in Korean. An extremely insulting debate sprang up about whether the movie was American, only possible because the immigrants weren’t white and not speaking English. Mr. Chung has now responded …
It is always, always a delight to see a movie that should not exist. Whether the artistic ambition is implausible or the plot is incredible, it’s always a pleasure to see the impossible, especially when it’s so determined to entertain us. Hundreds of Beavers is a mixed-media (part live-action, part …
It’s been apparent to the discerning student of world cinema for a little while now that Indian movies are about to burst into the Western mainstream. (Modesty be damned, I mentioned this on my personal blog at the end of last year.) The ground-breaking Oscar for RRR was the beginning …
Someday, a movie in which a man defeats an attacking spaceship with a single punch will get a negative review, but today is not that day. Kalki 2898 AD is not only the most expensive Indian movie ever made, but also the first in a planned series of movies – …
This is a spoiler free review of the first four episodes of House of the Dragon Season 2. The legacy of Game of Thrones was fascinating to watch unfold. What once started as an arguably revolutionary piece of television ended on a sour note. That note involved the series ending …
I have been a fan of The Boys since the jump. I love the way that it skewers Hollywood. I love the way that it skewers performative wokeness. I love the way that it skewers right-wing fanaticism. And, yeah, the voyeur in me loves the over-the-top violence and sexual content. …
With Twisters around the corner, what better time to revisit the 1996 original? Twister feels like an ancient relic in the modern day of cinema. The ’90s were stormed with disaster movies of all types, and sometimes, they had competing films releasing at once—for example, Deep Impact and Armageddon or …
Guy Ritchie’s The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is the latest project from the versatile filmmaker. It’s hard to keep track of what projects Guy Ritchie is currently working on, as one gets seemingly announced every week. And while most on Film Twitter spheres have complained about Ritchie pumping out two …
What is the purpose of a prequel? You might say it is to further deepen the lore of a character, or to add context to the world that the prior film built. Perhaps it’s a supplement, a new adventure with fresh, exciting characters that feed into and enhance that next …
When you’re a superhero, it seems like the world is always in danger. Be it villains attempting to take over the world, a comet headed straight to Earth promising global catastrophe, or an Alien race swoops in to establish global dominance. Sounds exhausting if I’m being honest, but I guess …
In the first minutes of They’re Here, we meet Cookie, a sympathetic old lady from New York who enthusiastically talks about her past experiences with Unknown Flying Objects (UFOs). She answers the directors, Daniel Claridge and Pacho Velez, saying she was taken fourteen times, only in her current home. Cookie …
Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would still be talking about Bad Boys after all these years, and yet here we are. It’s mindboggling that the franchise is legally old enough to drink, with the first film coming out back in 1003, and that it’s still bringing …
Alexandre Dumas’ novel The Count of Monte Cristo is kind of the ur-text for the modern adventure story. Published in 1844, it has it all: treachery, sword-fighting, injustice, long cons, false identities requiring elaborate disguises, secret children, hidden treasure, beautiful ladies, villains becoming heroes, heroes becoming villains, and revenge served …
In Hit Man, Richard Linklater’s latest film, the beloved director teams up with his star Glen Powell to write a script loosely based on a stranger-than-fiction news feature by legendary Texas Monthly reporter Skip Hollandsworth. It should be stressed that the real story, while remarkably gripping, does not go quite …
In 2015, veteran filmmaker George Miller charmed the world with Mad Max: Fury Road. Many people were skeptical about the movie and felt that Miller might not be able to pull it off. However, he proved everyone wrong and gave us one of the finest movies of this generation. Since …