Revenge of the Sith is the best of the Star Wars prequel trilogy by a country mile. Where The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones felt narratively meandering, handicapped by their insistence on telling over showing, Revenge of the Sith takes much better advantage of writer-director George Lucas’s idiosyncrasies. …
If my review for The Phantom Menace could be perceived as me going out of my way to be fair, then Attack of the Clones is me reaping what I’ve sowed. Not only does this film suffer from many of the same issues as its predecessor, but it amplifies them …
What is there to say about Sony’s Spider-Man Universe? A franchise that once ruled the world has now become a mixed bag of incredible highs and abysmal lows. On one hand, we have films like Across the Spider-Verse and Spider-Man: No Way Home, which joined the ranks of the original …
When Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, the first of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, hit cinemas in 1999, it proved extremely divisive. A definite victim of overhype, with some fans literally camping outside cinemas before the first screening, neither critics nor audiences seemed to agree on the film’s quality. The …
The story of Middle Earth has always been fascinating. J.R.R. Tolkien left no stone unturned to create one of the most detailed and immersive fictional worlds in the history of literature. Whether it was The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, or Silmarillion, Tolkien’s Middle Earth saga is undoubtedly a …
Good news everyone! Futurama is returned once again to satirize the future and the present, and it’s only slightly out of date doing it. There are a few things to say about the show, but let’s get this out of the way first: it’s still Futurama, and if you liked …
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 …
Despicable Me 4 sees Gru and the family take on a different dynamic. Instead of trying to achieve world domination as a villain, the Gru crew has to accomplish the most challenging mission they have ever faced. Somehow, they must achieve the impossible feat of “blending in.” On the surface, …
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 – …
Four episodes into The Acolyte and it has attracted the worst kinds of hate for all the wrong reasons. Stupid nitpicking comments about fire in space, an ongoing series that hasn’t revealed its mystery, and now we have a flying Sith lord that people are mad about – if anything, it shows …
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 …
The Acolyte episode three, Destiny, takes things back to the past and the childhood of Mae and Osha and looks at how the tragic incident that consumed their family and separated them, driving them apart – how it happened. It’s brutal; Mae’s rage and anger at Osha betraying their trust to …
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 …
Inside Out 2 is another home run from Pixar. It’s full of heart, honesty, and the stress-induced Anxiety of becoming a teenager. Almost nine years to the date, Pixar is releasing the follow-up to the 2015 smash hit Inside Out. Have you ever felt like your life is together as you prepare …
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 …