Apparently I blinked and the 1998 chick flick “Practical Magic” developed a huge cult following. The film, about witch sisters Sally (Sandra Bullock) and Gillian (Nicole Kidman) Owens, came out 28 years ago, made only $40 million at the domestic box office, scored a mere 31% on Rotten Tomatoes, and I can’t recall ever hearing anyone speak affectionately about it. And yet not only was there a call for a sequel in 2026, the resulting film was the first to win a weekend over “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” (okay, only “after” a six-week run of dominance, but still…). What kind of spell has this franchise cast on the moviegoing public?

            The Owens sisters, along with their kooky aunts Franny (Stockard Channing) and Jet (Dianne Wiest), come from a long line of witches that love extending their bloodline, but hate… love. Or at least romantic love, as a jilted long-ago relative cursed the women of the family to lose their male partners. As a result, Sally’s children, Kylie (Joey King) and Antonia (Maisie Williams), have lost both their father and the stepfather that Sally found for them at the end of the first movie. Sally wiped their memories as children so they would never know the temptations of practicing magic, but the curse still applies. Now Kylie has a boyfriend, Gideon (Xolo Maridueña), and Sally can’t figure out a tactful way to tell her daughter that, for his own good, she can’t love him.

            Sally waits too long and tragedy befalls Gideon, though there’s a sliver of hope that he can be saved. Kylie finally learns of her heritage and the curse, falls out with her mother, and storms off to England, home of her ancestors, to see if she can break the curse with the help of local escort Tom (Solly McLeod). Sally tries to track her down, also travelling to England and taking Gillian along, ostensibly because she needs help but really because the movie needs Bullock and Kidman together so they can squabble for comic effect. They enlist the help of a professor (Lee Pace) who may or may not have ulterior motives and who may or may not be a potential third husband for Sally if that pesky curse can be broken for real.

            The movie is, in its best moments, agreeable and little more. I’m not saying that the appeal of Bullock and Kidman playing witches who share the ins and outs of sisterhood is completely lost on me. The two have good chemistry and some genuinely funny and touching moments. And when they’re sharing the screen with wily veterans Channing and Wiest, those genuine moments are amplified. I get why people like the low-stakes scenes of these four just playing off one another, with magic thrown in for flavor. The problem is that these movies can’t “just” be about these women enjoying happy hour.

            Like its predecessor, “Practical Magic 2” falters when it tries to deliver more than the laughs and tears that people expect. In other words, it doesn’t work as a thriller. The first movie really lost its balance once murder entered the picture, and this one similarly topples with all the mystery surrounding the curse and an evil scheme to burn one of the family at the stake. There’s so much lore and so many secrets that have to be uncovered that the film is over two hours long. I was chanting, “Just end already” like an incantation by the time the credits rolled. By taking up so much time, this movie offers up too much of even the stuff that does work, and goes far overboard with the stuff that doesn’t.

Grade: C

            “By Any Means” is a movie about two disparate FBI employees that can’t decide if it wants to be a “Buddy Cop” movie or not. The pair are mismatched, but are they “comically” mismatched? The pair banter, is there enough banter to qualify for the “Buddy Cop” label? There’s action, but is the action too violent and intense for a term as casual as “Buddy Cop”? The result is an uneven tone that makes the movie too dark for matinee action fans and too ridiculous for true-crime aficionados.

            The movie takes place in 1966, primarily in Mississippi. Local agent Wayne Strider (Yahya Abdul Mateen II) is eager to prove that he, as a Black man, can handle more than a desk job. He also wants to help in the investigation into the murder of civil rights activist and personal friend Vernon Dahmer (Giancarlo Esposito). His boss (David Strathairn) notices that Black neighbors of Dahmer are unwilling to talk to white agents, but maybe they’ll cooperate with Strider. The agent is given a special off-the-books assignment that requires some investigating, though he is mostly in the service of informant Gregory Scarpa (Mark Wahlberg), a New York mobster known for uncondoned methods of getting answers. For different reasons, neither Strider nor Scarpa is particularly welcome in Klan-infested 1960’s Mississippi, though it’s not like they’re conducting the investigation to make friends.

            Scarpa has certainly shown up to be one half of a pair of Buddy Cops. Everything from his hair to his sunglasses to his drinking and womanizing, indicates that he is the “wild” one of the team. And that’s just his first impression. He’s also got a mean mouth, a short fuse, and an itchy trigger finger. The man starts putting up a body count much earlier than Strider expected. He’s not much more merciful in his interrogations, with the investigation rarely moving forward without information soaked in blood. Then again, at least he’s getting the information, which Strider would never be able to get going by the book.

            Strider and Scarpa settle into a rapport, though Scarpa is casually racist and says he doesn’t care about the investigation outside of his specific assignment. Strider eventually learns to give verbal abuse as good as he gets. He even teaches Scarpa an epithet for white people that he doesn’t already know. I found it hard to believe that Scarpa wasn’t familiar with the term, or at least be able to easily guess its meaning from context. His ignorance in this scene is about as embarrassing for the movie as Dr. Don in “Green Book” being befuddled by fried chicken.

            When it comes to the investigation, there’s no learning from each other, Scarpa 100% brings Strider over to his side of using violence to get what he wants. And there is a lot of violence. Interrogation scenes see suspects begging Scarpa to kill them, but he won’t end their suffering that easily. Granted, these men are always perpetrators of horrific violence themselves, which just means that all “action” sequences in this movie are a rough watch.

            I get the point of making the violence in “By Any Means” so ugly, there are no winners in a hate-based war. I also get the point of making the character of Scarpa so unlikeable (provided it does the real-life Scarpa justice), sometimes assets to justice have to come from the dregs of society. But did this movie have to take so many cues from lighter Buddy Cop movies, as if it couldn’t sell itself as something heavier? And did it have to whiff so badly on its few attempts at levity? The film takes itself both too seriously and not seriously enough, working occasionally, but not consistently. It never quite finds the means to elicit laughs “or” screams.

Grade: C

            The big drawback to getting in an advance review of “Coyote vs. Acme” last week is that “Insidious: Out of the Further” is even less relevant this week. The horror film toppled from second place to fourth at the domestic box office, behind even the seventh weekend of “The Odyssey,” while “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” continues to dominate at #1. Fortunately, that drawback is offset by the knowledge that the film was never worth much attention anyway.

            If there’s one horror franchise that loves its jump scares, it’s “Insidious.” The 2010 original sold itself with a trailer that included a jump scare after it had supposedly concluded - not “at” the last moment, like a lot of horror trailers, but “after” the last moment, when the audience thinks they have a beat to rest. The film itself had a gnarly jump scare too, with its infamous red demon appearing in a drably-colored, but well-lighted scene with multiple characters in the daytime, also a setting where viewers think they can lower their guard. But that film also boasted performances by Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne and an originality to its world. “Insidious: Out of the Further” is the sixth installment in the franchise, it doesn’t boast greats like Wilson and Byrne, and fans very much know what to expect from these films at this point.

            We open with a sequence where nine-year-old Gemma (Charli Penton) comes home to a mother (Laura Gordon) who manages a few loving platitudes, but is clearly out of sorts. The mother attacks the child before locking herself in a bathroom, which doesn’t end well. In the present day, adult Gemma (Amelia Eve) is a single mother determined to be better to her own daughter, Maya (Island Austin). She’s present for her at the beginning and end of every school day and talks to her as much as possible about every subject except her late, presumedly-mentally-ill grandmother. This being an “Insidious” film, it’s not long before strange things start happening: old toys reappear after being missing for decades, suspicious people are seen around the neighborhood, and Gemma starts having scary dreams that may or may not be dreams.

            Things ramp up. Dentist Gemma has an unsettling appointment with one of the new neighbors (disappointing scares in the rest of the movie aside, people uncomfortable with dentistry “will” be freaked out by this sequence). She gets unreasonably lost in a coffee-table-sized blanket fort and barely escapes with her life. Her cop boyfriend Nick (Brendon Parea) doesn’t believe her when she says she’s in danger. Franchise mainstay Dr. Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye) does, but she can only be so much help considering she’s been dead for over ten years. Eventually Gemma learns that all the scares are because her bloodline has ties to the purgatory-like realm known as The Further and that she and Maya are being targeted by cult leader Cyrus Lam (Sam Spruell), who is supposed to give off main-villain energy, but is somehow less scary-looking than any of his followers.

            Like many horror movies, “Insidious: Out of the Further” is at its scariest in its early stages when we don’t know what’s going to pop out. We know that “something” is going to pop out, which itself depletes the scare, but we don’t know what and how. Once the veil has been pulled back on the villains and their motives, the film can’t be scary or exciting to save its life. Even a returning familiar face (other than Lin Shaye’s) couldn’t get a reaction out of my theater. And the non-horror action wasn’t pulling me in. I’m sure the actors are doing their best, but there’s not much interesting about the umpteenth horror setup with a parent, a kid, and generational trauma. After this film, I ask that the “Insidious” franchise go away and stay even Further away than before.

Grade: C-

            The dialogue-free Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote cartoons are my favorite of the Looney Tunes. No jokes centered around annoying accents or speech impediments, just pure physical comedy about a hapless carnivore and his Ahab-like obsession with catching and eating a skinny flightless bird. Although the cartoons are ridiculous, they follow strict rules, outlined by creator Chuck Jones. Rules include the action always having to take place in the American Southwest and the Road Runner always having to stay on the road. Oh, and the coyote can only use devices provided by the unseen Acme Corporation. These devices’ failure, along with the coyote’s own ineptitude, must always be the cause of the villain’s downfall, which usually takes the form of an actual fall from a great height.

            New live-action/animation hybrid “Coyote vs. Acme” sees the coyote finally have enough of the technology giant’s faulty products. He enlists Albuquerque attorney Kevin Avery (Will Forte), a lawyer so unambitious that he rarely settles for more than three figures, to sue the corporate behemoth for decades of defectiveness. I would have suggested a different small-time lawyer from Albuquerque, but I guess this isn’t a universe where they can just Call Saul. 

Even with his loyal niece Paige (Lana Condor) supporting him as an intern, the deck is stacked against Avery. Acme has a powerful legal team led by undefeated hotshot Buddy Crane (John Cena). His accident-prone client is unsympathetic, especially since as a cartoon, he can’t sustain lasting injuries, putting in doubt how much damage the backfiring products have really done. Also, the key witness is going to have to be the only other being in the vicinity when the products failed: The Road Runner himself. How will Avery ever get the bird to testify on behalf of an enemy that has always tried – and is, in fact, still trying – to eat him?

Avery and Wile E. do have one thing on their side: the truth. Acme CEO Foghorn Leghorn has indeed been exploiting cartoon characters via defective products for years. There’s a complex conspiracy in play, and other Looney Tunes characters are part of it. Daffy Duck was a product tester driven insane by unsafe working conditions. Tweety Bird is being forced to work as an Acme spy against his will. An animated version of Peter Lorre was a scientist silenced for knowing too much. As for the mysterious whistleblower secretly leaking information to Avery… let’s just say the movie’s setting of Albuquerque is where he should take a left turn.

It’s hard to talk about “Coyote vs. Acme” without mentioning the rough road the movie had to its release. To make a long story short, Warner Bros. Discovery kept the completed film from release for three years so it could take a tax write-off. The film might never have been released at all had distributor Ketchup Entertainment not bought the rights for $50 million. That Warner Bros. Discovery tried to deny the public any completed film with years of effort behind it is disgraceful, but that it was this gem of a movie is downright dethpicable.

“Coyote vs. Acme” is the best Looney Tunes-related output in decades. The classic physical comedy is so sharp, it’s like the characters spent every day since the last Chuck Jones-directed short in 1963 training for this movie. It also hits some surprisingly strong emotional beats about Coyote and Road Runner needing each other as nemeses. I can’t say it always works as a legal thriller, and some of the logic gets murky as mediums are blurred, but overall this movie is a lot of fun. I hope it makes a lot of money for Ketchup Entertainment and shames Warner Bros. Discovery for treating it – and Looney Tunes fans in general – so poorly.

            “The End of Oak Street” is a creature feature about a seemingly-idyllic suburban family that is secretly going through some hard times. Those times become more hard and less secret when their neighborhood is attacked by dinosaurs. It’s like a “Jurassic Park” movie, except it doesn’t have to come up with a way for its characters to go to an island filled with dinosaurs – the dinosaurs conveniently come to them.

            Greg (Ewan McGregor) and Denise (Anne Hathaway) Platt raise their teenage children Audrey (Maisy Stella) and Brian (Christian Convery) on Oak Street in the sickeningly sweet suburb of Flowervale, MI in 1982. Beneath all the sunshine and roses, the family is hanging on by a thread. Greg has lost his full-time job and is delivering pizzas to make what little cash he can. Aspiring author Denise is working on a novel about an unfulfilled housewife with a loser husband, and Greg isn’t happy about it. Audrey is about to lose all of her friends to college while she stays in the same town. Brian is having trouble with a bully and struggling to talk to his crush Jeannette (Jordan Alexa Davis). But the big problem is that the parents are on the edge of divorce and the kids hate being caught in the middle.

            Unrelated to the various personal dramas, strange things start happening in the vicinity. Bright lights flash. Pets go missing. Giant piles of dung appear in neighbors’ backyards. Could it be some sort of elaborate prank? Or is the neighborhood, thanks to a series of unexplained wormholes, gradually switching places with a patch of land from 200 million years ago? There wouldn’t be a movie here if it was the former, so of course it’s the latter.

            Yes, the area is soon infested with dinosaurs, and the new residents are less pleased to “meet” their new neighbors as they are to “eat” them. And there’s no driving away, as all roads have been broken by… let’s say plate tectonics. The family, along with a sadly-orphaned Jeannette, are going to have to work together to survive. Can they get through this crisis when they were already having trouble getting through their daily lives?

            I wasn’t digging the “nearly-broken family” dynamic. Action and disaster movies have been milking this trope for decades, and this one doesn’t really bring anything new to the table. If anything, it’s a particularly tame version of what can go on behind closed doors. But I was digging the dinosaurs. We get nice, long, well-lit shots of the creatures, with very little cheating by way of darkness, rain, or other obstructions. Action sequences are harrowing, a few laughs are eye-popping, and there’s more violence here than in a typical PG-13 movie in this era (though it probably would have gotten a mere PG in 1982, the year that brought us “Raiders of the Lost Ark”).

            It took me a long time – too long, in fact – to get invested in “The End of Oak Street.” The Platt family drama was just too uninteresting for too much of the movie, and it loses my recommendation because of it. But that doesn’t mean that the dinosaur action isn’t some of the best action, dinosaur-related or otherwise, that I’ve seen in a long time. I can completely understand someone else thinking that it saves the movie for them, it just doesn’t for me. This movie came very close to winning me over, but by the time the credits rolled, I was happy to have reached the end of “Oak Street.”

Grade: C

            It takes a very generous suspension of disbelief to enjoy “One Night Only.” The film is set in a not-too-distant future where premarital sex is outlawed, save for one night a year. Comparisons to “The Purge” are inevitable, which to me raises an interesting question: Which would lead to more violent crime in this country – one night of legalized violent crime, or gradually-building sexual frustration on all but one night?

Never mind that such laws would never in a million years be passed, enforced, or obeyed. The characters in this film – which takes place in a fully-recognizable New York City and not some bleak dystopian fantasy world – accept that the law is set in stone, and occasionally complain about it, but we never see any serious resistance. That’s a big strike against the film right off the bat – it’s hard to identify with anyone in this world because everybody is inherently ridiculous enough to go along with this law.

            To be fair, this film is not about the 364 days a year where this law wouldn’t work, it’s about the one upside, the lone night where all the single people are allowed to go crazy. And go crazy they do, with almost every shot in the movie showing people hooking up, in at least the background. Of course, it’s all in a tame R-rated way with the naughtiest bits out of view of the camera. I shudder to think what this movie would have looked like if it took the X-rated approach, though that movie would have at least been memorable. As it is, I probably won’t forget the weird premise anytime soon, but I’ll probably have forgotten the title of this movie by year’s end.

            The movie follows traditional rom-com characters Owen (Callum Turner) and Allie (Monica Barbaro). He’s a pizza cook who works too hard. She’s a singer who has stage fright. He has a girlfriend (Maya Hawke) who treats him badly and tells him he’s on his own for finding a partner for tonight. She’s not that serious about finding someone. Both have friends and family who tell them that they need to lighten up and have some fun. They bump into each other a few times while on separate adventures, initially having animosity that turns into a rivalry before considering that maybe they should be together. Will they become a couple, physically or otherwise?

            The good news is that Turner and Barbaro are sweet enough leads. I was digging their chemistry and interactions with one another. They’re basically having a PG-13 relationship while the world around them is super R-rated (though not as “hard-R” as it probably wants to be). It’s all corny, in traditional rom-com fashion, but mildly engaging, especially when compared to what else the movie has to offer.

            The bad news about “One Night Only” is pretty much everything else about the movie. I can poke holes in the premise all day, but the real problem is that the film wants to be both raunchy and edgy, but it can only manage the former. Sex gags permeate the movie (let’s just say it’s really hard to procure protection at the last minute in this world), but they’re oddly toothless. Director Will Gluck previously made “Anyone But You,” an R-rated romantic comedy that I thought would have worked better without its cruder elements. This movie doesn’t work because it doesn’t have much cruder elements. Even though I champion the film’s cleaner moments, they would mean more if they were contrasted with dirty moments that were actually good at being dirty.

Grade: C-

            When we last left Peter Parker aka Spider-Man (Tom Holland) back in 2021, he had to submit to a spell from Doctor Strange that would make the world forget he ever existed. His Aunt May (Marissa Tomei) had died, so he had no family left, but he had to watch his friends Ned (Jacob Batalon) and MJ (Zendaya), go off to college without him, blissfully unaware of what they meant to him.

            As we rejoin Peter in “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” he’s mostly turned himself over to superhero work full-time. There are plenty of dangers around New York City, from minor thugs to supervillains like Scorpion (Michael Mando) to people that just need rescuing. Peter is always happy to swing in and save the day as Spider-Man, but the years of anonymity are taking their toll on the human side of him.

            Peter has some help. He coordinates with Detective Jean DeWolff (Liza Colón-Zayas), as a liaison to the NYPD. A supposedly-benevolent organization called Damage Control, led by Bill Metzger (Tramell Tillman) deals in superhero affairs. Fellow vigilante Frank “The Punisher” Castle (Jon Bernthal) keeps an eye on things, though Peter disagrees with his violent tactics. If he gets really desperate, he can call upon Yelena “Black Widow” Belova, the leader of the New Avengers. Even Bruce “The Incredible Hulk” Banner (Mark Ruffalo) is still in play, wearing a device that prevents him Hulk-ing up, though it can be disabled. But these people are “allies” at best, Peter misses having friends.

            Eventually a threat presents itself that stumps Peter, his allies, and even his enemies. Somebody is possessing the bodies of whoever they please – often average citizens, though it can be a familiar face if specific deception is required - and wreaking havoc throughout the city. Their ultimate target seems to be Damage Control, which itself may not be on the up-and-up, as if Spider-Man battling the company’s ninja security team in all the film’s advertising wasn’t enough of a giveaway. The person behind the possessions is a shadowy figure, and it’s little secret that Sadie Sink of “Stranger Things” has been cast in a shadowy role, so the real question is, who is this character beyond someone played by Sadie Sink?

            Peter tries to keep from becoming possessed himself, but his biology betrays him and soon the villain learns that he’s still pining after MJ. He tries saving her impersonally as Spider-Man, but it soon becomes apparent that Peter Parker can’t stay out of her life forever. And this leads to some good conversations about what these characters are, what they’ve been, and what they can and can’t be going forward. It’s some of the best acting I’ve seen from the MCU in a long time. Also, Bernthal with his jaded attitude is everything you could want in a perfectly-cast Punisher.

            And yet, I’m not recommending “Spider-Man: Brand New Day.” It’s an apologetic sort of non-recommendation, as the movie does a lot right, especially with its three(!) carryovers from “The Odyssey.” But for every scene where the movie admirably lets the actors and dialogue breathe, there are too many more that are just dull MCU retreads. Like how Damage Control is just the latest corrupt human organization to think that they can get away with crimes against superpowered individuals. Or how the villain is temporarily stopped the way most MCU villains are stopped in this era. Or how characters like (the new) Black Widow and The Hulk are wedged into the film to remind fans that they’re still a part of this franchise despite the story not needing them. Or, perhaps worst of all, how the film seems preoccupied with setting up more MCU installments down the road than making this installment particularly memorable. Compared to the satisfaction I got from 2021’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” this movie… I won’t say “doesn’t have legs,” but is maybe a few legs short of an arachnid.

            “The Invite” is one of those movies that is basically just a filmed stage play. An unnecessary prologue aside, the whole thing takes place in a single apartment with four actors doing things that don’t require movie magic. For a movie like this to work, it needs to be really funny or powerful. It… comes close.

            Joe (Seth Rogen) and Angela (Olivia Wilde, also the film’s director) are an unhappily-married couple. Their interactions with one another range from “snippy” to “hostile.” They don’t get a divorce ostensibly for the sake of their daughter, but it’s really more about complacency and laziness. And their sex life has been nonexistant for years.

            They invite their upstairs neighbors, Piña (Penelope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton) over for dinner to thank them for putting up with some recent renovations, and to maybe have a word with them about the noise from their very active sex life. The new friends are willing to keep the noise down, but also willing to let Joe and Angela get in on the fun. The titular invite is to swing. Shenanigans, arguments, and all manner of awkwardness ensue.

            Almost all of the pieces are in place for “The Invite” to work as a viewing experience. The cast is certainly funny, talented, and most of all, game. But there’s one hurdle that the movie can never quite overcome, and that’s that it isn’t very cinematic. It’s not that I’m incapable of recommending a movie like this, but I need everything verbal to practically set my soul on fire. Sadly, like Joe and Angela, this movie is missing a certain spark.

Grade: C

            “Evil Dead” is a horror franchise that started out low-budget and shlocky in the 80’s, and has grown to be trusted with more resources as its films take themselves more seriously. It sounds like a welcome form of maturity, but it isn’t. The films aren’t fun anymore, and “Evil Dead Burn,” which insists on wedging a domestic violence storyline into its gross-out horror narrative, is the least fun yet.

            Alice (Souheila Yacoub) was married to the abusive William Price (George Pullar) until he was killed by a Deadite, an evil entity that sometimes kills people, and sometimes turns them into zombies. Now she has to survive William’s funeral and a dinner with the dysfunctional Price family at their dilapidated lake house. The definition of “survive” goes from figurative to literal when the Deadite starts infecting various family members, forcing Alice to turn violent against the people that arguably made William violent long before the Deadite.

            “Evil Dead Burn” is just ugly, with washed-out browns and grays everywhere. The special effects are shoddy, but not in an endearing practical way like the “Evil Dead” of the 80’s. The violence is occasionally inventive, but more often just pointlessly excessive. And the domestic violence angle just comes off as an attempt to give the film substance as a requirement, as opposed to a necessary part of the creative vision. At this point, I’m ready to just let “Evil Dead” as a franchise burn.

            Few film adaptations require more ambition than Homer’s “The Odyssey,” the quintessential epic. And perhaps no filmmaker has been more ambitious this millennium than Christopher Nolan, the man who told an entire story backward with “Memento,” conquered the superhero genre with his “Dark Knight” trilogy, and dominated the Oscars three years ago with “Oppenheimer.” If anyone can handle a challenge as vast as “The Odyssey,” it’s Nolan. I can report that he indeed succeeds in the challenge… to a degree.

            This being a Nolan movie, it should come as no surprise that the movie plays around a lot with chronology and time progression (see also: the competing one-hour/one-day/one-week/one-month storylines in “Dunkirk”). Basically, the movie splits its time between King Odysseus (Matt Damon) of Ithica taking 20 years to fight and then return from the Trojan War, and his family toward the end of that 20 years needing to do something about vacant throne and the glut of scheming suitors squatting in the castle hoping to wed the possibly-widowed Queen Penelope (Anne Hathaway) so they can become king as the expense of rightful heir Prince Telemachus (Tom Holland), Odysseus’s son.

            Odysseus wins the war with the help of some underhanded tactics that displease the gods. His trip home is then cursed with a series of winds and storms that blow his ships off course, plus deadly detours involving a Cyclops, giant Laestrygonian warriors, soul-piercing Siren songs, a witch (Samantha Morton) that turns his crew into pigs, and other nasty surprises. Less nasty is the several amnesia-ridden years he spends marooned on an island with the nymph Calisto (Charlize Theron), but a delay is a delay.

            Back on Ithica, suitors are overrunning the palace, and Penelope and Telemachus are at their wits’ end. They can’t just order them to leave, because their royal duties require them to be accommodating to strangers, but those rules were designed to help humble paupers, not these well-off freeloaders. Telemachus could assume the throne, but he’d become a target for assassination, and Holland doesn’t exactly have spider powers in this movie. Penelope could remarry, and suitor Antinous (Robert Pattinson) is at the front of the line if she makes that choice, but she really wants Odysseus to return and set things right. But how long can she be expected to wait?

            Technically, Nolan is at the top of his game here. The threats are scary, the soundtrack is pulse-pounding (from what I’ve gleamed, this is many viewers’ favorite aspect of the movie), and the scenes on boats do a really good job of putting the viewer right in the middle of the action, which is a nice way of saying they made me seasick. He even provides some insight into Odysseus’s internal struggle that I’ve been told most versions of the story do not. So I’m recommending the movie, there are no worries there.

            But while I am recommending “The Odyssey,” I can’t help but also relay some disappointment. Granted, there was an enormous amount of pressure on this film given the prominence of both the director and the source material, and any product assembled by a mere mortal – even Christopher Nolan – was bound to be disappointing on some level, but it’s not just that. Namely, did the movie have to be so long and meandering? Some will be quick to jump in and say yes, those qualities are synonymous with “The Odyssey” and it would be weird if Nolan’s version wasn’t like that. But I felt there were stretches – mostly toward the end when a plan by Odysseus needs to be put into action – that could have used some tightening. It’s as if Nolan couldn’t stand to have his film labeled as “efficient.” The result is a film that I can’t label as anything but inefficient. I knew going into “The Odyssey” that a certain inefficiency was to be expected, but I thought Nolan would be able to make me feel that the inefficiency was necessary.

            I am well aware of the case against Disney’s live-action remake of its 2016 animated hit “Moana,” namely that the original film is less than ten years old and doesn’t need a remake, and also that  Disney live-action remakes are lazy cash-grabs in general. And I agree with a lot about that argument. I’d rather see Disney put its resources into developing new ideas instead of rehashing old ones, especially when it means trading the magic of Disney animation for the limitations of live-action. At the same time, no amount of discouragement – of which I offer a lot – can stop Disney from making and releasing this movie, and the movie they’ve made and released isn’t terrible.

The story remains the same. Moana (Catherine Laga’aia), teenage daughter of Chief Tui (John Tui) and his wife Sina (Frankie Adams), is destined to one day take over her island home, but is told she must never go out on open water. Her wise grandmother Tala (Rena Owen) encourages her to take her duties seriously, but also to think for herself if strict adherence to tradition isn’t working. The island comes to be in trouble, and only returning the heart of petrified goddess Te Fiti will save it. Fortunately, Moana has had the heart since childhood (she earned it as a reward for compassion toward the ocean and its creatures), so she sets out on an unprecedented seafaring expedition to return it.

Moana’s mission requires her to team up with exiled demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson, reprising his role from the original, but now in live-action), who isn’t keen on crossing paths with old enemy Te Fiti. Together they have to keep other parties from stealing the powerful heart for themselves, such as coconut-like pirates the Kakamora and greedy crab Tamatoa (Jemaine Clement, also reprising his role in voice only). Then there’s Te Fiti herself, who is so mistrustful of humans and demigods that she fights our heroes even when they’re trying to do something as helpful as returning her own heart.

It’s when the action kicks into gear that the movie doesn’t fare well. For most movies I’d say the opposite, that I prefer it when the first act stops plodding along and we get to the action. But the second and third acts in this film differ so little from the original that it’s just a matter of waiting for the same beats from 2016. I know “I’ve seen this all before” is a cliché for critics, but in this case it’s especially accurate and appropriate.

While I’m talking about the movie’s lesser points, I need to bring up Dwayne Johnson. In 2016, I was thrilled that the pro wrestler known as The Rock had a juicy part (and even a song!) in the Disney canon. But he’s really lost a step since then. His jokes sound forced (not helped by, again, being carbon copies of jokes from ten years ago) and his body is unnaturally puffy, a result of the effects team going overboard in giving him sentient tattoos. Speaking of unnatural special effects, animal sidekicks Pua the pig and Heihei the chicken also look terrible, and even the water isn’t as… fluid as it should be.

With all of these problems that I can completely understand being deal-breakers for other critics, why am I recommending this version of “Moana”? The answer is simple: Moana. Or, less simply, Moana and her family dynamic back on the island. The first act of the movie gives us four good characters with passion and motivation. The remake really steps up its game in fleshing out these characters now that they have actual flesh. Of course, the standout is Laga’aia, matching the charm of original Moana Auli’i Cravalho every step of the way. Laga’aia and Cravalho combine their spirited voices for a song that plays over the credits, which is just enough to earn this film a recommendation by the hair of a coconut.

Grade: B-

            “Minions & Monsters” is the seventh cinematic outing for the Minions, and the third where they take center stage, as opposed to playing backup for former supervillain Gru. The jellybean-like animated gibberish-spewers all voiced by Pierre Coffin are once again taking the prequel route, as their story is told by a modern-day movie studio tour guide (Allison Janney), though a further framing device modifies even that context.

            At the beginning of the story, the Minions are once again searching the world for a new home in their inexplicable quest to serve the most despicable master possible despite not having an evil bone (or possibly any bones) in their bodies. A hulking cyclops seems like a good candidate (let’s see if this movie and “The Odyssey” in two weeks lead to a rise of cyclopes in pop culture), but a creative, ambitious Minion named James screws everything up for everyone. He also screws things up with a mummy, a pirate, and a wizard with a book of spells. Most of the Minions despise James’s antics, but friends Henry and Ed think he’s funny and stick by him.

            Washing up on American shores sometime in the 1920’s, the Minions see an outlaw train robber and think he’ll make a great master. They destroy half a town just to track him down to offer their services, then they find out that he’s no outlaw at all. He’s an actor, the town is Hollywood, the train robbery was part of a movie from short-tempered director Max (Christoph Waltz), and the Minions ruined the take. Having used the last of his film, Max is forced to present the picture, Minions and all, to a pair of finicky studio executives (both voiced by Jeff Bridges). Surprisingly, the execs love the Minions and order them to be put into more films. The whole tribe becomes movie stars overnight.

            To be clear, I love this portion of the film. The obvious love of – and constant references to – the golden age of Hollywood should earn admiration from any red-blooded cinema lover. I’m just not crazy about the parts that come before the Hollywood invasion and after the Minions fall from grace because they have a hard time transitioning to talkies (an appearance in “Citizen Kane” had me cracking up).

            Eventually, the Minions again need to find a new master. Most of them settle on metallic space alien Dort (Jesse Eisenberg), who is either planning to invade Earth along with his home planet, or is just another actor in a clunky suit. The Minions help Dort in a cute romance with suffragette Debbie (Zoey Deutch), who is willing to spend time with him as long as he doesn’t kick children (it’s sweeter than it sounds)

            Meanwhile, James and his cohorts, trying to stay in the movie business by turning to directing, crack open their old wizard master’s spellbook to summon a monster for their sci-fi movie. They can only manage the puny Goomi (Trey Parker), but he can summon other monsters, including insatiable blob Irene, who tries to consume Hollywood. Can the Minions clean up the mess they created? Can James complete his movie and win an Oscar? Can this franchise finally give us an installment where the Minions and/or Gru’s family go up against Will Arnett’s evil banker from the first “Despicable Me”? It’s been 16 years and it really bugs me that they’ve never seriously revisited that character.

            The movie, as always, depends on your tolerance for the Minions’ lowbrow schtick. Here they’re most effective when the movie is actively celebrating the art of schtick. But that’s just part of the movie, and the rest of the time I feel that they miss more gags than they hit. Plus the last act drags as it tries to work in too many sci-fi elements. “Minions & Monsters” comes close to getting my recommendation, but it falls short by a margin thinner than a 1920’s mustache.

Grade: C

            Krypto the Superdog isn’t very cute in “Supergirl.” I understand that the way the pup was rendered for this film involved taking a real dog (who probably was very cute) and slathering CGI all over his likeness. The result is a dog whose face looks unnatural and with whom I couldn’t connect during emotional scenes. You know your Super-whatever movie is in trouble when you can’t make a character like Krypto loveable.

            Krypto’s owner is more bearable, but just barely. Milly Alcock stars as Kara Zor-El aka Supergirl, a cousin of Superman’s who was raised on a sort of Kryptonian bunker after the planet’s destruction. Eventually the bunker couldn’t sustain life and Kara had to be sent alone to Earth as well, but unlike Superman, she knew a home and a family on Krypton only to have it all taken away. As a result, she doesn’t take to Earth like Superman did and now mostly spends her days moping around with no friends, save for Krypto.

            For this film, Supergirl finds herself teaming up with Ruthye (Eve Ridley), a teenager looking to avenge her family’s death at the hands of space pirate Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts). Krem needs to be defeated (for the murders, for child trafficking, and for poisoning Krypto and tauntingly carrying around an antidote), but Supergirl also wants to teach Ruthye that revenge through murder will not bring her the closure she seeks. On the other hand, Krem and his crew are perfectly willing to kill Supergirl, Ruthye, and anyone else they see fit. Killing him may save the lives of others, does that make it right to kill him? The Supergirl/Ruthye dynamic is based on “True Grit,” and grit-ting is what I had to do with my teeth every time the stiff, overly-formal-yet-too-immature Ruthye had a line in this movie.

            On their quest, Supergirl and Ruthye cross paths with what the film thinks is a colorful gallery of otherworldly background characters. But this isn’t Mos Eisley where the alien designs are so interesting that viewers will instantly wanf to know the backstory of every character in the room. They’re all basically indistinguishable rubbery space-takers. The exception is space biker/bounty hunter Lobo (Jason Momoa), who gets to steal some scenes. One of the few downsides of the DCEU folding a few years ago was losing Momoa’s Aquaman, but now fans can rest easy knowing that he’s landed on his feet in a more fitting role.

            Speaking of the larger DC Universe, it’s worth mentioning that yes, Superman (David Corenswet) is in this movie. He gets one of the few gags that actually works when he tries to welcome Kara to Earth, even though he only speaks English and she only speaks Kryptonian. It’s good to see that Superman is still reliable, because while I don’t dislike this version of Supergirl, this movie is clearly going to bomb and she isn’t going to be allowed another standalone movie anytime soon. If she, Krypto, and Lobo want to have any future in film, it’ll have to be as part of a Superman or Justice League movie.

            Choppy action, a disjointed story, a muddied moral, a bland villain, an annoying second banana in Ruthye, and an overall ugly aesthetic all conspire to make “Supergirl” one of the worst big-budget movies of the summer. Even Superman can’t save it and saving things is his whole reason for being. But what do you expect from a movie that can’t even get the beloved, iconic, usually-adorable Krypto right?

Grade: C-

            Simply put, “Toy Story” is my favorite movie franchise of all time. The 1995 original about cowboy doll Woody (Tom Hanks) fighting for relevance against hi-tech spaceman action figure Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) was a groundbreaking first for computer animation – not to mention about the most fun a kid could possibly have at a theater… until three worthy sequels came along. I’ve seen the original six times in theaters – my personal record. I was disappointed that “only” the third film in the series was nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. I didn’t think that 2019’s “Toy Story 4” was in any way a step down from its predecessors. And yet here I am, saying that “Toy Story 5” is the first significant misstep in the franchise (not counting 2022’s sorta-spinoff “Lightyear,” which I’d like to banish to infinity and beyond).

            Despite all the emphasis on the Woody/Buzz reunion in the film’s advertising, the main character of this movie is actually Jessie the Cowgirl (Joan Cusack), a doll companion of Woody’s introduced in the second movie, where she shared a tragic backstory of being abandoned by her human owner. Now owned by 8-year-old Bonnie (Scarlett Spears), along with Buzz and other familiar figures, Jessie spends her days as the youngster’s favorite plaything. But Bonnie has a hard time making human friends, despite the toys’ best efforts to add to the number of children playing in the house. Her parents decide that the best way to connect with other kids in the neighborhood is to get her on social media, which is why they present her with frog-themed tablet LilyPad (Greta Lee). Soon Bonnie is addicted to the screen, “socializing” with so-called friends that aren’t in the room, and the cowgirl has to fight for relevance against the hi-tech newcomer.

The film bafflingly never really comments on the parallels to the first movie. Couldn’t Woody say, “I’ve been through this before…” or Buzz ask, “Is this what is what is was like for you?” as he’s being replaced by something flashier? For all its reliance on nostalgia, the film is missing a lot of potential for callbacks here.

            A sleepover for Bonnie organized by LilyPad turns disastrous for Jessie, and she finds herself rejected, abandoned, and returned to the home to the home of her original owner. There’s a bright girl named Blaze (Mykal-Michelle Harris) living there now, but no time for her, Jessie has to get back to Bonnie. And the only way to do that is with the help of nearly-dead electronic potty-training device Smarty Pants (Conan O’Brien), even though Jessie is averse to all tech. Meanwhile, a reunited Buzz (who wants to marry Jessie) and Woody (taking a break from his life as “lost toy”) organize a rescue effort that will eventually lead them to a whole squadron of lost Buzz figures.

            The emphasis on helping humans make human friends is a nice touch, but too much of the movie is just a series of par-for-the-course toy rescues. Or overly-familiar jokes and bickering. Or throwaway lines given to returning characters just to remind viewers that they’re still alive (as toys go). Even heavy emotional moments are hit-and-miss, with one at a tree being suitably effective, but others (usually involving bullying) feeling like the writers just needed a “down” story beat. It’s also worth mentioning that the usually bright, agreeable, effective animation is often murky and ugly here, and not in a “haunting” way, more in a “shoddy” way.

            Don’t get me wrong, I’m recommending “Toy Story 5.” This franchise on its worst installment is better than a lot of franchises on their best. There’s enough heart and laughter and creativity here to save it… but just barely. And for someone like me who puts “Toy Story” on a pedestal, a movie that I can “just barely” recommend is a big disappointment.

Grade: B-

            All-time-great director Steven Spielberg is back with a film built around one of his most popular subjects: aliens. From the man that brought us “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” comes “Disclosure Day,” a film about a small group of people deciding that it is time to let the rest of humanity know that they are not alone in the universe. After deeply personal project “The Fabelmans,” this is Spielberg’s return to blockbuster filmmaking. And I do see this movie as a blockbuster, just not much of one.

            The film essentially follows six characters: hacker Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) and his girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson), TV newswoman Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) and her boyfriend Jackson (Wyatt Russell), organizer of key players Hugo (Colman Domingo), and shady coverup leader Scanlon (Colin Firth). Kellner has flash drives with evidence of alien activity on Earth dating back decades. Margaret suddenly has powers that are not of this world. Hugo has a full-sized replica of Margaret’s childhood home for some reason. Scanlon has alien tech that he’s ironically using against the aliens and their allies. Let the race to expose or bury the truth begin.

            Following a botched drop to get back a kidnapped Jane from Scanlon, Kellner goes on the run with sketchy help from Hugo in a storyline reminiscent of recent Oscar winner “One Battle After Another.” Jane is shocked to learn that her boyfriend knows the truth about aliens, and he’s shocked to learn that she once aspired to be a nun. At first, she’s a liability to Kellner because she’s blissfully ignorant, then she’s a liability because she doesn’t agree with his cause, then she’s a liability because Scanlon gets to her.

            Kellner knows the score with the aliens, but Margaret doesn’t. She doesn’t know why she suddenly speaks every language or knows the personal life of everyone she sees or can’t help but speak an alien tongue on air. All she knows is that some bad people are after her because of it, and the skeptical Jackson is reluctantly along for the ride. Could it have something to do with repressed childhood memories about unconvincing CGI forest animals? Kellner and Margaret meet up to have an action scene with a speeding train. We know from “The Fabelmans” that Spielberg loves speeding trains almost as much as he loves crashing them.

            For a movie called “Disclosure Day,” there’s a lot of suspense around whether or not the truth will be disclosed. Spoiler Alert: it will be, so don’t worry about it. If you want to worry about something, worry about the individual characters making it to the end alive, which isn’t a lock. Though these characters are so dull that I couldn’t get too invested in their survival.

            Spielberg usually makes good decisions about the way this film looks and sounds (Yes, frequent collaborator John Williams is doing the score), but I don’t agree with how he has the story unfold. Instead of exploring the rich potential for how humanity will respond to this mindblowing news about aliens, he focuses on the buildup to the news, which isn’t that interesting. There’s a brief mention of how people will react if their deeply-held religious beliefs are shaken, but it’s brushed aside in favor of chase antics. I would have put the disclosure at the beginning of this film and given the bulk of the runtime to the fallout.

Grade: C

            From the fifth “Scream” movie proving a shockingly strong January release in 2022 to “Backrooms” opening to over $81 million just last weekend, the past few years have been some of the best ever for the horror genre. So it makes sense that this would be a good time to revive the “Scary Movie” franchise and spoof some contemporary classics. And not only are franchise mainstays Anna Faris and Regina Hall back for this sixth installment after missing the fifth, but originators Marlon and Shawn Wayans are back after absences from the third, fourth, and fifth. Everything is in place for this silly movie to give its audience a seriously good time, but it turns out the movie itself is an unfunny joke.

            Following an actually-promising opening sequence featuring recent Golden Globe winner Teyana Taylor, the loose premise kicks in: a new Ghostface is terrorizing the families of Cindy Campbell (Faris) and Brenda Meeks (Hall). Cindy, now a parody of Jamie Lee Curtis in the recent “Halloween” reboot, has estranged daughters Sara (Olivia Rose Keegan) and Tuesday (Savannah Lee Nassif), based on sisters Sam and Tara from the 2022 “Scream” (with Tuesday also a spoof of Wednesday Addams, because Jenna Ortega has played both Tara and Wednesday). Brenda, a parody of Octavia Spencer in “Ma,” has son Brad (Gregg Wayans) and nonbinary child Dei (Sydney Park), based on twins Chad and Mindy from the 2022 “Scream.” Since the 2022 “Scream” is apparently the only movie being parodied that the filmmakers have watched closely, you can probably guess how Sara’s boyfriend Jack (Cameron Scott Roberts) and Brad’s girlfriend Elle (Ruby Snowber) figure in.

            Of course, Cindy and Brenda aren’t the only familiar faces. Brenda’s stoner brother Shorty (Marlon Wayans) still lives in town, attending the same school as his niece and nephew because he’s too stupid to graduate. Brenda’s ex-gay (though still very gay) ex-boyfriend Ray (Shawn Wayans) is also back in the picture. Other returning characters include bumbling Officer Doofy (Dave Sheridan, also the voice of Ghostface), reporter Gail Hailstorm (Cheri Oteri, here to parody Demi Moore in “The Substance”), weirdo Hanson (Chris Elliot, doing Nicolas Cage in “Longlegs”), and presumed original killer Bobby (Jon Abrahams, offering little more than a “Smile).

            The movie blows one opportunity after another to get in juicy gags about the recent glut of successful horror movies. “Sinners”? The movie can’t do more than set a series of sex jokes at a church and have corny white people show up uninvited at a black party. “Weapons”? This movie knows about “the run,” but can’t have its characters do anything funnier than yell “Six Seven” and get hit by a car, this franchise’s go-to lazy way of ending a scene. The only parody that really worked at my screening (and it did work – the audience was roaring) was of an animated movie that I’m not sure qualifies as “scary,” though I guess demons are in the vicinity of scary.

            There’s minimal heart at work in this new version of “Scary Movie,” and even less brain. I know to expect “dumb” humor from this franchise, but the people who made this movie simply didn’t do their homework. Example: a character goes over the top with emotion in one scene, and another character corrects her, “Stop trying to win an Oscar. It’ll never happen for a horror movie. Just ask Demi Moore.” Yes, Demi Moore did lose in her Oscar bid for “The Substance” (to 2022 “Scream” cast member Mikey Madison), but you know who did win an Oscar for a horror movie? Amy Madigan for “Weapons.” I could overlook that blunder – even in a movie that parodies “Weapons” – if there hadn’t been a reference in the beginning of the movie to Teyana Taylor losing the Oscar that Madigan won. How can I care about this “Scary Movie” when it doesn’t care about its own scary movies?

            Last week, I reviewed “The Mandalorian and Grogu,” which was based on a series that I hadn’t seen, but I was well-aware of its larger world and its place in popular culture. This week is “Backrooms,” which is also based on a series that I haven’t seen, and was in no way known to me until a few weeks ago. Even once I did hear about it, it struck me as an obscure, niche product for horror nerds. Yet both films are estimated to have made over $81 million at the domestic box office in their first three days. How does this movie based on a simple series of web shorts find itself performing just as well as an entry into one of the biggest franchises in history? Like everything about “Backrooms,” I don’t know, it makes no sense, but I like it.

            The film, which I understand to feature characters never before seen in the series, follows Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor), an unhappy, unsuccessful furniture salesman in early 90’s Santa Clara. He sees psychiatrist Dr. Kline (Renate Reinsve) following an ugly divorce, but she doesn’t seem to be much help, partly because he isn’t receptive to her treatment, and partly because she’s subconsciously distracted by her own emotional baggage.

            Late one night, Clark notices light coming through a crack in the wall in the office of his store. He goes to investigate, and finds himself inexplicably transported through the wall. On the other side is a room not unlike what one would expect to find in the back of a furniture store: dull and dingy with annoying fluorescent lights and a big stack of furniture that doesn’t seem fit for the showroom. Even though it’s his store, Clark has never seen this room before, and he certainly didn’t know about the magic portal. Further investigation reveals that there are more, similar rooms beyond the first, to the point where he can’t tell where they end. Also, “something” is skulking around back there.

            Clark is able to escape the Backrooms through the same portal, and tells Dr. Kline, who doesn’t believe his far-fetched claims about walking right through a wall and a series of rooms with furniture that isn’t quite right. He goes back in with his employee Kat (Lukita Maxwell) and her cameraman boyfriend Bobby (Finn Bennett) to document the labyrinth, but things don’t go so well this time. Eventually Dr. Kline tries the Backrooms herself to find that Clark has gone mad, among other horrors.

            You never know what will be around the next corner in “Backrooms,” except that it will make you feel uneasy. Not “terrified,” necessarily, there’s not much traditionally scary about piles of laundry or an indoor stop sign. But why is there so much laundry nowhere near a laundry machine and why is there a stop sign planted indoors? It’s unsettling in a way that you can’t quite put your finger on, like the hexagonal carpet pattern from “The Shining.” Of course, there are also things in the film that are meant to be scary in the traditional sense, but I found them underwhelming. The film is at its best when it’s subtle and mysterious, like a dream where things are recognizable, and yet not.

            I mentioned “The Shining” as a clear influence on “Backrooms,” I also got hints of “Being John Malkovich,” “Cube,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” and anything directed by David Lynch. All weird movies, combined, twisted and given elaboration by writer/director Kane Parsons – a name that this movie will instantly shoot to the top of the horror genre. Some critics are saying that it’s the performances that make “Backrooms” stand out, and while the Oscar nominees do put in excellent work, I say the real star is the Backrooms themselves, in all their uncanny-valley glory, as they do not-quite-convincing impressions of actual backrooms.

            “The Mandalorian and Grogu” is coming at an interesting time in the history of “Star Wars.” It is a test to see if the franchise’s recent success on the small screen can translate to blockbuster status on the big screen. I have not seen “The Mandalorian” streaming series on Disney+, though I know of its massive success. I could even imagine a world where a “Mandalorian” movie makes enough money to have a legitimate place alongside classic installments like “A New Hope” and “The Empire Strikes Back.” That world just isn’t this one, not with this movie that nearly put me to sleep.

            The movie follows Din “The Mandalorian” Djarin (voiced and played in “face scenes” by Pedro Pascal), a helmeted human bounty hunter who resembles, but is not related to, beloved franchise character Boba Fett. His young apprentice is Grogu, a non-speaking alien who resembles, but is not related to, beloved franchise character Yoda. I’m sure the origin of the team-up is explained in the series, but for now all I need to know is that that they are a team.

            The opening moments of the movie follow The Mandalorian and Grogu as they take out a leftover Empire loyalist (Hemky Madera) running a protection racket. The sequence is filled with action, comedy, and visual spectacle on a level that the rest of the film lacks. I’ve heard some critics saying that this film could have been a few episodes of television, I’m saying that everything after this sequence could have been cut and the whole thing could have been a short that plays in front of another Disney feature. I know it’s wishful thinking, but it could have added some much-needed incentive to see a fledgling effort like… “Wish,” come to think of it.

            The rest of the story follows the team as they’re sent on a mission by their employer (Sigourney Weaver) to capture another Empire henchman who has thus far escaped justice. This person’s identity is known only to the deplorable Hutt family, and Jabba’s twin siblings won’t give up the information for free. Mando and Grogu first have to rescue Jabba’s son Rotta (Jeremy Allen White) and return him to his aunt and uncle. It turns out that Rotta has carved out a nice little life for himself on another planet as a gladiator of sorts fighting for unscrupulous promoter Janu Coin (Jonny… Coyne is the actor’s name), and he doesn’t want to leave. The “rescue” mission is going to have to be more of a “capture.”

            At first I liked the adorable, Force-enabled Grogu so much that I wondered if the movie even needed The Mandalorian. Around the two-thirds mark, I got my answer when Mando was incapacitated for a stretch. The answer is that yes, the movie very much needs The Mandalorian, because with just Grogu, this movie fell apart. Bless the writers for trying to give him a solo arc and the puppeteers for trying to make him sympathetic, but he just does not have a mode other than “cute.” He works in small, scene-stealing doses, but anything more than that is a mistake.

            “The Mandalorian and Grogu” is every action movie you’ve ever seen about a shady hero dealing with shadier secondary players, including, but not limited to, other “Star Wars” movies. Except it doesn’t quite have the ambition of other “Star Wars” movies. There’s too much blandness to the settings and periphery characters. I can see where Disney thinks this property is “too big” for television, but I can’t say this movie is theater-worthy, at least on the level that a “Star Wars” movie should be. It’s stuck awkwardly between the two tiers of entertainment hierarchy. I’m sure there will be another movie, and I encourage the creative team to step up their efforts (it won’t take much, just a few extra flourishes) so that film can unmistakably belong in theaters.

            In 1992’s “Aladdin,” one of The Genie’s few rules with wishes was that he couldn’t make people fall in love. “Obsession” is a movie about what happens when a wish for love is granted. It’s a horror movie, and a nasty one. The Genie was right to have that rule.

            Awkward dork Bear (Michael Johnston) wishes for the romantic love of his longtime friend Nikki (Inde Navarrette) on a novelty willow stick. The wish comes true, Nikki is immediately smitten with him, and Bear reaps the rewards of her vehement affection. The woman Bear loves may not have any agency in the matter, and that’s problematic if he thinks about it, so he decides not to think about it. But of course, things go south for Bear once Nikki starts inserting herself into every corner of his life and finding creepier and creepier ways to express her devotion. Her love becomes… wait for it… obsession.

            This movie gamely features some of the sickest scenes from a stalker thriller ever put to film, even if they borrow heavily from other stalker thrillers like “Fatal Attraction.” And Navarrette puts in a horror performance for the ages, both when her character is and isn’t under the magic spell. But the movie falters when the story has to give us something other than Nikki spinning further and further out of control. The ending (not Navarette’s contribution to the ending, which is excellent, but the ideas that go into the ending) is a lazy letdown and ends what had previously been an engaging horror film on such a down note that I can’t bring myself to recommend it as a whole. “Obsession” doesn’t lose my recommendation because of anything it “does,” but because of how much potential it leaves on the table.

            The 2021 “Mortal Kombat” movie was a disaster that left fans disappointed for many reasons, not least of which was that it didn’t feature any fights from the much-hyped tournament for universal supremacy. At least in “Mortal Kombat II,” we finally get the tournament. Only the first round is done somewhat properly before the thing breaks down into cheating, sneak-attack shenanigans, but it can’t be said that we are denied the tournament entirely.

            A new character, outstanding-fighter-turned-action-movie-star-turned-washout-at-both Johnny Cage (Karl Urban), is the audience surrogate into the five-on-five fighting series on a distant planet that will determine the fate of our world. Cage fights alongside Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee), Jax (Mehcad Brooks), Cole Young, (Leweis Tan), and Liu Kang (Ludi Lin) under the mentorship of Lord Raiden (Tadanobu Asano) against the forces of the evil Shao Khan (Martyn Ford), such as his queen Sindel (Ana Thu Nguyen), stepdaughter Kitana (Adeline Rudolph), her bodyguard Jade (Tati Gabrielle), and resurrected minions Kung Lao (Max Huang) and Kano (Josh Lawson). The first movie made another mistake killing off humoristic highlight Kano, fortunately this movie brings him back so he can steal the movie all over again.

            “Mortal Kombat II” is good at things that fans want most from a “Mortal Kombat” movie: it’s creative with its fighting sequences and the jokes usually hit. But it’s bad at things that audiences want from movies of any genre: it’s hard to care about many of these characters and the story is an overcomplicated mess that can’t even stick to its own ridiculous rules. Like “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” I admire the way this sequel steps up its game from an original that I didn’t enjoy, but unlike that film, I can’t say I’m now “won over” by this franchise.

Grade: C

            I had never seen 2006’s “The Devil Wears Prada” until a few weeks ago when I watched it in preparation for the sequel. I didn’t care for it, mainly due to the off-putting character of Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep). I knew going in that the fashion magazine editor’s dialogue was filled with verbal put-downs that were supposedly eccentrically charming, but I mostly just found unfunny, unprofessional, and rude. Such constant negative energy from a person that I didn’t see bringing enough positives to the workplace to balance it out.

The Miranda character was written to spend more time making demands and throwing shade than acting like she belonged in a position to be so demanding. There was basically only one scene (and granted, it’s arguably her most famous scene) where she came off as someone who had truly mastered the ins and outs of the fashion and editorial industries, and the rest of the time I saw little more than a spoiled child. The main character, Miranda’s second assistant Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway), and her supervisor, first assistant Emily (Emily Blunt) had their off-putting qualities as well, but at least their misery at working for Miranda was understandable and relatable.

Okay, enough ranting against a movie from 20 years ago. The new film opens with Andy and Miranda, having gone their separate ways at the end of the first movie, both in trouble. Andy has just been fired from her job as a news journalist and Miranda is in hot water over her association with an unscrupulous label. The mutual solution is that Andy will go to work as a features editor for Miranda’s magazine, trying to restore the maven’s reputation. Miranda has some of her trademark resentment toward Andy for not being her choice to hire, and of course Andy has some resentment toward Miranda for being a bully.

            It’s not all bad for Andy. Her stories get some of the best reviews of her career, and she’s able to reconnect with old friends like mentor and fashion editor Nigel (Stanley Tucci). Even Emily is back in the picture, in a high position with magazine ally Chanel, thanks largely to influence from her rich boyfriend, tech-bro Benji (Justin Theroux). But at the end of the day, Andy’s life is still a nightmare because Miranda is still Miranda.

            Or is she? She’s as condescending as ever, she hasn’t let up on that. But this movie is more eager to show a side to her that isn’t “just” condescending. She leads the magazine through a series of crises, from accusations of human rights violations (real ones in overseas factories, not her being snippy in the office), to worries of the brand’s future under its new, not-fashion-conscious owner (B.J. Novak), to having to make sure that humans still have a voice in the fashion industry under the looming threat of A.I. She even proves to be a laudable journalist, earning compliments from a rich divorcee (Lucy Liu) who thanks Miranda for focusing an exclusive interview on her and not her notorious ex-husband.

“The Devil Wears Prada 2” shows Miranda doing the work of someone at the top better than the first movie, where the character seemed to take unfair advantage of simply “being” at the top. The whole movie is better for it. Okay, maybe not the “whole” movie. Andy’s romantic subplot with a contractor (Patrick Brammall) is a slog and it’s annoying to see her fall back into her old habit of craving validation and needing another stop-feeling-sorry-for-yourself pep talk from Nigel, which is basically a cut-and-paste from the first movie. Still, there’s plenty to like here, from a fairer share of funny lines to a grander celebration of all things fashionable and luxurious, if that’s your thing. But it’s the more-detailed development of the character of Miranda Priestly that I think is worth celebrating.

Grade: B-

            The big problem with “Michael,” the new Michael Jackson biopic, is that it has the approval of the Jackson family. As such, we are going to get a very flattering portrait of possibly the single most controversial personality in the history of the music industry. The scandals that plagued his later years are an unignorable part of his legacy, no matter how much this movie tries to ignore them. Simply put: a movie with this much love for Michael Jackson, made by people who unconditionally love and want to protect Michael Jackson, is not going to be an interesting portrait of Michael Jackson.

            The film follows Michael from his youth until 1988 – basically the first 30 years of his life. Growing up in Gary, Indiana, young Michael (Juliano Valdi) was essentially robbed of his childhood by his father Joe (Colman Domingo), who demanded that his musician children pursue fame at the expense of their happiness, and some would argue, sanity. The real Jackson family – so protective of Michael’s image - apparently has no problem with Joe being portrayed as a monster. Valdi does an excellent job singing, dancing, emoting, and overall playing a young Michael. Maybe if the whole movie was built around Michael when he was this young, it wouldn’t need to bother giving us a shortchanged version of his adult years.

            Of course, Michael does grow up to be played by Jaafar Jackson, son of Jermaine Jackson and Michael’s real-life nephew. Well, you can’t say the resemblance isn’t there, even if Michael stopped resembling himself after a certain point. Seriously though, Jaafar is fine. He’s obviously putting every effort into what he surely knows is the role of a lifetime. Is he as talented a musician as his uncle? No, but then Michael wouldn’t be the one-of-a-kind performer he was if he could be easily emulated – even by members of his own family.

            The movie knows it can’t get a musical performance to match Michael’s stage presence, so it keeps the musical sequences… not exactly “to a minimum,” but they’re never as thorough as fans probably want them to be. I’ll put it this way: I never thought that Michael could take the pop world by storm based on the songs and dances we get in this movie. Nor do I see audiences demanding “cult” screenings of this movie that emphasize the music in the years to come.

            Come to think of it, the dull musical sequences are as big a problem with “Michael” as the toothless storytelling. I’m just less mad about them because I can see that people – namely Jaafar – are really trying. They just fall short because of their choppiness. But the musical numbers are the selling point of this movie, since I think audiences know in advance that the biography stuff is hardly hard-hitting. Maybe this movie should have taken the “jukebox musical” route of just being a glorified concert of epic performances to celebrate Michael’s style. Jaafar probably couldn’t have carried the whole thing himself, but taking on a few numbers could have lent authenticity to compliment a necessary cast of career professionals.

            But no, “Michael” had to take the dialogue-heavy biopic route and it falls flat on its face. Not only does the movie cut out Michael’s crazy, scandalous later years, but it doesn’t handle the years we do see particularly well. Surely Michael had more going on than just being a man-child who liked toys and animals and whose worst deed was failing to stand up to his tyrannical father. I’d have a hard time believing that anybody is this wholesome, let alone the obviously-disturbed Michael Jackson. This movie would have you believe that Michael lived like an angel to match having the voice of one. It’s bad, but ironically not the cool Michael Jackson brand of “Bad.”

Grade: C-

            Prior to what I will generously call his “new take” on “The Mummy,” director Lee Cronin was best known for 2023’s “Evil Dead Rise.” Original “Evil Dead” director Sam Raimi had a new movie out earlier this year with “Send Help,” and he didn’t put his name in that film’s title. And his name carries real weight, he directed the Tobey Maguire “Spider-Man” trilogy back in the 2000’s. But the guy who directed the fifth “Evil Dead” movie thinks his name belongs in the very title of his next project. At least this way I know who to blame for this movie, so points for “owning it,” I guess.

            The film follows the Cannon family: father Charlie (Jack Reynor), mother Larissa (Laia Costa), son Sebastian (initially Dean Allen Williams, later Shylo Molina), and daughter Katie (initially Emily Mitchell, later Natalie Grace). They’re an American family living in Cairo next door to a mean matriarch known as The Magician (Hayat Kamille), who we know from the film’s prologue is the protector and caregiver of a malevolent Egyptian entity. Katie goes missing, and the local police, including young detective Dalia (May Calamawy) are no help.

            Eight years pass. The family is still devastated by the loss of Katie, but they’ve had another daughter named Maud (Billie Roy). One day, thanks to a deadly plane crash, they get an unexpected call from Cairo that Katie has been found alive… though very corpse-like. She was found wrapped in bandages inside an ancient sarcophagus found in the wreckage, in very poor health thanks to malnutrition and other forms of negligence, but alive. The parents want to know what happened to Katie in those eight years, and they’ll look to Dalia for those answers, but the important thing at the moment is that they have their daughter back.

            The family takes Katie home from what has to be the most incompetent hospital in the world to release a patient in her condition. And as you can probably guess, it doesn’t take long for things to start going wrong at home. Katie can supposedly barely move, but she keeps jumping out of her bed and scuttling around the house, eating scorpions, and hurting anyone in her vicinity, especially her religious grandmother (Verónica Falcón). Oh, and she spits up blood a lot. This is a movie that never passes up an opportunity to have its characters spit up any number of fluids.

            That’s where most of the “style” and scares lie for this movie – gross-outs and gore. Initially some of it is mildly shocking, but Cronin’s overreliance on these elements makes them downright boring by the end. And there’s plenty of time to become bored because this movie is way too long at 134 minutes. Cronin just had to keep Dalia, the Magician, and Cairo in the movie, even though dropping them and rewriting the script to keep things within the family probably could have saved the production millions of dollars, and more importantly, about 44 minutes of my time.

            “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” is a lame knockoff of better possession thrillers, mostly “The Exorcist” and “Evil Dead.” This movie has more in common with those movies than any “Mummy” movie I know. In fact, my theory is that Cronin wrote this script as a follow-up to his “Evil Dead” movie, and when he got this job, he just removed all references to Deadites and added a sarcophagus and some bandages. If that is the case, then the “Evil Dead” franchise dodged a bullet not having this uncreative dreck as an installment.

            Good news, grown-ups, even though most of the screens at your local theater are probably still devoted to “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” there’s a decent option for adults in one of the other houses. I’m convinced that “The Drama” has stayed in the top three at the domestic box office for the past two weekends by reeling in parents who don’t want to watch Mario with their kids, but don’t want to leave the theater. Or it could be good advertising, good word-of-mouth, good reviews, or other non-cynical reasons.

            The film follows Charlie (Robert Pattinson) and Emma (Zendaya), a nauseatingly-cute Boston-area couple a week away from their wedding. He’s a bit of a creep and she doesn’t talk much about her military-family upbringing, but they’re sure they can learn to live with each other’s foibles, after all, they’re in love. Hopefully it’s not much of a spoiler to say that their love will be tested over the course of the film as they deal with, well, drama.

            That drama first rears its head at a couples’ dinner with friends Mike (Mamoudou Athie) and Rachel (Alana Haim). Rachel has the bright idea to have everyone at the table reveal the worst thing they’ve ever done. I’m not sure what the “best” case scenario is for a game like this, but it certainly ends in one of the worst. Emma makes the grave miscalculation of thinking that she has the forum to be honest, and reveals a secret that ruins everybody’s night.

            I joked about spoilers earlier, but when it comes to Emma’s secret, things are more difficult. Unlike traditional spoilers, this one comes early in the movie, when she and Charlie are still in their “honeymoon phase,” so to speak. Not revealing the secret makes it hard to look at the rest of the movie, but it’s in the movie’s best interest that the audience is taken off-guard so they don’t have time to form opinions about the controversial subject matter in advance.

            What I can say is that once Emma’s secret is revealed, Charlie can’t look at her the same way again. He tries to put it out of his mind, but… if you’re told not to think of a red umbrella, you think of a red umbrella, and Emma’s secret might have involved some red umbrellas if people were carrying umbrellas. It is worth noting that Emma’s secret does not involve tangible victims or require tangible consequences. All it can do is affect how people think of her, which is invariably some form of “worse.”

Emma’s secret drives Charlie to madness in his relationship with his friends, his assistant (Hailey Gates), and especially Emma. Eventually his insecurities drive her crazy, and by the time of the wedding, they’re quite the dysfunctional couple. They’re talking about spending the rest of their lives together, but can the relationship even survive the reception? Let’s just say that there will probably be a lot fewer fantasies about getting married to Robert Pattinson after this movie.

“The Drama” really clicked with me, even though its appeal lies in a dark, awkward, cringey comedy that I don’t normally like. Probably the highlight of the film for me was a scene from the trailers, where Charlie and Emma try to pose for wedding photos like everything is okay when it definitely isn’t. It’s not hard to tell from the trailers that “something” is off, but the added context made it funnier than it ever was when being cryptic (though being cryptic was the right tone for the trailers). I recommend this film, but try to wear a beat-up shirt that you won’t mind stretching out from tugging at your collar.

Grade: B

            2023 brought audiences “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” by far the most successful cinematic adaptation of a video game ever. It was a wonder how appealing the property was with vibrant, colorful animation and respect for both its source material and its audience. I couldn’t bring myself to recommend the film, as the story, action, characters, and humor never really “came together” for me, but it was definitely a step in the right direction.

            In that film, plumber brothers Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Cox) stumbled upon the Mushroom Kingdom, led by Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy), who they saved from having to marry Bowser (Jack Black), king of the evil Koopas. They also aligned with headstrong ape Donkey Kong, but he’s not in play here. The brothers and Peach were hailed as heroes, while Bowser was ultimately shrunk down and imprisoned in a jar.

            This film starts out by introducing some new characters. Princess Rosalina (Brie Larson) rules over a planet of childlike stars in another galaxy. She’s abducted by Bowser Jr. (Benny Safdie), who needs to harness her powers to activate a doomsday weapon. But first, there’s the matter of rescuing his father from Peach’s castle in the Mushroom Kingdom. Meanwhile, a plumbing job leads to Mario and Luigi making the acquaintance of loveable dinosaur Yoshi (Donald Glover, apparently, though he mostly communicates in indiscernible squeaks), who is too marketable to not immediately become a lifelong companion of our heroes.

            Peach and loyal mushroom-man assistant Toad (Keegan-Michael Key) go off to rescue Rosalina, leaving Mario and Luigi in charge of the Mushroom Kingdom. They barely manage to keep the place running for a day, and really drop the ball when Bowser Jr. attacks. They leave to join the rescue mission (so much for their responsibilities running the kingdom) with the still-miniature Bowser in tow.

            The teams’ adventures take them to a casino galaxy, a honeybee galaxy, a dinosaur galaxy, and a hub that connects all the galaxies, where they enlist the help of stranded pilot Fox McCloud (Glen Powell). The climax takes place on a much-heralded planet that Bowser Jr. has built for his father to rule. Aside from the worlds where the characters actually live, there’s no reason for them to visit other galaxies, but this is a movie that insists on variety for the sake of variety.

            And that’s the biggest problem with the film: it’s very cluttered. Fans of the video games might get a kick out of the various settings and brief character appearances and other Easter eggs (appropriate, I suppose, for the recent Easter weekend), but I don’t see a point in including all these goodies if the film can’t do anything interesting with them. It can barely do anything interesting with its main characters, let alone the obscure ones.

            Sorry, but the movie is a mess from a storytelling and character development perspective. For example, Bowser laments that he wasn’t always there for Bowser Jr. as a father. But we don’t get a single scene of Bowser Jr. addressing how little his father had been there for him. Nor do we get any scenes where Mario and Luigi talk about missing their home and family in Brooklyn. Peach learns about major aspects of her identity, but I never got the sense that it was really “hitting” her. It all feels sloppy and rushed, as if the writers knew they needed to incorporate various story beats “somehow,” and “somehow” turned out to be the bare minimum.

            “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” once again gets the visual aspect right, which admittedly is a big part of this franchise’s success. But the story is nonsensical, the characters are cardboard, and there’s a noticeable lack of chemistry between the voice actors, probably owing to them not recording together. It’s a minor step back for the property after “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” took such a major step forward.

Grade: C

            In 2019’s “Ready or Not,” Grace MacCaullay (Samara Weaving) won the deadly game of Hide and Seek that ended the lives of the entire La Domas family. It all tied into a Satanic ritual that frankly didn’t make much sense. Now she has to play another, also-deadly game of Hide and Seek against four other families that hold high standing in the Satanic cult. The twist this time is that she has her estranged sister Faith (Kathryn Newton) in tow.

            Following (and I mean “immediately” following) Grace’s witty one-liner from the end of the last movie, she passes out and is taken to the hospital, where Faith, never removed as her emergency contact, reluctantly comes to visit. They’re soon attacked by a player (Kevin Durand) who wants to win the game before it starts. The cheater pays a heavy price, courtesy of the game’s ghostly overseer. But the sisters are soon knocked unconscious and brought to the resort of the Danforth twins – Titus (Shawn Hatosy) and Ursula (Sarah Michelle Gellar) – to start the game properly.

            An unnamed lawyer (Elijah Wood) spells out the rules. Representatives from four families will be competing. Whoever kills Grace first, wins. If Grace can survive until dawn, she wins. Faith is not officially part of the game, though she’ll both help Grace and be used as leverage against her in the course of the movie. If a player dies, another family member can take their place in the game. No families can kill members of the other families, or their entire family will be killed. The winner gets a special ring that lets them rule the world (yes, familiar territory for Wood).

            Other players include both Danforth twins with their cousin Kip (Dan Bierne) as backup, Spanish actor Ignacio El Caido (Nestor Carbonell) with his children Francesca (Maia Jae) and Felipe (Juan Pavlo Romero), Chinese businesswoman Wan Chen Xing (Olivia Cheng) and her son Fu (Antony Hall), and Indian partyboy Viraj Rajan (Nadeem Umar-Khitab) with his younger brother Madhu (Varun Saranga) and Madhu’s wife Martina (Masa Lizdek). A movie like this wouldn’t let the players have seconds unless it had plans for them, so be prepared for a high body count, as if all the weapons in the film’s advertising weren’t enough of an indication.

            The game is a deadly free-for-all, with the film’s favorite method of killing once again involving people exploding like big bloody balloons. The Danforth twins, they of the homefield advantage and most star power, are particularly conniving competitors. Grace and Faith spend the movie trying to keep each other alive while practically wanting to kill each other over past decisions. Frankly, I could have done without this aspect of the story. I can appreciate the writers wanting to give these characters depth, but there’s not much interesting about their backstory, and the rekindling of their relationship throws off the movie’s pace. On the plus side, it’s nice to have newer scream queen Newton joining established scream queen Weaving.

            I had fun with the film’s action and banter. The deft touch of directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett was sorely missing from the recent “Scream 7” after they directed the fifth and sixth installments to surprising watchability. Fortunately, we didn’t have to wait long for another project of theirs. “Ready or Not 2: Here I Come” isn’t going to set the cinematic or even horror world on fire, but it has enough of what I like in my horror thrillers for me to give it a recommendation.

Grade: B-

            It has been just over ten years since viewers were first introduced to the work of sci-fi author Andy Weir with Ridley Scott’s “The Martian.” In that film, a scientist (Matt Damon) was stuck on a planet millions of miles from Earth and forced to use his wits to survive against near-insurmountable odds, often punctuating his actions with smart-aleck remarks that only he could hear. New Weir adaptation “Project Hail Mary” is different. In this film, a scientist (Ryan Gosling) is stuck on a spaceship millions of miles from Earth and forced to use his wits to survive against near-insurmountable odds, often punctuating his actions with smart-aleck remarks that only he can hear… until he has an alien buddy that can hear them.

            Dr. Ryland Grace (Gosling) is on mission to save the Sun (and consequently Earth) from a bacteria that is severely diminishing its output. He’s not what you’d call a “likely” hero (just a schoolteacher with some controversial theories), and he doesn’t exactly “volunteer” for the mission. Sketchy mission organizer Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller) has to use some nefarious means to get him on the ship, but only because she truly believes his way of thinking makes him the best hope for humanity. His “way of thinking” doesn’t extend to knowing how his spaceship works after over a century in an induced coma. After Grace spends a few days flopping around the ship, the whole vessel is intercepted by an alien spacecraft.

            Piloting the new ship is a creature that comes to be known as Rocky (voiced by James Ortiz, once he has a voice), because his body is so rock-like. He’s on a mission to save his own planet from the same problems plaguing the Sun. Not having many ideas of his own, his plan is to abduct Grace so they can pool their resources. Of course, Grace doesn’t really know what he’s doing either, but after a tedious process of learning to communicate with one another, the two of them start hatching something resembling a plan to save their respective worlds. And they might just become friends in the process. Okay, I won’t make it suspenseful, they become friends.

            Grace and Rocky’s friendship is really odd, considering that they never knew the other’s species even existed until they met in outer space. Also, neither can so much as breathe the air on the other’s ship. Grace has to keep his helmet on in Rocky’s, and Rocky has to travel around Grace’s in what I can only describe as a hamster ball. But through inspiring determination, they make it work. And though the attitude is usually kept light, there are very high stakes for both parties. Entire planets need to be saved and sacrifices need to be made. Will those sacrifices have to include our heroes’ ability to get home? How about their very lives? Can they even have a mission successful enough to warrant these kinds of questions?

            The story of “Project Hail Mary” is very familiar territory, especially if you’ve seen “The Martian.” I joked about it earlier, but Gosling’s character is basically a carbon copy of Damon’s in that film. And the friendship with Rocky has been done before too, in any number of movies where a human has to work together with an animal or alien (“E.T.” comes to mind). Fortunately, the writing, acting, and directing from the ever-enjoyable Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are all crisp enough to make this a decent version of a cookie-cutter space adventure. It could probably stand to eat up less time, but for the most part, “Project Hail Mary” is worth cheering on as much as your favorite sports team making the titular play.

Grade: B-

            Author Colleen Hoover is apparently dominant in the genre of tearjerkers. She’s best known for “It Ends With Us,” about the upsetting subject of domestic violence. Now comes “Reminders of Him,” which features both a death and a torn-apart family. It wants to inspire tears of sadness and sympathy, but the best it can manage is to bore me to tears.

            The story follows Kenna (Maika Monroe), fresh out of prison after serving a seven-year sentence for vehicular manslaughter. She returns to her small Wyoming hometown, where the first thing she does is rip out the cross along the side of the road that memorializes her former lover Scotty (Rudy Pankow), the passenger she killed in a car crash while intoxicated. It’s not malicious, she does it to honor Scotty, as “he hated memorials,” though she doesn’t seem to consider that memorials aren’t “for” the deceased, they’re for people in mourning. Then again, she’s not one to always use great judgement.

            Kenna’s life is a mess. She can’t get a job because of her criminal record, she can only stay in a lousy apartment by agreeing to take in one of the building owner’s cats, and she has no legal right to see Diem (Zoe Kosovic), the six-year-old daughter she had with Scotty, probably conceived minutes before the fatal crash. She had to give birth in prison and never even got to hold her baby before she was whisked away to live with Scotty’s parents (Lauren Graham and Bradley Whitford). She’s looking for a way to become part of Diem’s life, but all of her ideas involve acting like a crazy stalker, which isn’t going to endear her to the child’s grandparents, who already hate her for what she did to their son.

            Kenna’s search for a job leads her to a bar owned by failed football player Ledger (Tyriq Withers). The two flirt and he instantly develops feelings for her. Things get complicated when it is revealed that he was Scotty’s best friend growing up and is now heavily involved in raising Diem. They get even more complicated when he learns that she is Scotty’s lover/killer and Diem’s stalker/mother. He demands that she leave town, or at least not insert herself into Diem’s life, but she has no intention of obeying. Besides, he doesn’t really mean that he wants her to leave town, he’s too smitten with her.

            Kenna and Ledger form an uneasy business relationship that turns into a friendship that threatens to turn romantic. Can he learn to love the woman who took his best friend away from him? And how will this affect the close-as-family relationship he has with Diem and her grandparents? No doubt it will involve lying and eventually exposure, but will forgiveness be around the corner?

            The film feels inexplicably stuffed with dragged-out scenes and unnecessary details. Kenna’s first job as a grocery bagger doesn’t really go anywhere, nor does Ledger not making much progress on a house he’s building far outside of town. And we don’t need a lengthy flashback to the night of the accident, everything has been sufficiently described in other parts of the movie. My theory is that a tight, early draft of the script came in at only sixty minutes and the studio insisted that it be stretched out to ninety, but then someone overcorrected until it was this nearly-two-hour snoozefest. Either that or the Hoover novel itself is over-bloated, in which case the movie should have done more to tighten things up.

            I’m not mad at “Reminders of Him” for being incompetent, just nonplussed that it’s so unexciting. Other than being too long and dull, it’s not even bad in an interesting way. By the end of the year, I’ll probably forget the very title of “that weepy mother-that-can’t-see-her-daughter movie.” And then I’ll need a reminder of “Reminders of Him.”

Grade: C-

            The 2020’s haven’t been kind to once-great animation giant Pixar, at least with its original titles. “Onward” had its box office cut down by the pandemic. Three straight movies had to forgo theatrical releases and go straight to Disney+. “Lightyear” was the first movie from the studio that I couldn’t bring myself to recommend. That movie, along with passable-but-middling efforts “Elemental” and “Elio” were all unable to win a single weekend at the domestic box office. Yes, “Inside Out 2” made more money domestically than any movie in the last three years, but that was an established property. Pixar needs an original hit to pull itself out of its rut, and I’m happy to report that “Hoppers” is just the movie to do it.

            The story follows outspoken college student and animal-lover Mabel (Piper Curda) as she tries to save the glade near her home from getting bulldozed at the behest of Mayor Jerry (Jon Hamm) to make room for a new highway. She’d have a better case if there were any animals making their home in the glade, but she’s sure that if the land can be protected, the animals will come. What she really needs is to move a beaver into the area that can dam up a stream and create a water supply for an ecosystem’s worth of animals. But finding a beaver turns out to be harder than she thought. The only one she can find is one that willingly gets into a car, rides to the university, and goes into the office of Dr. Sam (Kathy Najimy).

            It turns out that the beaver “is” Dr. Sam. The professor has created a machine that allows a human mind to enter a robotic animal body. This allows them to observe and study animals without their human-sized bodies causing a distraction. Think of it as the technology from “Avatar,” Mabel certainly does. Of course, Dr. Sam created the “hopping” technology for observational purposes only, and of course, Mabel disobeys all instructions and goes hopping as a beaver herself on a mission to save the glade.

            Mabel struggles to adapt to animal culture at first, especially the animals-have-to-eat-other-animals aspect. But she soon makes the acquaintance of King George (Bobby Moynihan), the beaver leader of a system of animals at a nearby pond and the character that I imagine will best lend himself to merchandising going forward. King George teaches her about “Pond Rules,” where everybody is friends, everybody helps out, and eating for sustenance isn’t personal. He sees the good in everybody, from the smallest creatures to dangerous predators to humans like Mayor Jerry.

Mabel fulfills her mission and helps King George take back the glade for the animals. But then Mayor Jerry retaliates, and she hadn’t counted on escalation. King George summons a whole council of animal monarchs to decide whether to fight more ferociously, and the Insect Queen (Meryl Streep) wants to take it a step further and squish Mayor Jerry for good. Mabel didn’t want to take things “that” far, but soon things are out of control. Can she, in her fake beaver guise, diffuse an entire war between animals and humans?

            In some respects, mostly storytelling, “Hoppers” isn’t a huge step forward. Disney/Pixar characters get themselves in too deep over lies all the time, so this is par for the course in this era. And I did cringe at some of the jokes, especially ones that lean too heavily on modern slang. But this is what Disney and Pixar do best: adorable animals, clever gags, fun performances, and heartfelt emotional beats. I imagine that kids will love it and adults will like it. I liked it enough to say that I hope Pixar makes a well-deserved comeback with it, but I also hope that they have even bigger hits with more ambitious projects going forward.

            “Scream” is easily my favorite horror franchise. It might be my favorite movie franchise overall, but especially in terms of horror. That’s why it really hurts me to say that “Scream 7” isn’t up to snuff.

It’s not hard to see why this installment falls short, given its troubled production history. The latter half of 2023 saw the departures of both co-directors and both lead actresses from both of the last two installments that had reinvigorated the franchise for the 2020’s. Rather than cancel the project outright, the studio forged ahead with a retooled movie with original star Neve Campbell and original screenwriter Kevin Williamson as director. In theory, this could work, especially with the always-welcome Campbell as the lead, but this film never quite shakes off the passionless stench of someone having to deliver a film to meet an obligation despite the absence of first-choice talent.

The film, as expected, opens with a violent pre-title sequence. A young couple (Jimmy Tatro and Michelle Randolph) check into the old house of original co-killer Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard), now a rental property for fans of murder scenes. Spooky surprises are hidden throughout the house, including a robot wearing the iconic Ghostface costume. Eventually a non-robot Ghostface shows up, ready for some slashing. It’s not a lock that the couple will be killed like so many pre-title sequence characters before them, but… I didn’t see them bucking the trend.

We soon rejoin Sidney Prescott (Campbell) trying to live a life out of media spotlight, despite having found herself as a player in five killing sprees in her lifetime. She’s married to the local chief of police (Joel McHale) and has three children, two of whom are away visiting their grandparents. Her teenage daughter Tatum (Isabel May) wants to know some of the juicy details of her past, which she refuses to divulge, but otherwise clashes with her, disobeys her, and wants nothing to do with her, in typical teenage fashion.

One day, Sidney gets a call from someone using the familiar Roger L. Jackson filter. It’s the new killer. But instead of terrorizing Sidney in the Ghostface garb, this killer directs Sidney to a screen, where she’s taunted by none other than an aged Stu, who died in the first movie… or so she thinks. Did he somehow survive? Is this an A.I. prank? Either way, “Stu” makes it clear that Sidney and her family are targets for revenge.

Potential suspects/victims line up. Sidney works at a coffee shop frequented by her neighbor Jessica (Anna Camp) and her slasher-obsessed son Luke (Asa Germann), as well as creepy wildcard Karl (Kraig Dane). Tatum’s circle of friends includes boyfriend Ben (Sam Rechner), and besties Hannah (Mckenna Grace) and Chloe (Celeste O’Connor). Shady characters on the periphery include rude drama teacher Mr. Willis (Tim Simons), mental hospital orderly Marco (Ethan Embry), and fame-hungry reporter Robbie Rivers (Mark Consuelos).

Those are the new faces. But because the movie has to use nostalgia as a crutch, it’s not long before longtime ally Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox) shows up, flanked by returning characters Chad (Mason Gooding) and Mindy (Jasmin Savoy-Brown), from the fifth and sixth movies, now working as the reporter’s assistants. And as forced as those returns feel, they’re no match for Stu and a gaggle of last-act cameos that serve no purpose other than for the advertising to be able to say that the actors technically appear in the movie.

I found some things to like about “Scream 7.” Campbell hasn’t lost an ounce of Scream Queen credibility, there are some creative kills, and the fight choreographer certainly earned their paycheck. But any scene without Campbell that involves mystery, suspense, emotion, or even the series’ trademark humor is a miss. Save for one, I’m not interested in following any surviving characters to another movie. This movie probably shouldn’t have been made without certain people onboard, and there shouldn’t be another “Scream” until they can come back.

            Christian music biopic “I Can Only Imagine” had a surprising performance at the domestic box office back in 2018. The film made $83 million despite never finishing above the #3 position on any given weekend. While it never escaped the shadow of “Black Panther,” which beat it every weekend, it did manage to ultimately outdo the Alicia Vikander “Tomb Raider” and badly-received kaiju sequel “Pacific Rim: Uprising,” both of which had better weekends in their respective debuts in the film’s first two weeks. The film did well because it had stamina and passionate support. Now sequel “I Can Only Imagine 2” has also debuted in the #3 position, behind the second weekends of both “Wuthering Heights” and “GOAT.” Will it have the stamina and support to pull off a similarly impressive showing? Probably not, but only time will tell.

            I did not see the first film, but I understand that it ended with songwriter Bart Millard (J. Michael Finley) penning one of the biggest Christian crossover hits of all time following the death of his abusive, yet redemption-seeking father (Dennis Quaid). Millard starts this film by assuring us that his story did not end with his achieving financial success in the early 2000’s. Life went on, and as life does, and it contained hardship. In the wake of the song’s success, Bart and his wife Shannon (Sophie Skelton, taking over the role from Madeline Carroll) have a scare when their son Sam suffers a diabetes-related seizure. He’ll have to spend the rest of his life receiving regular insulin injections, which scare him tremendously.

            Ten years later, in the early 2010’s, Sam (Sammy Dell) is a sullen teenager, while Bart and Shannon, having had four more children, aren’t as financially stable as they once were. Brick (Trace Adkins), manager of Bart’s band MercyMe, informs them that their upcoming tour is in jeopardy due to the headliner pulling out. The tour can continue with MercyMe as headliners, but they’ll need a new opening act. With curiously no time given to the decision-making process, the film introduces Tim Timmons (Milo Ventimiglia), a struggling musician with a loving wife (Arielle Kebbel), an obsession with hymn “It Is Well With My Soul,” and a suspicious gratitude for every day that suggests he has been told his days are numbered.

            Bart, Tim, and the rest of MercyMe go on tour, with Sam tagging along to spend some quality time with his dad. Though Tim and Sam get along well, with the professional even inviting the aspiring musician to perform with him, the relationship between Bart and Sam is fraught with tension. Bart needs Sam to take his insulin shots on schedule, and Sam wants to avoid them at all costs. Bart wonders if he’s being a monster by “hurting” Sam, the way his father was a monster by hurting him. The film treats this insecurity like a legitimate question, but… the answer is no. Flat no. Bart’s father’s beatings didn’t take the form of delivering life-saving insulin. It’s not the same thing. Next dilemma, please.

            There are plenty of dilemmas throughout “I Can Only Imagine 2.” Both Sam and Tim struggle with health problems, Bart is under a lot of pressure to write another hit after ten years, his marriage has seen better days, the bus breaks down at one point, etc. But, this being the “uplifting” movie that it is, you can probably guess that faith will see these characters through their various crises. Faith is certainly not a guarantee that these characters (or anyone else) will not experience loss or despair, but genre expectations are such that things aren’t likely to end on a down note.

            “Wuthering Heights” is based on a classic novel by Emily Brontë. I’ve never read the novel, which is probably for the best. Reports of the movie differing from the novel are actually quite relieving to me. They’re relieving in the sense that I do not have to lose respect for people who like the novel, which I would do if this movie were any indication of its quality. I’m fine with not judging a book by its movie, especially when the movie is this terrible.

            Young Catherine Earnshaw (Charlotte Mellington) grows up in the Wuthering Heights estate in 18^th-century England, under the care of her rich, cruel, drunken father (Martin Clunes). Servants include same-aged companion Nelly (Vy Nguyen) and rescued street urchin Heathcliff (Owen Cooper). Cathy initially sees Heathcliff as her “toy,” but eventually comes to see him as a friend. As the two get older and Cathy turns into Margot Robbie and Heathcliff turns into Jacob Elordi, they both begin to think that they might become more than friends. It’s hard for me to buy Robbie, who played Leonardo DiCaprio’s wife in “The Wolf of Wall Street” back in 2013, as someone who is just now going through a sexual awakening, but sure, Cathy and Heathcliff are in love, but neither of them will admit it or make the first move.

            The problem with such a relationship would be the financial aspect. Cathy’s father has gambled away the family’s fortune, leaving them both “near-poverty,” and Heathcliff, as a servant, has practically nothing. Cathy confides in Nelly (now played by Hong Chau), with Heathcliff overhearing, that she needs to marry someone with money, like wealthy neighbor Edgar (Shazad Latif). She goes on to admit that she’d rather marry the broke Heathcliff, but he misses that part. Heathcliff abandons Wuthering Heights the next day and Cathy goes on to marry Edgar.

            At first, Cathy loves all the material trappings of her marriage (this portion of the film does some impressive things with the “wealth porn” element, with fine foods and flowers everywhere), but she just can’t bring herself to reciprocate Edgar’s love. A pregnancy makes her feel even more trapped. Soon after, Heathcliff returns, a wealthy man. He and Cathy could be together if it weren’t for that pesky lifetime commitment she made. Their workaround is to have an affair. When Cathy wants to cut things off (due to her pregnancy, not fidelity), Heathcliff gets revenge by marrying Edgar’s naïve ward Isabella (Alison Oliver) and treating her horribly. This is supposed to entice Cathy to come back to him… somehow.

Can Cathy and Heathcliff’s game of sexual chess end well for either of them? That’s the question I think we’re supposed to be asking. I was much more concerned about how things would end for well-meaning pawns Edgar and Isabella. Cathy and Heathcliff turn each other into monsters by the end, and not in a tragic, understandable way – more like they’re locked in a contest to see who can be the bigger spoiled brat. Cathy grew up a spoiled brat, but Heathcliff watched her and learned from the best. Speaking of “brat,” I liked the snippets of Charli XCX songs that played throughout the film, usually in scenes of heavy fog that seemed to match the singer’s breathy voice. Maybe she should have played Cathy.

“Wuthering Heights” is a movie about two people who deserve each other. At first, this can be said with positive connotations that slowly turn to negative. Because there are so many erotic scenes with the main characters in fancy costumes, this movie is supposedly “romantic.” I’m worried about what young romantics will take away from this movie, considering how many of them came out of last year’s “Nosferatu” with a crush on Count Orlok. I walked away from this film wanting both main characters to fall from a height – Wuthering or otherwise.

            On the weekend of the biggest football game of the year, it was only natural that I saw a movie about basketball. Or rather “Roarball,” as the anthropomorphic animal characters call it – but it’s basketball.

            When he was just a kid (pun intended), young goat Will (Caleb McLaughlin) went to Roarball games to root for his hometown Vineland Thorns and cheer on his favorite player: panther Jett Fillmore (Gabrielle Union). Will’s mother (Jennifer Hudson) encouraged him to dream big, and he dreamed to be as big a Roarball player as Jett. Ten years later, Will is a struggling delivery boy, his mother has passed, Jett has never won the league’s championship, and the Thorns’ warthog owner (Jenifer Lewis) is too busy with mud baths to make any effort to improve the roster.

            Will can’t make a career for himself because he’s too obsessed with Roarball. And he can’t get ahead in Roarball because he’s too small. Actually, he’s more of a “medium” in a world that includes rodents and such, but every high-profile player is bigger than him, so he’s considered “small.” He answers an open challenge for a one-on-one game to three points laid out by visiting superstar Mane Attraction (Aaron Pierre), and the horse beats him 3-2, but everyone in Vineland is impressed that he was able to score two points Yes, his star rises because a heavily-memed video of his performance “goes viral.” Against the wishes of Jett, who wants a proper teammate for what will likely be her final season, he’s signed to the Thorns.

            Teammates on the Thorns include paternal pachyderm Archie (David Harbour), aging giraffe Lenny (Stephen Curry), self-doubting ostrich Olivia (Nicola Coughlin), and out-of-his-mind Komodo Dragon Modo (Nick Kroll), as well as put-upon monkey coach Dennis (Patton Oswalt). It’s not hard to see why the team is in last place, with all the neuroses in play, compounded by Jett’s constant frustration. At this rate the team will be out of contention before Will can even come off the bench. 

            Despite a rocky start, Will soon proves himself useful, able to slip between large, lumbering players and make long-shots from far-off places on the court. Aside from his playing, his optimism is infectious, both with the fans, who drive up ticket sales, and his teammates, who start playing better with his inspiration. Even sour (literal) puss Jett has some of her best days in years around him. Then there’s an ugly chapter where business gets in the way and egos affect morale (every sports movie has one) and the team basically breaks up, but of course everybody rallies and puts in their best efforts for the big final game against Mane Attraction’s team.

            So the story isn’t going to redefine any (figurative, this time) playbooks. So the humor can be obnoxious at times with all the self-aggrandizing characters. So it’s obvious that the movie was written around the lazy premise of an athlete wanting to be the Greatest Of All Time… and he’s an actual goat. The movie is still a delight at a time when delightful movies are in short supply. Its biggest strength is its rapid-fire gag delivery, even if a joke misses, you can be as sure as there’s at least one played out screaming goat gag in this movie that there’s another one right around the corner. “GOAT” isn’t what I would call a “great” animated offering, but it’s not ba-a-a-a-a-ad.     

            Apologies.

Grade: B-

            Did you know that getting stranded on a deserted island has a way of shaking up social hierarchies? I suppose that was a big part of the plot for recent Best Picture Oscar nominee “Triangle of Sadness.” As well as the literary classic “Lord of the Flies.” And it’s represented on television in everything from “Survivor” to “Lost” to “Gilligan’s Island.” And it was at the center of a play I did in high school called “The Admirable Crichton,” where I played a rich snob who gets taken down several pegs. Director Sam Raimi is hoping you’ve somehow avoided all of these precursors, plus others I’m sure I’m forgetting, because only then can you find originality in “Send Help.”

            Rachel McAdams stars as Linda Liddle, a doormat of an employee in the strategy and planning department (the movie loves its “strategy and planning” jokes) of a financial consulting firm. She does great work, but she doesn’t have the best social skills, and her bro-y male colleagues take her work for granted while overlooking her as a person. This is especially true of her boss Bradley (Dylan O’Brien), who gives a college buddy a promotion over her and is ready to boot her from the office over the smell of her tuna-fish sandwich. But he needs her numbers skills for a conference in Bangkok, so he reluctantly lets her tag along on his private plane. Wouldn’t you know it, the plane goes down and only Linda and an injured Bradley make it to a nearby island.

            Linda is an adept survivalist, having read many books on the subject. She’s able to build a makeshift shelter, get a fire going, and round up some food and water for the passed-out Bradley, all before he even wakes up. When he does come around, he’s grateful for about ten seconds before chiding Linda for not making more of an effort to get the two of them rescued. She walks off, leaving him to the elements. He soon learns that he can’t survive on his own and has to sheepishly ask her to go back to caring for him.

This establishes a pattern that continues for the rest of the movie: he’ll think that the power he wields in the office also applies to the island, and she keeps easily proving him wrong. Eventually she becomes the powerful one, and she insists she’s a better boss than he ever was, but… is she? Or is she destined to become the tyrant that Bradley was on the mainland? Could she even become something worse? It’s hard to imagine Bradley, even at his most piggish, making some of the decisions Linda makes.

Speaking of piggishness, Raimi hopes that audiences are too distracted by select scenes of visual spectacle to notice that there’s nothing original about the story. One is a battle between Linda and a supposedly-scary CGI boar. Others include the plane crash, a dream sequence, a physical altercation, and a high-tension confrontation involving a poisonous octopus and a dead rat. I’d chide Raimi for relying too much on his old crutches of extreme violence and body horror, but it’s not like he was doing better with the non-gruesome elements of the movie.

Basically, I spent the entirety of “Send Help” doing that “move it along” gesture with my hand because the story was so routine. Bradley was never going to learn his lesson, Linda was only going to get worse, and rescue wouldn’t come until much more blood (and possibly other innards) had been spilled. The film isn’t devoid of properly-built suspense, but it’s nothing that hasn’t been seen in other, better cat-and-mouse horror movies (“Misery,” from the late Rob Reiner, came to mind). Sometimes people like to debate which movies they wish they could have with them on a deserted island. I wouldn’t want “Send Help” even if I didn’t have to waste a pick on it.

            “Mercy” was the #1 movie at the box office on a weekend where the weather showed little in the way of mercy to much of the country. Hope you’re all safe out there.

            As if the weather weren’t enough of a disadvantage, “Mercy” is saddled with one of the stupidest cinematic premises I’ve ever seen. It takes place in a dystopian future where murder trials take the form of “Mercy trials,” suspects being strapped unsupervised to a chair in a tech-filled, but otherwise empty room and given 90 minutes to prove their innocence to an A.I. judge. If they can’t establish a reasonable doubt within the time limit, they’re executed on the spot.

            To give the suspects a fighting chance, tech is at their disposal to examine the crime scene, check security cameras, call witnesses, look at evidence like strangers’ personal financial records, and so on, all in the name of making the system think that they are less than 92% guilty. But emotional pleas do no good, the way they might with a human jury. Also, there are no lawyers to navigate (some would say “manipulate”) the justice system. No suspect given this kind of trial has ever been found not guilty.

            Detective Chris Raven (Chris Pratt), a major proponent of the Mercy system, awakens one day to finds himself strapped to a chair for a Mercy trial. On a screen, Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson) informs him that he’s the prime suspect in the murder of his wife (Annabelle Wallis). His probability of guilt is deemed to be 96.7%. If he wants to avoid being… the movie never says, but I’m guessing electrocuted, he’d better get cracking on getting that number down below 92%. Oh, and he suffered a brain injury when he was arrested, so he doesn’t remember anything about the morning of the murder – including whether or not he did it.

            Chris goes about uncovering the truth. He knows that he wasn’t always the best husband, struggling with anger and alcoholism, but he couldn’t have done it… in the emotional sense. In the literal sense, maybe. He doesn’t get much help from friends and family, like his less-angelic-than-he-thought daughter (Kylie Rogers), his sponsor (Chris Sullivan), or his partner (Kali Reis), who are seemingly of the attitude that they want to help him, but the evidence isn’t looking good.

            He uncovers layers upon layers of secrets: his wife may have been having an affair with a chef (Jeff Pierre), she may have been involved with illegal drug manufacturing with her co-worker (Rafi Gavron), and there may be a conspiracy to unleash untold terror. And he may have to come to the conclusion that the Mercy system itself may not be as perfect as he previously thought. Who would have thought that putting a murder trial in the hands of a judge that can simply be unplugged might have flaws?

            “Mercy” is one of those movies that wants to warn us about the dangers of A.I., that this is where society is headed if we entrust in it too much. Except no, we’re not. A.I. is indeed creeping its way into all facets of life, including the justice system, and there are dangers that come along with it, but we’re a million miles from this strapped-to-a-chair-with-no-humans-around nonsense. The whole thing is ridiculous. It’s so ridiculous, in fact, that it warrants being seen by people who like ridiculous movies. This movie gets my rare “B-minus-minus” rating, reserved for movies that I would never recommend in the traditional sense, but do make me shake my head and chucklingly say, “You gotta see this.”

            Audiences largely left last June’s zombie threequel “28 Years Later” thinking the same thing, “That was a good movie, but what the heck was up with that ending?” They were referring to the last-minute saving of young protagonist Spike (Alfie Williams) from a hoard of Infected by a gang of blonde-wigged, tracksuit-wearing ruffians led by long-missing earlier character Jimmy (Jack O’Connell). The tone of the sequence was one of stylized action, which clashed with the more ominous, meditative horror (short of the obvious Infected attacks) of the rest of the movie. Now, a mere seven months later, “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” provides answers as to exactly what the heck was up with that ending.

            It turns out that the gang, known as The Fingers (because together they form a mighty fist), while they like to take out the Infected, aren’t much kinder to uninfected humans. They’re a cult of serial killers, all stripped of their original names and now called Jimmy, who serve a Satanic deity known as Old Nick. O’Connell’s leader, now going by the name Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal, agrees to take in Spike if he can kill a Jimmy in a battle to the death. Spike lives to be inducted, but he lives in terror. Sadly, that’s his one mode through the entire movie. In “28 Years Later,” the character had a great arc where he abandoned his lying father and safe-haven community to get help for his sick mother and then face an uncertain future, but here he’s just scared all the time. Granted, I’d be consistently scared if I had to spend my life around the vicious Fingers, but it’s not much of a “hero’s journey.”

            The story sometimes breaks from Spike and The Fingers to spend time with Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), a character from the last movie who built The Bone Temple, a tall pile of skulls, as a memorial to the dead, and not, as some thought, a collection of weirdo trophies. He subdues an “Alpha Infected,” who he names Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry), and takes strides to study him, as there may be something inside his head (psychologically) that may be the key to overcoming not just the Infected, but the 28-year-old infection.

            Most of the movie is a noticeable step down from “28 Years Later.” Sure, charging Infected and satanic murderers are scary and all, but it’s missing that certain precise timing given to it by Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle (Nia DaCosta, of the mixed-bag “Candyman” remake, is at the helm this time). That is, until the two stories converge. Once some of The Fingers become convinced that Dr. Kelson is their god Old Nick (thanks to his iodine-coated red skin), Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal has to find a way to keep his own hold on the group. And that’s where the musical number comes in. It’s not Jack O’Connell performing like he did in “Sinners,” but there is a show-stealing musical number and a climax that redeems the entire movie… and then a poorly-kept secret surprise after that.

            “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” can be a slog at times, and by “at times” I mean pretty much the entire first hour. It shouldn’t be a slog, given the high-stakes subject matter, but I could never shake this feeling that I was just watching a lesser version of a world I had spent just enough time in only seven months ago. But then that ending is so explosive that all is forgiven. Supposedly Danny Boyle will be back to direct a fifth movie in this series (my guess is it will be the third with “Years” in the title, to complete the trilogy within the larger continuity), and if he can seamlessly add his sensitive touch to the spectacle of this movie’s most memorable sequence, we’ll have a horror movie for the ages.

            It’s time once again for that magical set of releases on the cinematic calendar: January Horror! Unable to get a Halloween release, unable to compete in blockbuster season, and unable to dominate a random weekend anywhere else on the calendar, January Horror movies are released at a time when their biggest competition is leftover holiday blockbusters and awards-season darlings. Studios are banking on audiences not wanting movies that are popular and… good, so maybe they’ll settle for some cheap thrills. In other words, the month is a dumping ground for bad horror movies. “Primate” is indeed bad enough to belong in January, though I’ll at least allow it the faint compliment that it’s pretty decent “for” January.

            The film takes place at a cliffside (meaning somebody is definitely going over that cliff) mansion in Hawaii. College student Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah) is coming home to visit her father Adam (Troy Kotsur) and sister Erin (Gia Hunter). Along for the trip are her good friend Kate (Victoria Wyant) and lousy friend Hannah (Jessica Alexander), as well as Kate’s brother Nick (Benjamin Cheng). Lucy isn’t just happy to see the humans in her family, she’s also happy to see Ben, a chimpanzee adopted by her late linguistics-expert mother, who communicates with both sign language (with the deaf Adam) and an electronic pad with an artificial voice.

            Adam has to go out of town and Ben has been behaving strangely, so veterinarian Dr. Lambert (Rob Delaney) will have to swing by the house, but other than that, the kids have run of the place for a few days. Hannah might even invite over some party bros (Charlie Mann and Tienne Simon) she met on the plane. There’s just one problem: Ben has been infected with rabies. Everyone in the house is now in danger from the increasingly-unstable chimp. And as we learn from the opening sequence (because of course this is a movie that starts with a horrific scene and then flashes back to “36 Hours Earlier”), it’s mortal danger.

            The appeal of the movie lies in its chimpanzee antagonist, and to that end, the film actually fares quite well. Effects that go into Ben reportedly include puppetry, animatronics, motion capture, and a physical performance by actor Miguel Torres Umba. It’s more complex than a Halloween costume, but doesn’t take the shortcut of computer-generated artificiality. I never had any problems with visual phoniness or the uncanny valley, at least no more than with any real-life primate. I really was all set for Ben to be a memorable slasher villain.

And then the movie did something with Ben that greatly detracted from all that hard work: it made the character unnaturally smart. I’m not talking about the early scenes of the chimp functioning in the household. I’m talking about how, if the character’s homicidal tendencies are driven by rabies, then he’s a crazed, full-steam-ahead killing machine, and I’m afraid of that. But the film gives Ben the presence of mind to taunt his victims and get creative in his attacks, and it’s just not “rabid” behavior. It’s the behavior of a standard movie slasher, and by the end of the movie, I couldn’t see Ben as anything more than that.

I don’t want to dismiss the idea of a killer primate movie entirely, with the threat of an unfamiliar species posing unique dangers. But the movie doesn’t capitalize on that potential, instead offering up dull January Horror fare with a killer that happens to be a chimp and kills that are only impressive when they can only be committed by a chimp. And the lazily-written human characters certainly can’t carry this movie. If the makers of “Primate” liked fleshing out their characters as much as they liked the chimp ripping flesh off of them, there might have been a recommendable movie here.

            “The Housemaid” has unofficially sold itself based on how crazy it gets in its second half. This is slightly less annoying than when movies sell themselves based on their twist endings – at least here, the twist gets a chance to breathe, and maybe there will be other twists after the initial shock – but it still creates the problem of forcing the audience to wait for something crazy to happen. As “The Housemaid” went along in a direction that made sense, the movie felt long to me because I knew that the other shoe (or in this case, plate *shhh*) hadn’t dropped yet, and the movie would have to spend time going in a different direction once it did. Of course, the twist then gave me a new set of issues with the film, but that’s for later.

            What I can tell you is that the movie opens with Millie (Sydney Sweeney) applying for a job as – what else? – a housemaid for socialite Nina Winchester (Amanda Seyfried). The job seems too good to be true, as Nina comes off as very nice, and apparently so are her finance whiz husband Andrew (Brandon Sklenar) and daughter Cece (Indiana Elle). More importantly, the live-in position provides much-needed steady employment and a fixed address for Millie, which she desperately needs as a condition of her parole (the parole itself is not a twist, but the circumstances behind it “might” be). To Millie’s delight, Nina apparently doesn’t do her due diligence with a background check, and she’s hired for the job.

            It doesn't take long for things to go south for Millie. Nina is much more demanding and belligerent than she seemed in the interview, and she threatens to fire Millie and ruin her life over tiny, if not completely made-up infractions. Cece is a cold, standoffish, unhappy child, lecturing Millie on which parts of life are a “privilege,” a trait she shares with Andrew’s even-more-miserable mother (Elizabeth Perkins). The family’s handyman Enzo (Michele Morrone) is a creep in an ominous kind of way. And Andrew can be a creep in an “unhappily married man with eyes for the young housemaid” kind of way, though at least he’s nice to Millie.

            After a first half filled with soap opera drama and wealth porn (and some softcore regular porn), the movie delivers on the crazy as promised. At least one of the six characters I’ve listed turns out to be an absolute psycho, and the movie basically turns from mystery into horror. It’s really to a ridiculous degree, as in, “How can this person pass for a normal member of society when they’re this deranged?” But it makes for a memorable villainous turn, that’s for sure.

            “The Housemaid” is based on a book by Freida McFadden, and the movie is filled with moments that I can tell worked better on paper, if they ever worked at all. Characters’ motivations are murky, even with - and sometimes especially with – hindsight. Maybe the book explained them better. The flashback-heavy timeline can make the movie seem tedious just when momentum is building. The tonal whiplash makes the movie hard to take seriously. And it does try to take itself seriously toward the end when at least one of the top-billed actresses tries to inspire legitimate feelings of female empowerment, which I saw as pandering and unearned. The movie is good at cat-and-mouse tension at points, with mind games played well even before it officially becomes a thriller, but it’s not enough to save it. I have no idea if the novel version of “The Housemaid” qualifies as “trash,” but the movie version definitely plays like an adaptation of a trashy novel.

Grade: C-

            Back in 2019, brothers Benny and Josh Safdie delivered one of the best films of the year, and possibly the decade, with “Uncut Gems.” The film was, as I wrote in a review earlier this year, “a 135-minute anxiety attack.” And I mean that in the best possible way – I have enormous amounts of respect for movies and filmmakers that know just how to push my buttons. Now in 2025, the Safdie brothers have graduated to solo projects. Benny didn’t fare too well with “The Smashing Machine” (whose review I quoted earlier), though Dwayne Johnson did earn a surprise Golden Globe nomination for playing MMA fighter Mark Kerr, so maybe there’s some life in that film after all. But Josh has found both commercial and critical success with his new film “Marty Supreme,” and he did it by sticking with what works.

            The film follows Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet), a con artist in1952 New York who happens to be really good at ping pong. He’s able to come in second at the British Open, and a spot at the World Championships in Japan should be his… if he can raise the $1,500 he needs to pay a fine. Throughout the course of the film, he’ll try to raise the money by hustling games at a nearby bowling alley with help from his friend Wally (Tyler Okonma), robbing his uncle’s shoe store, ransoming a dog (that he doesn’t have) to its gangster owner (Abel Ferrara), getting a sponsorship from a friend’s father, getting a sponsorship from a businessman (Kevin O’Leary) who wants him to throw an exhibition match, pawning a necklace owned by the businessman’s actress wife (Gwyneth Paltrow) with whom he’s having an affair, and assorted other schemes. On top of it all, he learns that he may be the father to the baby of his married girlfriend Rachel (Odessa A’zion), and that may require some flim-flamming as well.

            The whole thing is basically “Uncut Gems” again, to the point where I’m convinced that Marty must be related to Adam Sandler’s character from that movie. Rachel’s baby would be too old to be Sandler’s age, but maybe Marty had another baby about a decade down the line. The point is that the two movies feature outstanding leads that are put through the wringer as they try futilely to clean up the messes they’ve created for themselves. Good thing I think this is a winning formula, and enough time has passed since “Uncut Gems” that I’m ready for another, similar round. I would have preferred that maybe a few more loose ends be tied up in the finale, but otherwise this is a top-tier awards contender.

            Speaking of awards, the movie and Chalamet’s performance are doing so well in preliminaries that several Oscar nominations seem like a lock. “Uncut Gems” was overlooked back in 2019, probably due to reluctance to nominate any Adam Sandler project (it was Oscar-worthy though, despite 95% of Sandler’s filmography). That won’t be a problem this year with darling Chalamet in the lead. Heck, voters probably should have given Chalamet an Oscar last year for playing Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown,” not because he was necessarily “better” than Adrian Brody in “The Brutalist,” but because a Chalamet win would have saved the ceremony from Brody’s hostile, overlong, self-indulgent speech.

            Another Oscars possibility is that Chalamet and Dwayne Johnson could both be nominated for Best Actor, pitting the Safdie Brothers against each other. Okay, a nomination for Johnson is iffy, and three spots would have to go to other actors, but what a story that would make if it happened. I’m getting all excited thinking about The Rock doing his “just bring it” gesture to Chalamet across a wrestling ring as the Safdies watch on from the corners. But even if we don’t get that family feud, “Marty Supreme” has big things ahead of it in awards season, and rightfully so.

            All the way back in 2009, director James Cameron introduced the world to the planet Pandora and the Na’vi race in “Avatar.” The film soon set the record for all-time highest grossing movie at both the domestic and international box offices (it still holds the record for the latter). Sequel “Avatar: The Way of Water” came out in 2022 and made its way onto the top 10 on both lists. Can three years’ worth of inflation help third installment “Fire and Ash” help the franchise reach new heights? I’d be happy if it did.

            The film once again follows the Sully family: human-turned-Na’vi Jake (Sam Worthington), native wife Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), impulsive son Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), daughter Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), adopted daughter Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), and adopted human son Spider (Jack Champion). Kiri is the biological daughter of ally Grace Augustine (also Weaver) and Spider is the biological son of villainous human-turned-Na’vi Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), still tasked with removing the threat the Sullys pose to the human colonization of Pandora.

            The new film sees the family try to send Spider off to live with a tribe of “air traders,” as the planet’s air is not safe for him at the surface level. But the traders are attacked, and Spider captured, by the fire-themed Mangkwan tribe, led by the fearsome Varang (Oona Chaplin). The Sullys go to rescue Spider from the Mangkwan, only to be ambushed by the unit led by Quaritch, who prioritizes saving his son. Spider is saved by the Sullys, while Varang and Quaritch come to respect each other in the ensuing battle.

            Following the battle, it is discovered that there is a way for Spider to breathe the planet’s air after all, if he interacts with certain wildlife. This is great for Spider, but bad for the Na’vi. The breathability of Pandora’s air is one of the few advantages they have in the war with the invading humans. If the secret were to fall into the wrong hands, it could doom them all. Jake and Neytiri, who isn’t crazy about humans like Spider in the first place, debate bringing a permanent end to the secret and its host. Meanwhile, Quaritch and Varang form an alliance, the first official one between the colonizing humans and the Na’vi. We get another big showdown between Na’vi and the humans at the movie’s end, but this time the villains have some Na’vi on their side that can both ride the planet’s wild creatures and use human weapons like guns, courtesy of Quaritch.

            The story is a mess, especially as the Sullys splinter off for their own subplots like Lo’ak wanting to save a race of whale-like sea creatures or Kiri having an identity crisis after learning the truth about her parentage (and yes, it is distracting that 70-something Weaver is playing a teenager, a discrepancy that even Cameron’s special effects can’t hide). The final battle is particularly hard to follow, with characters seemingly killed at every turn only to dust themselves off and throw themselves back into the action minutes later. The only interesting decision the movie makes from a writing perspective is the alliance between Quaritch and Varang, scene-stealing characters whose personalities are sidelined once the action picks up.

            But it matters little that “Avatar: Fire and Ash” doesn’t have an award-worthy script to justify its obscene price tag. James Cameron is still King of the World when it comes to visual spectacle. Every time I thought I was done being impressed by the look of Pandora, the movie found a way to blow my mind again. That is what this movie offers and that is what these movies have always offered. I can understand if audiences aren’t ready to spend another three heavy-handed hours in this world a mere three years after the last movie, but I was ready and I had a blast.

Grade: B

            Since this weekend’s highest-grossing as-yet-unreviewed theatrical film, 205-minute Indian actioner “Dhurandhar,” is playing on only 377 screens in the entire country, I thought I’d take this opportunity to review something a little more accessible. “Wake Up Dead Man” is the third installment of Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out” mystery franchise. Like its predecessor “Glass Onion,” “Wake Up Dead Man” is treating fans to a brief theatrical run to supplement its December 12th Netflix debut.

            As with the original “Knives Out” from 2019, the whodunit largely follows a character so likely to be the killer that they start to suspect themselves. Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor) is the assistant pastor at Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude Church in upstate New York, having been assigned there as punishment for punching a rude deacon at his old church. He clashes with head pastor Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin) over the church leader’s tendency to verbally browbeat unfamiliar parishioners until they leave. Duplenticy wants people to feel welcome in the church, and he also takes issue with Wicks’ drinking, greed, and general corruption. A rivalry and power struggle develop between the two, and it seems like control of both the church and the souls of Wicks’ inner circle are on the line.

            Wicks’ inner circle consists of lawyer Vera Draven (Kerry Washington) and her adopted brother Cy (Daryl McCormack), doctor Nat Sharp (Jeremy Renner, sadly making no reference to the actor lending his name to a brand of hot sauce in “Glass Onion”), washed-up sci-fi author Lee Ross (Andrew Scott), disabled cellist Simone Vivane (Cailee Spaeny), church groundskeeper Samson Holt (Thomas Haden… Church, appropriately), and longtime church assistant Martha Delacroix (Glenn Close). These people and Duplenticy are the only ones near the pulpit during a Good Friday service when Wicks is found murdered in a closet off to one side. And the one who went closest to the closet during the service was Duplenticy.

            Local police chief Geraldine Scott (Mila Kunis) decides that the case is too bizarre for her department to solve on their own. So she reaches out to an… outside resource. In comes private investigator and franchise face Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig). Although Blanc can’t exactly rule out Duplenticy as a suspect, he’s a good enough judge of character to know that the kindhearted redemption-seeker probably didn’t kill Wicks, even if the evidence says otherwise. Still, both Blanc and Duplenticy have a job ahead of them, uncovering layer after layer of secrets involving illegitimate children, a crazed mother, a missing family fortune, more deaths, and a person in a pastoral robe emerging from a sealed mausoleum containing the recently-deceased body of Wicks and the skeletal remains of his grandfather. Did a Dead Man truly Wake Up in a Christ-like miracle? Devout Duplenticy believes one may have. Atheist Blanc highly doubts it, but then what did happen?

            Fans of the “Knives Out” movies (and the similarly-timed Kenneth Branagh Hercule Poirot trilogy) will know to wait patiently for Blanc to unravel the convoluted mystery. For as twisty as these stories are, there’s a loose, but recognizable formula to them. Characters take turns as prime suspects as lies are uncovered and secrets revealed until likely theories are disproven and the solution has to be something else. The solution, at least as it pertains to the “How?” is never apparent from the outset, so it’s up to the audience to just enjoy the ride. This ride is less fun than the other “Knives Out” movies, with its often-serious looks at faith and religion, and also because it takes Blanc longer than usual to show up. But it’s still fun, and certainly clever enough for me to recommend. “Wake Up Dead Man” may not be the sharpest of the “Knives Out” franchise, but it fits into the drawer just fine.

            From its ridiculous opening scene, there is little denying that “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” is one of the stupidest movies of 2025. And it’s not even the fun kind of stupid horror movie. It was never really on the table for this to be a “good” horror movie like “Sinners,” but it could have at least been an interesting flavor of stupid. The potential for such flavor is at least present in the opening scene, but the movie squanders even that prospect fairly quickly.

            In the opening scene, set in 1982, morose young Charlotte (Audrey Lynn Marie) eschews every other entertaining aspect of children’s pizza emporium Freddy Fazbear’s to wait for her favorite animatronic character. She turns her attention long enough to notice a boy being abducted (as would later become common at Freddy’s) and tries to alert parents at nearby tables, but none will listen to her. If her warnings had caused a deadly panic, then maybe that could have been a plausible foundation for a horror movie, but no, the movie seriously has all the adults just blow off a girl who is screaming about witnessing a child abduction. She has no choice but to try to rescue the boy herself, which costs her her life. She dies onstage as her aforementioned favorite animatronic – the Marionette – a character not in the first movie because it did not carry over to the subsequent Freddy’s franchise location where that movie was set, appears to take her soul.

            In the present day, first-movie protagonist Mike (Josh Hutcherson) is trying to move on with his life. He’s got a good thing going, now with uncontested custody of his younger sister Abby (Piper Rubio) and a budding relationship with cop friend Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail). But Vanessa is still haunted by dreams of her villainous father William (Matthew Lillard, only used for a cameo for the sake of a cameo) and Abby is being bullied by her loathsome science teacher (Wayne Knight). Plus Abby just has to be obsessed with her old “friends” at Freddy’s, which leads to Mike giving her a radio that lets her talk to the possessed robots. It turns out that the radio lets her talk to the “wrong” possessed robots, as in the ones at the old Freddy’s location, which includes The Marionette, now possessed by Charlotte.

            Charlotte, who can possess the Marionette animatronic, but also humans, including a viral ghost chaser (McKenna Grace, actually quite scary on the few occasions that the movie lets her be) is on a mission to rid the world of adults. Not just the adults that ignored her in 1982 – all adults. Some manipulation of Abby and boom, Charlotte now has a whole fleet of Freddy’s robots at her disposal. Characters jockey for control of the robots, who are descending on a town-wide celebration of the  Freddy’s legacy. The movie looks like it’s ready for a big festival showdown around crowds of people for its climax and then… it ends.

            Is it an unwelcome spoiler to say that the movie ends with only one robot at the festival and more on the way? Maybe so, but it was an unwelcome spoiling of my moviegoing experience for the movie to end where it did. And the sequel-bait ending is only one of the movie’s problems. The pacing is horrendous, the acting is stiff, cheap jump scares are way overused, the robots can supposedly sneak up on people despite being giant metal monstrosities, we’re expected to keep track of which robots are under whose control despite there being multiple versions of the same robots, and Matthew Lillard doesn’t share any screentime with fellow “Scream” killer Skeet Ulrich (as Charlotte’s father) despite the movie’s advertising heavily implying a reunion. With very little time left to lose its lead, “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” is the worst movie of 2025.

Grade: D

            2016 was a great year for animation. Disney gave the world a new musical masterwork in “Moana.” Pixar had its biggest hit up to that point in “Finding Dory.” Even underdog Laika came out with cult classic “Kubo and the Two Strings.” But the winner of the Best Animated Feature Oscar that year wasn’t any of those films (“Finding Dory” wasn’t even nominated), it was another Disney movie, “Zootopia.” It wasn’t a terribly controversial choice either, with critics and audiences alike praising the film for its more-thoughtful-than-usual look at race relations, symbolized as relations between various species of animals, though usually taking the form of predators vs. prey. The film was so successful and beloved that I advised Disney to add a whole Zootopia section to their Animal Kingdom theme park. To date, the property has only gotten a 3D movie in the park’s Tree of Life – which is at least a key location. Anyway, here’s a look at the less-poignant sequel.

            Following the events of the first “Zootopia,” bunny police officer Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) was hailed as a hero, along with her unlikely ally, former con-artist fox Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman). Now the two are both officially cops, and partnered together as a mismatched duo that Judy is determined to turn into the superstars of the station. She decides that the best way for the team to make its mark is to bust a smuggling operation without consulting buffalo police chief Bogo (Idris Elba) or even Nick. Poor communication turns the desired bust into, well, a bust, and Judy and Nick soon find themselves at the bottom of the department’s figurative food chain.

            Nick wants to wait patiently to get out of the (again, figurative) doghouse, but Judy wants to turn things around immediately, so she doubles down and drags Nick into another unauthorized mission, this time to protect the theft of a book that details how the weather accommodates all the animals in Zootopia. The book belongs to the powerful Lynxley family (of lynxes, naturally), and patriarch Milton (David Strathairn) has graciously decided to display the book at a fancy gala, where Judy interacts with his son Pawbert (Andy Samberg), the most charmingly awkward runt of a family since Hans from “Frozen.”

            The book does indeed get stolen by Gary (Ke Huy Quan), a venomous snake. This is a big deal for Zootopia, as all reptiles, especially snakes, have been banished for the last century. Judy and Nick naturally want to stop Gary, but there’s more to his actions than a simple book theft. If Gary can just use the book for its intended purpose, he can end the reptile ban and make life better for himself, his family, and his whole class of animals. But the city at large, including the Lynxleys and stallion mayor Winddancer (Patrick Warburton), are more interested in protecting the accepted truth than the actual one. Judy and Nick have to rely on unconventional resources like beaver conspiracy theorist Nibbles Maplestick (Fortune Feimster) to crack the case, all while questioning if they really belong as partners after all.

            “Zootopia 2” is a fine movie, if missing some of the magic of the first. A few too many gags take the form of terrible puns or played-out schtick, but there are more than enough funny jokes to balance them out. What really dinged the film for me was the idea of the acceptance of the reptilian race hinging on a single piece of information. The Zootopia of the first movie was too complex to rely on outdated concepts like “banishment.” Prejudice, sure, maybe mistreatment, but not black-and-white banishment. Oversimplified shortcuts like these are why this film can’t measure up to its predecessor. Then again, the worldbuilding is still creative and the chemistry among the cast still sharp. It’s a movie that I’m happy to recommend, but as with last year’s “Moana 2,” that happiness is somewhat dulled by remembering the heights the franchise reached in 2016.

Previously, in “Wicked”

            Aspiring witches, green-skinned outcast Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and pink-and-popular Glinda (Ariana Grande), started off as enemies at school, but then became friends. They decided to go their separate ways after discovering a plan by the nefarious Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) to blame and punish animals for problems in the Land of Oz. The Wizard and henchwoman Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) tried to have Elphaba captured and silenced because she learned that The Wizard had no real magical power. Fortunately, Elphaba did have magical powers and escaped the Emerald City on a broomstick, though The Wizard and Morrible quickly spread rumors throughout Oz that she was a Wicked Witch.

            When we rejoin “Wicked,” Elphaba is still on the run, helping out animals when she can and trying to think of a way to expose The Wizard as a fraud. Her disabled sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode) is now governor of Munchkinland, with reluctant boyfriend Boq (Ethan Slater) as her favorite servant. Love interest Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) is captain of The Wizard’s guards, tasked with hunting down Elphaba, but secretly determined to assist his old flame. As for Glinda, she’s been made a “Good Witch” by The Wizard and Morrible, a sort of magical superhero to balance out the Wickedness of Elphaba, at least in the public’s eyes. She isn’t exactly Wicked herself, but she has been seduced into complicity by the perks and popularity that come with the position. She even unwittingly gives Morrible the idea to do the most Wicked deed of all.

            If last year’s “Wicked” served as a sort of prequel to “The Wizard of Oz,” then “Wicked: For Good” serves as a sort of parallel piece. It’s not an even split – there’s plenty of prequel-y stuff here too, but a never-fully-seen Dorothy shows up at about the halfway mark, and we see what was happening offscreen while that literary and cinematic classic unfolded. It all leads up to a devastating splash of water that ties into the Munchkinland celebration from the beginning of the first movie.

            Frankly, all the “running parallel to ‘The Wizard of Oz’” stuff is a huge detriment to both the stage and screen versions of “Wicked.” Characters’ attitudes, motivations, and loyalties turn on a dime just to accommodate the way those characters behaved in the more familiar story. Then there’s the huge plot hole of characters interacting in these movies despite ostensibly meeting one another for the first time during Dorothy’s walk down the Yellow Brick Road (a certain brainless wonder should have received more recognition than he was ever given). The whole practice makes the story a mess, though the movie is only following the stage musical’s lead, while admirably tightening up a detail or two.

            Another area where the new film tries to fix a deficiency with the stage show is with its musical numbers. The stage version is so front-loaded with memorable songs that disappointingly little is saved for the second half. The film knows that audiences won’t stand for such a dull second installment, so it has added two new songs: Elphaba’s attempt to rally her animal friends with the familiar adage that “There’s No Place Like Home,” and Glinda taking a long hard look in the mirror (or rather, somewhat-reflective sphere) in “The Girl in the Bubble.” They’re admirable efforts, but neither is as memorable as the stage show’s “No Good Deed” or the titular “For Good,” themselves paling in comparison to the best songs from the first movie.

            “Wicked: For Good” is a relative step down from “Wicked,” but it justifies its existence better than fans feared it would when it was first announced that the adaptation would be split into two movies. And it’s still a grand, ambitious, passionately-performed spectacle. I can say that the underwhelming second half of the stage musical has been changed for the better, and because it’s been shown some much-needed love, it has been changed “For Good.”

            It was all the way back in 2013 that audiences were first introduced to the Four Horsemen of Magic – J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), and Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher). The quartet blurred the line between “magic tricks” and “heists,” in that they would make the money and valuables of rich evildoers disappear and then reappear in the hands of their audiences. The film spawned a 2016 sequel (called “Now You See Me 2,” which raised the question of why they didn’t use the obvious “Now You Don’t” subtitle for that movie) that did so poorly that I didn’t review or even see it. The franchise looked to be dead. But, as we know from the person-sawed-in-half trick, death is much less common in magic than its practitioners would have you believe.

            The new film promises a reunion of the Four Horsemen at a show in Brooklyn. They rip off a crooked crypto bro, but something’s off. The members use cheap special effects to “disappear” into the body of an audience member (Dominic Sessa), who does third-rate impressions of them while two friends in the crowd do the trickier stuff. Once the show is over, we learn that the Horsemen we saw were just holograms. Or at least the movie tells us they were holograms. My guess is that the movie used the real actors for the scenes that weren’t dominated by special effects. That’s a big problem with these movies – they can use shortcuts like editing and off-camera resources to deceive audiences. It robs the scenes of the splendor of stage magic, where the performers can’t rely on the luxury of movie magic.

            The show’s three magicians – Bosco (Sessa), June (Ariana Greenblatt), and Charlie (Justice Smith) have never even met the Four Horsemen… until Atlas shows up in their home. He’s mildly impressed by their chutzpah, but tells them that The Eye has a greater purpose for them. Remember The Eye? The magical organization pulling the strings on the heists? The one that turned out to be run by Mark Ruffalo’s Interpol agent in the first movie in a twist that stretched plausibility even for a series this goofy? Then again, the Horsemen themselves have already been impersonated in this movie, maybe someone is impersonating The Eye too.

            The rest of the movie is Horsemen both old and new on a globe-trotting adventure to take down dirty diamond dealer Veronika Vanderberg (Rosamund Pike). Based on the film’s advertising, it’s not much of a secret that the other three Horsemen will show up eventually, as well as enemy-turned ally Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman). They may even pull in another member. I don’t think they need the extra help against Vanderberg. She has an amateurish scheme to out-magic at least seven world-class magicians, one that involves the “leaving them to their slow demise without watching” trope that I can’t believe movies are still doing in 2025. I know I’m not supposed to spoil the endings of these movies, but all the suspenseful aspects of the film are little more than a countdown to her “probably” getting busted.

            I think it’s funny how I have so many complaints about “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” – the predictable story, the lame villain and lamer danger, and the reliance on special effects that any proper magician would surely denounce – and yet I recommend the film. The movie is saved for me based almost entirely on the charm of the cast, who have great banter and chemistry. Which is precisely why it’s a good idea to come out with a new movie now, nearly a decade after the last installment. Did this franchise “need” a third movie? No. But is it ever a bad time to give us a movie with this group of charismatic actors doing amusing magic? Also no.

            “Predator” and I got off on the wrong foot. I’m not talking about the new movie, but rather the 1987 original, and by extension the whole franchise. I rented the film hoping to enjoy some action-movie interaction between two future governors: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura. Unfortunately, there was little to no interaction between the two, and Ventura’s character got picked off by the Predator earlier than I would have liked. I spent the rest of the movie sulking, and never really became a fan of the series.

            Flash forward to 2025. I wasn’t really looking forward to “Predator: Badlands” in and of itself, but after the dismal October we just had at the domestic box office, I’ll take a hit wherever I can get it. Which is probably why I liked the movie as much as I did. There’s not a lot for me here, but I needed to get excited about “something,” so the film’s greatest strength may be its good timing.

            The film follows Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi), an aspiring young Predator (or “Yautja”) on the faraway planet of Yautja Prime. Dek desperately wants to go on a successful hunt to earn the approval of his father Njohrr (Reuben De Jong), as well as… living privileges, because Yautjas that don’t complete successful hunts are put to death. Njohrr wants relative runt Dek put down anyway, but he flees to the planet Genna, home to the most high-value trophy in the known universe, the Kalisk. He vows to not return without killing the Kalisk for himself.

            Dek doesn’t fare well on the hostile Genna, but an opportunity presents itself in the form of Thia (Elle Fanning), a synthetic human that had been part of a party trying to find and exploit the Kalisk for their corporate overlords (I won’t say which corporation, but it’s a big deal). The Kalisk overpowered Thia’s team, leaving her as the sole survivor, and she’s worse for wear, missing the entire lower half of her body. She and Dek make a deal: he’ll help her get her body back and help her reunite with her also-damaged “sister” Tessa (also Fanning) and she’ll help him take down the Kalisk.

            Dek and Thia start off as uneasy allies, but as they overcome obstacles together, their bond turns into friendship. All this despite Thia being half of a smart-alecky robot and Dek coming from a race that forbids emotions. Which presents kind of a huge problem for me, in that neither character is from a race that I feel is worth preserving. Thia is so artificial that there’s literally another of her, and even though we ultimately see that there’s some good in Dek, sorry, the universe would probably be better off without kill-obsessed Predators.

            I know I’m supposed to like “Predator: Badlands” because of the way the alien and the robot learn what it means to be human. Honestly, I was rolling my eyes at those parts. I like the movie because Thia’s jokes were hitting for me and I liked the action. The upside of all the characters being either robots or aliens is that the film can be as violent as it wants and still get a PG-13 rating as long as all the gore is in the form of either sparks or slime. “Predator: Badlands” is fine as an action movie for people who could use a half-decent action movie, but just as with Thia’s body, don’t expect it to be more than “half” decent.

Grade: B-

            How is it that Halloween of 2025 couldn’t give us a better horror movie than “Black Phone 2”? It’s not that I’m shocked that a Halloween horror movie is a disappointment. I’m just shocked that we got such a disappointing movie this year. 2025 has been such a banner year for horror thus far. “Sinners,” “Weapons,” “Final Destination: Bloodlines,” and “The Conjuring: Last Rites” were all blockbusters. There’s serious Oscar talk around those first two films, the latter two are the best box office performers of their respective franchises. We should have gotten a film that could stand alongside those giants for Halloween.

Instead, we got “Black Phone 2,” a movie that has barely scrounged up an estimated $60 million at the domestic box office in its three weekends of release. With Halloween over, the film is not only highly unlikely to wind up a blockbuster, it’s highly unlikely to make more than its 2022 predecessor. It might even fall short of preventing already-notorious flop “Tron: Ares” from being the biggest release of October 2025. That covers the commercial disappointment. Creatively, the film has its defenders (it currently has a “Certified Fresh” 72% rating on Rotten Tomatoes), but I personally found it to be similarly disappointing.

The film takes place in 1982, four years after the original, where teenager Finney Blake (Mason Thames) managed to overcome and kill serial child murderer The Grabber (Ethan Hawke) by talking to the villain’s past victims with the help of the mysterious Black Phone. Now Finney and his sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) are trying to move on with their lives, despite him not being able to overcome his trauma and her unable to stop having violent psychic visions. She thinks they need to go on a mission of some kind at the behest of their late mother.

The kids’ journey takes them to a snowed-in Christian youth camp that their mother attended 25 years ago. Gwen’s visions start to intensify and she has increasingly severe nightmares and sleepwalking episodes. Also, despite the camp’s director (Demián Bechir) insisting that it is inoperative, Finney starts getting calls on the camp’s (Black) pay Phone. Some of the calls are from scared children that Finney has never met, though whom Gwen has seen in her dreams. But one call is from The Grabber. Somehow he can still make things happen from beyond the grave. And one of the things he wants to make happen is revenge.

Early stages of the film show promise. We don’t know exactly what tools the dead Grabber has at his disposal, so we don’t know how he can affect the characters and the world around them. He could do something shocking. But as the film goes along and he shows his hand more and more, he gets less and less scary. By the end, he’s basically a less-smart Freddy Krueger, and the film has taken on the unfunny slapstick of a late-stage “Nightmare on Elm Street” sequel.

Speaking of sequels with diminishing returns, “Black Phone 2” is guilty of running several halfway decent ideas into the ground. Gwen had a memorably-profane outburst in the first movie, this one has her go on about a half-dozen over-rehearsed vulgar tirades. The first movie was good at heartfelt inter-family dialogue, this movie gets so wordy that it feels about twenty minutes too long. Most overdone is the trope of showing grainy footage of murder victims in happier times, followed by “horrific” footage. This is because director Scott Derrickson employed the same trick in his two “Sinister” movies before he made “The Black Phone,” so I’ve had to put up with this device for four movies now instead of two, and Derrickson isn’t upping his game. “Black Phone 2” has had its Halloween heyday, and there’s no point in seeing it now, without the kind of big responsive horror crowd that this movie desperately needs for it to even approach being fun.

            The legacy of the “Tron” franchise is complicated. On a consistently positive note, the series has always been a feast for the eyes and ears, with pleasing, if not groundbreaking special effects and musical scores that heart-pumpingly convey that technological developments are happening every minute. But the films have never quite stuck the landing critically or commercially. The 1982 original is a “cult” movie that defenders see as ahead of the curve and not appreciated in its time. The 2010 follow-up “Tron: Legacy” was given every chance to succeed, yet only performed middlingly on all fronts. And new installment “Tron: Ares” is going to go down as an even bigger disappointment than the second film. Disney keeps insisting that they have a major franchise here, but the original wasn’t the hit that they pretend it was, and the weirdly-spaced-out sequels keep playing as ambitious money pits.

            The new film opens by filling viewers in on the feud between tech giants ENCOM and Dillinger Systems. Since “Tron: Legacy,” ENCOM has passed from longtime protagonists the Flynn family to Eve Kim (Greta Lee), who wants to use the company’s resources to do good things like cure world hunger and protect the environment. Dillinger Systems is now run by Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), grandson of original antagonist Ed Dillinger, who wants to do things like build weapons and turn humanity’s problems over to artificial intelligence. His big new breakthrough is Ares (Jared Leto), a program that manifests itself as a superpowered humanoid to do its owner’s bidding. For now, that owner is Julian, but he’s happy to make that owner the military – for the right price, of course.

            The problem with the tech is that Julian can’t build live beings that can survive more than 29 minutes without disintegrating (though their essences go right back to living in cyberspace afterward). His mother (Gillian Anderson) admonishes him for defrauding investors, but his claims won’t be fraudulent once he obtains an object permanence code. As it turns out, Eve has already discovered the code while toiling away in Alaska. This is both good news and bad news for Julian, good because the code exists, bad because the competition has it. But Julian has Ares on his side, and he can use the crude supersoldier to kill Eve and take the code.

Juian instructs Ares to study up on Eve and humanity for the mission, which turns out to be a mistake because Ares decides he likes Eve and humanity. Most movies would have this shift in loyalty occur gradually, this one has it happen in an instant. The rest of the film sees Ares and Eve trying to outwit and evade Julian and backup soldier Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith). Ares’ adventures will take him from a cyberworld attack on ENCOM to the real world to a different cyberworld in the ENCOM mainframe, where a certain former company leader now resides.

“Tron: Ares” does just fine when it lets its visuals and Nine Inch Nails score do the talking. I’m sure the designers had fun developing geometry-based aesthetics that probably contain Eater eggs that appeal to math nerds but go way over my head. And everyone knows that NIN is indeed the band you call when technological happenings are afoot. But then the film stumbles when characters do the talking. Leto is yet another artificial being that wants to be human (a comparison to Disney classic “Pinocchio” is made at the first opportunity). Lee is yet another generically-smart do-gooder. Peters is yet another tech-bro villain. Turner-Smith is yet another supposedly-competent assassin that wastes time being dramatic. Despite Peters trying to have some fun chewing scenery, none of these characters bring anything new to the table. This unsolicited sequel manages to do a disservice to a franchise that wasn’t much of a franchise anyway.

            A popular criticism I’ve heard about “The Smashing Machine” is that it tries too hard to subvert expectations. I assume that this is a reference to the way the film follows mixed martial artist Mark Kerr (Dwayne Johnson) on his journey not to a major win, but to his first professional loss. The film is building to a milestone in Kerr’s life that may not be pleasant, but is undeniably important. But I came out of the film more concerned about another expectation the film subverted: the expectation that it not put me to sleep.

            The film opens in 1997 with Kerr’s professional debut in a tournament in Brazil. College prodigy Kerr is a hulking, polished beast who makes short work of his shlubby opponents to win the tournament. He goes on to enjoy success in the early days of the Ultimate Fighting Championship before finding steady work in Japan’s Pride promotion. And he never experiences a loss. He tells an interviewer that he can’t even wrap his head around the concept of a loss. The easy joke would be to say that he can’t wrap his head around a lot of things, but I’ll be nice and say that he means this as a motivational tactic.

            In between fights, we learn about Kerr’s personal life. He has a girlfriend named Dawn (Emily Blunt) and a best friend in fellow fighter Mark Coleman (Ryan Bader). He also has a drug problem, with an addiction to prescription painkillers. Perhaps more alarmingly, he has emotional and psychological issues. He’s liable to break things when angry, as one might expect, but he’s also likely to break down crying, which might be another one of those expectations that the film subverts. When it seems he’s lost a fight midway through the film, he undignifiedly (though not without a legitimate point) complains about the officiating until the loss is taken off his record.

            The film builds to the biggest tournament of Kerr’s life at the 2000 Pride Grand Prix. Will he earn yet another win and the all-important first loss will come later? Will he lose to his opponent from the controversial earlier fight? Will he lose to Coleman, who has been on a hot streak lately? Or will he lose to some presumed jobber in the first round? It’s possible, given how distracted he is over a fight with Dawn. It was an incredibly stupid fight and I’ve never been more sure that a character holding a gun isn’t going to fire it, but it wouldn’t be the first time someone had a serious breakdown over something stupid.

            At the center of the film is Johnson’s performance, which has been built up as Oscar-worthy. It’s… fine. He’s obviously put a lot of discipline into the physical aspects of the role (he’s more buff here than he ever was in his WWE days), and he’s willing to go to places emotionally that he doesn’t usually go in his more popcorn-y fare. But I don’t see an Oscar in Johnson’s future here, for two reasons. 1) the movie has been a disappointment at the box office, whether or not it’s fair to blame that Taylor Swift “launch party” for stealing its audience, and 2) the movie is incredibly boring.

            How did a movie that takes place in the bone-crunching world of MMA, starring an actor as exciting as Dwayne Johnson, and directed by Benny Safdie, one half of the team that brought us the 135-minute anxiety attack that was “Uncut Gems” get to be so boring? That’s the subversion of expectations that kills this movie, not anything it does with the story, but just the insistence that Mark Kerr is so inherently interesting that it’s a treat to see him so much as get groceries. “The Smashing Machine” was clearly made by people with a lot of reverence for Kerr, but the movie doesn’t make me see why I should have the same reverence.

Grade: C

            Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson is known as a top-tier talent without top-tier recognition. None of his movies have made more than $50 million at the domestic box office, and despite 11 nominations, he’s never won himself an Academy Award (a combined three Oscar wins have come from his films, including Daniel Day-Lewis as Best Actor for 2007’s “There Will Be Blood,” but I’m talking about Anderson personally). “One Battle After Another” seems to represent an attempt by Anderson to step up his game, both commercially and creatively. The result is a film that is highly likely to give him his first blockbuster, and yes, could very well end his losing streak at the Oscars.

            The film initially follows Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), members of a revolutionary group known as the French 75. The group frees detainees, robs banks, blows up (hopefully) abandoned buildings, and generally causes headaches for authority figures like Lt. Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn). Pat and Perfidia fall in love due to their shared thrills in their missions, but Perfidia also has an affair with Lockjaw due to their shared thrills in their cat-and-mouse game. Perfidia eventually gives birth to a daughter named Charlene, and Pat wants the three of them to settle down and have a normal life, but his wanting to give up the risk drives Perfidia away. She ultimately botches things so badly that the group is brought down by Lockjaw, Pat and Charlene have to go into hiding, and she’s basically dead to everyone who may have once cared about her.

            Sixteen years later, the now-Col. Lockjaw is up for membership in a powerful white-supremacist organization. The problem is that they won’t let him join if they join if they find out about his mixed-race possible daughter Charlene. Lockjaw sets to tracking down the girl now known as “Willa Ferguson” (Chase Infinati), who is living in a sanctuary city with her father-figure “Bob.” Bob is expectedly loving and protective of Willa, but he’s a mess himself, which causes the girl to practically have to be a parent to him. She’s smart and steadfast like her mother, but she has no idea the trouble she’s about to be in with Lockjaw and associates both legitimate and unscrupulous descending on the area.

            So much of the film is chase and action sequences, with the French 75’s activities in the first half of the film giving way to both Lockjaw pursuing Willa and an intoxicated Bob trying to recover Willa with the help of her karate instructor (Benicio Del Toro) in the second. Anderson has been known more for “tension” than “action” in his career, but this movie – especially with its bumpy-ride car chases – will make you think he’s been an action director this whole time. But the appeal doesn’t lie entirely in action, there are also some great emotional performances and gut-busting dry humor, as well as more outrageous humor. Bob’s frustration over being expected to remember decades-old French 75 code is arguably the highlight of the entire movie.

            At this point, the question isn’t whether or not “One Battle After Another” will be nominated for Academy Awards, it’s the number of categories in which it will be nominated. DiCaprio, Penn, and surefire breakouts Taylor and Infiniti could all get into the acting categories, and Anderson himself wears so many hats in the production that he could be up for at least four awards. I do have a few quibbles, like how the film does so little with a fellow revolutionary played by Regina Hall, and Bob’s questionable usefulness to the story, and how a character seemingly only survives a consequential action sequence just so they can be used for a humorous scene later. But overall this is a very exciting, funny, enjoyable movie that I wouldn’t mind earning Paul Thomas Anderson the recognition he’s deserved for decades.

            Jokes linking football and religion, especially Christianity, are common. “One gets Americans to sit attentively for hours every Sunday, the other is religion.” “Christian athletes always thank God when they win, never blame Him when they lose.” And of course, “WW(FSDJ)D? - What Would (Football Star Du Jour) Do?” With “Him,” it’s like writer/director Justin Tipping went and made a whole movie out of these jokes. But there’s a big problem: the movie isn’t supposed to be a comedy, it’s supposed to be a horror movie.

            Cameron Cade (Tyriq Withers) is a promising young quarterback coming off a successful college run, ready to turn pro. Speculation abounds that he could someday by the Greatest Of All-Time, though the current G.O.A.T., the reclusive Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans) is still active and winning. One night, Cade is attacked by an assailant in a goat mask (this movie loves its goat/G.O.A.T. jokes) and his career is derailed. He has one hope of recovering in time to be drafted by a pro team: complete an intense weeklong training session led by Isaiah himself at his mysterious estate.

            It probably goes without saying that the training sessions are absolutely brutal on Cade’s body, especially considering the recent attack. But Cade has been told his whole life that great men make sacrifices, including Isaiah, who has been his hero since childhood. He’s not exactly expecting perfectionist Isaiah to be merciful, but his mentor’s behavior becomes increasingly erratic, with psychological torment like injuring a training partner over his own mistakes and holding him at gunpoint.

            Eventually, the question becomes: how much is Cade willing to sacrifice? He’s already sacrificed years of his life, what’s a few more? He’s already sacrificed his body to the point where a single concussion could end his career if not his life, but professional players take those kinds of risks all the time. How about his family? They’re a high priority, but is gridiron greatness an even higher one? What about his very soul? Yeah, this is going to come down to a battle for his soul.

            Religious imagery and parallels abound. Isaiah himself is a figure of worship, as zealous fans live in makeshift camps outside his house. Some of them reject Cade as some sort of false prophet, even though he’s supposed to be a welcome guest. When Cade first meets Isaiah, the latter is making a homemade football in a clear reference to Jesus’s carpentry. Isaiah’s wife Elsie (Julia Fox) covers sins and temptations of the flesh. Cade may have, in a way, been sacrificed by his own father in the past. Oh, and Isaiah plays for a team called the San Antonio Saviors.

            The bluntness of all the religious parallels would be funny if the movie didn’t take itself so seriously. But it keeps insisting that it is first and foremost a horror movie, and it just can’t compete on that level. The editing is too choppy to make for a suspenseful atmosphere or effective jump scares. Violent impacts, both blunt and sharp, are unconvincing. And there is nothing scary about all the goat costumes. Not only is this movie not as scary as the successful blending of horror and comedy that was “Scream,” it’s not as scary as Wayans’ “Scream” parody “Scary Movie.”

            Speaking of blending horror and comedy, “Him” is produced by successful sketch comedian- turned-extremely-successful-horror-filmmaker Jordan Peele. Peele and Tipping certainly have some overlap in storytelling styles, at least on paper, but Tipping can’t be legitimately scary to save his life. The few comedic scenes fare a little bit better, especially in the finale. The highlight of the movie is the Wayans performance, which surprisingly works on a level not of horror or comedy, but tragedy. I wanted a good horror movie and I would have settled for a decent comedy, but “Him” is like a cross between a fumble and an off-key hymn.

Grade: C-

            Ah, “Demon Slayer,” the anime franchise that comes out with a new movie about once every two years with seasons’ worth of television between the movies. I don’t keep up with the series, which admittedly puts me outside the film’s target audience of its existing fanbase. If you do follow “Demon Slayer,” you’ll almost certainly get more out of “Kimetsu no Yaiba – Infinity Castle” than I did, since you won’t spend half the movie asking who most of the characters are and how much is supposed to be known about them.

If you’ve never seen “Demon Slayer” before, “Kimetsu no Yaiba – Infinity Castle” is not a good entry point. I at least knew about main hero Tanjiro (Natsuki Hanae), he of the green-and-black checkered kimono, as well as a few side characters like the pig-masked warrior Inosuke (Yoshitsugu Matsuoka) and Tanjiro’s formerly demon-infected sister Nezuko (Akari Kito), who is sidelined in this movie with an injury anyway. But aside from that, I was lost. Fortunately, it turned out that I didn’t need to care about as many characters as the advertising would have it seem – several presumably-popular characters are in the movie for just a few seconds – but I didn’t know that and I was overwhelmed with the prospect of having to keep track of everyone.

The movie sees most of the Demon Slayer army battling demons in the Infinity Castle, a sort of cityscape/maze designed by top demon Muzan. It’s the kind of setting you’d see in “Inception” or “Doctor Strange.” Some of the demons are mindless henchmen designed to keep the Slayers busy, but there are some formidable disciples in the mix. For example, butterfly-themed Slayer Shinobu (Saori Hayami) faces off against cult-leading demon Doma (Mamoru Miyano), who killed her sister. Twin “Thunder Breathers” attempt to settle their sibling rivalry once and for all when Slayer Zenitsu (Hiro Shimono) battles demon Kaigaku (Yoshimasa Hosoya). And, in what could be considered the movie’s “main event,” Tanjiro and his mentor Giyu (Takahiro Sakurai) team up to take on regenerative demon Azaka (Akira Ishida). Just when I thought that Azaka made for a dull antagonist, the movie went into his tragic backstory, which turned out to be the highlight of the entire film.

The weakest element of the movie is once again the fighting. I’m not saying that there’s no creativity to the moves and styles these characters use, I’m saying that the impact of these moves and styles don’t seem to matter much. This franchise has a style where it seems like every fifth move results in a huge explosion that should kill one, if not both of the fighters. But then it will usually turn out that both fighters survived, and then they take a few breaths and start fighting again – even in instances where the characters are physically incapable of breathing. The lack of lasting impact makes the fight scenes seem surprisingly low-stakes.

I wasn’t won over by my third experience with “Demon Slayer.” I was too far behind on lore to care about most of the characters, and the action, while often impressive from a technical standpoint, was largely frustrating. This frustration was compounded by the film’s nearly three-hour runtime. That’s an awfully long time to devote to basically three fights, even with flashbacks and the Infinity Castle framing device. If you’ve liked “Demon Slayer” in the past, don’t let me stop you from seeing “Kimetsu no Yaiba – Infinity Castle,” but I wouldn’t advise trying to become a new fan with this movie.

Grade: C-

            A few days before I saw “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” a friend of mine asked me about my plans for the weekend. I told her that I planned to see the film, and I was excited. When she asked me why I was excited to see yet another entry in the generally-middling “Conjuring” series, I blurted out, “They make such a cute couple!” “They” of course being Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, respectively. These fictionalized tales of their cases sell themselves on demon- and possession-related horror, not charming family dynamics. Yet whether by design, by accident, or by default, the Warrens as characters are what this series does best.

            Take the opening scene, set in 1964. Ed and a pregnant Lorraine investigate the usual demonic element in the basement of an antiques shop. Lorraine insists on snooping around alone, with minimal light, and of course jump scares abound. The demonic presence causes Lorraine to go into labor early, and Ed rushes her to the hospital to give birth in a room without electricity. It looks like the baby doesn’t survive, and the darkened room is full of tears. I’m not talking about the delivery room – I’m talking about the theater full of moviegoers. This scene, its characters, and its actors have been so engaging that the audience has become way more invested than they should in a movie that a few minutes earlier was easily dismissible as schlocky horror. And then the baby survives, and at my screening it made for one of the most deafening crowd reactions I’ve ever heard. Yes, I rolled my eyes a little, since daughter Judy Warren has been a character in other, later-set “Conjuring” movies, so I could guess how the scene was going to play out, but also yes, the cheering was infectious and it was an undeniable mark of a sequence well-done.

            The rest of the film takes place in 1986, after the movie “Ghostbusters” has come out, and the Warrens are seen as jokes living in semi-retirement. Judy (Mia Tomlinson) is ready to take her next step in life, introducing her parents to her boyfriend Tony (Ben Hardy). Ed and Lorraine, like most parents, are conflicted about letting their baby go, but also know that she can’t be their baby forever. Tony, for his part, is sweet and dedicated, if occasionally awkward. I seriously thought about recommending this movie to my horror-averse mother just for the family scenes. But I couldn’t, because darker subject matter has to butt its way in. Unlike most parents, Ed and Lorraine also have to worry about lingering traces of demon possession in their daughter, which they aren’t eager to foist upon the unsuspecting Tony.

            To add to the drama at home, the Warrens are desperately needed in small-town Pennsylvania. A family recently came into possession of the world’s creepiest mirror – the same artifact that caused problems for the Warrens in the opening scene – and are now being unsurprisingly haunted. Cue every cheap spiritual horror trope like unexplained bumping sounds and things moving when they shouldn’t, as well as every cliché surrounding old heroes taking on one last mission. Judy and Tony are willing to help for the first time ever, but Tony doesn’t know the first thing about demons and Judy may be compromised as an instrument of the mirror-demon.

            “The Conjuring: Last Rites” is a tale of two conflicting tones. The loving, charming, occasionally-eccentric Warren family make for delightful “straight” scenes, but they aren’t going to sell tickets without some kind of supernatural payoff. The horror scenes, while necessary for the movie’s appeal, are often drab and even more often the result of stupidity (I know demon possession is a hard pill for non-believers to swallow, but still…). I’m swayed enough by the Warren family to give the movie a mild recommendation, but only because the main characters all make for cute couples.

            “Caught Stealing” is one of those twisty crime thrillers where it seems like the filmmakers cast as many interesting names as they could and then wrote the movie around using them all. For example, at no point did I feel it was necessary for the film to feature Matt Smith as a character with a 60’s U.K. punk rock aesthetic in this film set in New York in 1998 (itself an inexplicable choice). All the film needed was a neighbor character who’s mixed up with some bad people. But the movie got Smith for the role, and somebody, possibly Smith himself, wanted to see the character played with the crazy getup. The result is a character that is a scene-stealer to be sure, but is the story really helped by all his quirkiness? I don’t think so. If anything, he’s a distraction from the main character, whose journey is supposed to be the focus. Though maybe it’s for the best, because I wasn’t digging the main character and was welcoming all distractions.

            Austin Butler stars as Hank Thompson, a disgraced former baseball prodigy barely scraping by as a bartender, and an alcoholic one at that. The one good thing in his life is his way-out-of-his-league girlfriend Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz). She’s almost ready to start taking the relationship more seriously, which he wants, but first she needs him to start taking himself more seriously, which he isn’t ready to do. Subconsciously, he’d rather just spend all his time moping around and thinking about how his life would have been better if he hadn’t crashed his car while drunk, thus ending his baseball career.

            Hank’s neighbor Russ (the aforementioned Smith character) hurriedly puts him in charge of his cat Buddy while he leaves town for a few days. Hank’s proximity to the shady Russ gets him into trouble with some Russian gangsters (Yuri Kolokolnikov and Nikita Kukushkin), which also leads to trouble with a Puerto Rican gangster (Benito Martínez Ocasio aka rapper Bad Bunny), and eventually a pair of really dangerous Hasidic gangsters (Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio). Hank tries with increasing desperation to stay out of trouble with all five gangsters, and at least he can expect some help from hardboiled detective Elise Roman (Regina King). But running from his problems hasn’t worked out for Hank in the past, is it a good idea here, even though for once his predicament isn’t his fault?

            There’s a good idea for a character arc here with Hank needing to learn to take responsibility for mistakes he’s made in both the recent and distant past. But it was just too hard for me to respect the character after his incredibly stupid decision to go on an alcohol bender the night after losing a kidney, thanks to the Russians. I can understand straying from doctors’ orders to a degree, I’m not exactly an angel myself in that department, and I know every movie hero isn’t going to be strictly by-the-book. But for the character to make a decision that stupid that quickly, sorry, I was done rooting for him. Which was a shame, because the movie is without the delightful Kravitz for a long stretch, leaving the film without a likeable protagonist.

            I’m giving “Caught Stealing” the mildest of recommendations, because the jokes are just funny enough, the action and suspense just exciting enough, and the overachieving cast just interesting enough for me to praise among an near-equal list of complaints. It’s hard to believe a movie this middling came from usually-ambitious director Darren Aronofsky. Since this movie likes its baseball metaphors, I’ll say that I associate Aronofsky with spectacular hits (“Requiem for a Dream,” “The Wrestler,” “Black Swan”) and the occasional spectacular strikeout (“Noah”), but “Caught Stealing” is an unimpressive single – avoiding an “out,” but just barely.

            This past weekend’s biggest big-screen hit didn’t go straight to the big screen. Animated actioner “KPop Demon Hunters” premiered in June on Netflix, reportedly racking up over 180 million views in its first eight weeks. A special one-weekend-only “Sing-Along” version of the film was released to select theaters this past Saturday and Sunday, taking in an estimated $18 million. A haul like that warrants a review, even though the theatrical “Sing-Along” version is not scheduled to play beyond its specified engagement (plans could always change, of course). This review is based on the Netflix version of the film, which is how it will be available for the foreseeable future. Sorry, but I just can’t take “it gives the sold-out theater a raucous party atmosphere” into account on this one.

            The premise is that demons once had run of the Earth, sucking out people’s souls whenever they wanted. A team of fierce Korean warriors found a way to banish the demons to the underworld using their voices, creating a shield called a Honmoon through which most of them could never pass, and the few that could get in could be fought off by the warriors and the people they inspired with their singing. The tradition of singing warriors passed down through the generations with the current incarnation being a KPop girl group called Huntrix.

            The members of Huntrix, leader Rumi (Arden Cho), hardened Mira (May Hong), and cutesy Zoey (Ji-young Yoo), split their time between being the biggest popstars in the world and fighting the occasional demons that make it through the Honmoon. With the rise in population and social media in recent years, their music may soon be heard by a wide enough audience to permanently fortify the Honmoon and keep demons away forever. Rumi looks forward to the day when demons are no longer a threat to humanity, because then she won’t have to worry about the world freaking out upon learning that she’s half-demon. Until then, it has to remain her shameful secret.

            Demon leader Gwi-Ma (Lee Byung-hun), having gotten nowhere for centuries by sending up occasional vicious demons to battle the hunters, takes a suggestion from long-suffering musician demon Jinu (Ahn Hyo-seop) to send up seemingly-benevolent Kpop boy band Saja Boys. The group, led by Jinu himself, is tasked with stealing fans away from Huntrix so Gwi-Ma can greedily feast on their souls. A professional rivalry ensues, eventually evolving into a battle for the universe.

            The film is very much setting itself up as the first chapter in a long series. Future installments will no doubt flesh out the backstories of the members of Huntrix, especially Rumi and her half-demon heritage. Normally I’d complain about the film getting too cocky in assuming that there will be future installments, but its success is already established and it was probably a safe bet that a property with this wide-appealing subject matter was going to be a hit anyway.

            How was my introduction to “KPop Demon Hunters”? Okay, I guess. The human vs demon action isn’t particularly memorable, and while I know I’m going to get in trouble for saying this, I wasn’t crazy about the songs. It’s not unusual for a good KPop song to turn me into a zombie fanboy before it’s through the first chorus, but something, maybe the wordiness, kept these songs from having that effect on me. But I did like the personalities of the main characters and the way they played off each other and the Saja Boys. Plus there are some good visual gags courtesy of some of the animation team behind those inspired “Spider-verse” movies. I don’t like the property enough to stay with it if its success drops off, but as long as it stays successful, I’ll enjoy its success.

            I remember being a big fan of the 1976 “Freaky Friday” with Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris. Granted, I saw it when I was young enough to not know the tropes of the body-swap comedy, but I still have fond memories. I got a few laughs out of the 2003 update with Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis, and I have some fond memories of watching it with my mom and cousins, though those are more about spending quality time with family. I mostly just squirmed impatiently through new follow-up “Freakier Friday,” and the fondest memory I’ll take away is that Manny Jacinto from “The Good Place” has a prominent role, and I have fond memories of that show.

            Over 20 years have passed since teenager Anna (Lohan) switched bodies for a day with her mother Tess (Curtis). The two had some wacky fun before developing newfound respect for one another and coming out of the experience with a stronger bond. Anna has since become a mother herself to teenager Harper (Julia Butters), with grandmother Tess always eager to help, occasionally overstepping boundaries that Anna wishes she’s recognize, while Harper would like both adults to give her some space. At a parent-teacher conference, single mom Anna falls for Eric (Jacinto), the widowed father of Harper’s British classmate Lilly (Sophia Hammons), and the two are soon engaged to be wed, even though the teens can’t stand one another. All four women are in mopey moods the night of Anna’s bachelorette party, where they get readings from psychic Jen (Vanessa Bayer), who sets them on the course to change their hearts, which of course means more body-swap shenanigans.

            The next morning, Anna has switched bodies with Harper and Tess has switched with Lilly. Fortunately, not much time is wasted on the shock or acceptance of the arrangement, since Anna and Tess have been through this before. As such, it doesn’t take long for everybody to start going about each other’s days. Anna-as-Harper and Tess-as-Lilly have to go to school, where they have detention as the result of a food fight. But since they figure that they won’t have to worry about getting more detention themselves, they sneak off and eat junk food in bodies with higher metabolism.

            It’s Harper-as-Anna and Lilly-as-Tess who get most of the screen time, which is to be expected given the advertising’s focus on Lohan and Curtis. Jokes about Curtis’s senior citizen body, especially when it comes to having to use the bathroom, abound. The girls dislike each other enough to want the wedding to be called off, so they agree to use the body-swap to break up Eric and Anna. This involves dragging Anna’s old boyfriend Jake (Chad Michael Murray) into the couple’s wedding plans, even though he still carries something of a torch for Tess following the first movie. As if that weren’t enough, they get a chance to bond with Ella (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), a pop star managed by Anna, who invites “Anna” to play at one of her shows with her old band Pink Slip. Harper never knew her mom was such an awesome musician and neither girl really understands how much their parents love each other and them. Hijinks in the first half give way to lessons (but also more hijinks) in the second half.  

            Maybe I wasn’t digging “Freakier Friday” because I’ve seen enough body-swap comedies since the 1976 “Freaky Friday” to know exactly what to expect from these movies. Or maybe it was because I was a male watching a movie with not two, but four female leads and I wasn’t the target audience. Or maybe the movie just isn’t that sharp (I definitely found the food fight to be lazy and unfunny). I laughed at a scant few jokes, but not enough to give the movie a recommendation. I’m glad “Weapons” won the last two weekends at the domestic box office instead of this over-pushed mess.

            In a weekend that I could have sworn would be dominated by family-friendly franchise fare “Freakier Friday,” it was R-rated horror movie “Weapons” pulling off the upset. What happened here? I know stars Julia Garner and Josh Brolin have important roles in the MCU, but were they such draws without Garner in silver polymer or Brolin with an oversized chin? Did horror fans flock to the film because of writer/director Zach Cregger? His last film, 2022’s “Barbarian,” has already had its entire domestic box office run eclipsed by “Weapons” in its first weekend alone. An inundation of advertising? I knew the film was coming, but I’d had “Freakier Friday” shoved down my throat for months thanks to the Disney promotional machine.

            I think it all just came down to early reviews and word-of-mouth. The film held a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score in the days leading up to its release, and late-stage advertisements wrang every last drop of ketchup out of that (it has since dropped to a still-very-impressive 95%). By the time it opened, the film had a reputation as a surefire future classic. So maybe it’s not a huge surprise that by the time I saw it, the bar might have been set a little too high for the movie to clear it by much.

            The advertising didn’t give away much about the film, other than that it’s about missing children. One night, 17 elementary-aged students from a single class of 18 all run away from home, their arms outstretched in the “airplane” pose (which the movie makes very creepy, so get ready for months of references and imitations). The next day, teacher Justine Gandy (Garner) comes to class to find only Alex (Cary Christopher) at his desk and everyone else missing. What happened to the other kids?

            The community wants answers, and as days turn into weeks, uncertainty turns into anger, especially among the parents. The police have a battery of questions for both Justine and Alex, but neither know anything. The town doesn’t want to go too hard on little Alex, but they’re not letting Justine off the hook. She becomes a local pariah, even though everyone knows from camera footage that the kids ran away on their own while they were in the care of their parents. If this wasn’t technically an abduction, then what was it? And how can the kids be brought back?

            The film switches between several points of view. The film starts out with Justine as the main character, trying to solve the mystery herself and clear her name. But after a while, it starts following frustrated parent Archer (Brolin), who wants to confront Justine. Then it switches to cop Paul (Alden Ehrenreich), principal Andrew (Benedict Wong), drifter James (Austin Abrahms), and of course, Alex. Every character gets the viewer a little bit closer to the answers they crave, before the film backtracks to follow someone new with their own story to tell and their own part to play in the mystery.

            Part of the appeal of “Weapons” is how tightly the film can intertwine these characters, so by the end the audience will hopefully feel like they’ve rightly untied a particularly difficult knot. But the movie isn’t as tight as it thinks it is. Sometimes it relies on cheap dream sequences and jump scares, in case people get so wrapped up in the grounded mystery that they forget this is a horror movie. Other times characters have to make stupid or inexplicable decisions to hold off the resolution. Also, sometimes its child narrator (Scarlett Sher) flat-out lies. Those quibbles keep the film from achieving greatness for me. But the film still easily achieves goodness, with some memorable performances, an unsettling atmosphere, some great payoffs, and even a well-earned laugh or two (can’t forget that Cregger was mostly known for sketch comedy prior to “Barbarian”). If my heart is an armory, there’s just enough room for “Weapons.”

            I have fond memories of “The Bad Guys” from 2022. The opening scene was an extended “Pulp Fiction” reference, which I was not expecting to see in an animated kids’ movie. It put me in a good mood for the rest of the movie, which was standard “villains eventually learn to be good” fare, albeit with a slick style and nary an irritating Minion in sight. “The Bad Guys 2” doesn’t have the cushion of an extended reference to one of my favorite very-R-rated movies, so it has to get by on style and humor alone. It succeeds, but to a lesser degree.

            When we last saw Mr. Wolf (Sam Rockwell), Mr. Snake (Marc Maron), Mr. Shark (Craig Robinson), Mr. Piranha (Anthony Ramos), and tarantula Ms. Webs (Awkwafina), they had renounced their heist-crew ways after defeating villainous guinea pig Professor Marmalade (Richard Ayoade) with some help from Governor Foxington (Zazie Beetz), herself a reformed master criminal. They were all set to put their smarts and skills to good use, and as is typical of sequels, we open by learning that not much came of it.

            In the first movie, people didn’t give The Bad Guys a chance because they were of unappealing species, so they turned to lives of crime. Now people don’t want to give them a chance because they have histories leading lives of crime. They keep screwing up job interviews, sometimes because of prejudice, sometimes out of nervousness, and sometimes because they keep applying to places they’ve robbed. They’re getting increasingly frustrated and desperate with their inability to find a legitimate place in the world – not to mention the cash flow problem. Just when they think things can’t get any worse, they find out that the local police commissioner (Alex Borstein) suspects them in string of heists that for once they aren’t perpetrating.

            The Bad Guys soon find themselves in the company of The Bad Girls: snow leopard Kitty Kat (Danielle Brooks), raven Doom (Natasha Lyonne), and boar Petrova (Maria Bakalova), the real perpetrators of the crimes. The Bad Girls need The Bad Guys to help pull off an eight-person (that is to say, eight animal) heist against a tech magnate (Colin Jost) who owns a giant magnet that they can use to steal all the world’s gold. The Bad Guys go along with the heist with plans of sabotaging it later, ostensibly because The Bad Girls have blackmail material on good friend Foxington (who has her own strategy for foiling the plan that involves visiting the imprisoned Marmalade, “Silence of the Lambs”-style, which I’m counting as less funny than the “Pulp Fiction” stuff from the first movie), but also possibly because they miss the Bad Guy lifestyle. Will The Bad Guys succeed in stopping The Bad Girls, fail to stop them, or be brought back over to the side of Bad permanently?

            My biggest problem with “The Bad Guys 2” is that it’s all about The Bad Guys “stopping” The Bad Girls, instead of trying to teach them why they shouldn’t be Bad Girls. There are some late-stage debates in the course of fights about how it’s better to be respected than feared, but it’s like they’re trying to convince themselves, rather than their opponents, that they’re “better” than their new adversaries. Aside from that, the humor just isn’t as sharp as I remember from the first movie, though I might have been viewing that movie through rose-colored glasses after the opening sequence. The good news is that there’s still plenty of decent humor and still a good time to be had with these movies, even in the case of the inferior sequel.

Grade: B-

            The “First Steps” part of the title of the new “Fantastic Four” movie is misleading. We don’t see the superhero quartet take their first steps, not as changed individuals and not as a team. The movie takes place four years after a space anomaly altered the DNA of astronauts Reed “Mister Fantastic” Richards (Pedro Pascal), Ben “Thing” Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), Johnny “Human Torch” Storm (Joseph Quinn) and his sister, Sue “Invisible Woman” Storm (Vanessa Kirby). Fortunately, the alterations turned out to be mostly positive, and the team uses their newfound gifts to better the planet of Earth-828.

            The team certainly uses their powers for the greater good, but they don’t rely on them as much as you’d think. Richards is such an outstanding intellectual that he barely ever calls upon his ability to stretch. Sue uses her diplomatic talents to broker a peace deal that has nothing to do with her (admittedly poorly-defined) force-field powers. Johnny tries to prove his worth to the others by tackling problems without relying on his fire powers. Ben is more than happy to lend his rock-body to issues that require physical force, but he’s just as happy to live as normally as he can. The team is certainly good for fighting off the occasional supervillain, but they also motivate the inhabitants of Earth-828 to do good with their own lives so they don’t need to rely on superheroes.

            Of course, sometimes the world needs the Fantastic Four at their most Fantastic. As couple Reed and Sue are preparing to welcome a baby, extraterrestrial being Shalla-Bal (Julia Garner), later known as the Silver Surfer, arrives on Earth-828. She’s there to herald the impending arrival of planet-eating giant Galactus (Ralph Ineson). Nice of her to give everyone a chance say goodbye to their loved ones, though I don’t see why Galactus needs a herald to give away the element of surprise.

The Four won’t stand for their entire world to be eaten, so they go on a space mission to try to reason with the hungry humongoid. He’s willing to cut a deal: he’ll spare the planet in exchange for Reed and Sue’s baby, which may have an all-powerful combination of his parents’ powers. The team refuses to hand over the baby, of course, but that does leave them with the residual problem of Earth being doomed. Can the Fantastic Four save their world from a villain the size of a skyscraper? Do the Marvel Cinematic Universe and its Disney overseers want to keep making money off of these characters?

            Story-wise, there’s not much new here, other than maybe how little action there is for a superhero movie. There’s a chase scene midway through the movie, and a typical-of-the-MCU battle involving a big glow-y thing at the end, but other than that we see little more than quick bursts and highlights. The Four actually try to stop Galactus by calling upon help from civilians on a global scale. I seriously doubt that enough people on our Earth would be willing to chip in and make these sacrifices, but remember, this movie doesn’t take place on Earth, it takes place in a parallel universe on Earth-828.

            The appeal of “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” doesn’t lie in the likeable-but-familiar heroes, it lies in the setting of Earth-828. The world looks like what people in the 1960’s thought the world would look like in 2025. Technology has advanced and there are things like flying cars, but style and decoration have retained what I would call a retro aesthetic. Yes, there’s even an agreeably-chirpy, charmingly-cumbersome robot servant in the team’s headquarters. It’s the most memorable MCU setting since Wakanda, and it might even have that one beat. I can see why the Fantastic Four want to work so hard to save this world. Earth-828 elevates this otherwise-middling MCU entry into the best installment in years.

            I’ve never seen 1997’s “I Know What You Did Last Summer” all the way through. 11-year-old me was too young to see the R-rated slasher in theaters, which was just as well because I did see a trailer and lost many nights’ sleep over the killer’s deadly fishing hook. I eventually got caught up via highlights and recaps, to the point where I feel like watching the movie now would just be a redundant bore. This is all to say that I don’t have much loyalty to the original, outside of a begrudging respect for its ability to give me nightmares with something sharp. Once again, this is probably for the best, since without loyalty to the original, I don’t have to worry about betrayal on the part of the same-titled reboot.

            The premise is the same here as it was in 1997: a group of friends goof off on a secluded coastal road one fateful summer night. Their antics cause an accident and a death, and although good girl Ava (Chase Sui Wonders) thinks they should take responsibility, others, like the spoiled Danica (Madelyn Cline) just want to put the incident behind them as quickly and quietly as possible. Danica, her obnoxious fiancé Teddy (Tyriq Withers), troubled Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon), and Ava’s wannabe boyfriend Milo (Jonah Hauer-King) agree to forget what happened, and after some peer pressure, so does Ava.

            A year later, the group reunites for Danica’s wedding… to newcomer Wyatt (Joshua Orpin). She and Teddy didn’t work out as a couple. Nothing worked out for anybody, likely as a result of guilt. At her bridal shower, Danica receives a mysterious note with the titular message. Nobody in the group admits to sending it. Soon after, a murder occurs, committed by someone wearing all-too-familiar fisherman’s gear and wielding… well, first an effective-but-not-terrifying harpoon, but then that traumatizing hook. The murder is clearly related to the incident a year ago, and of course is just the beginning of a string of killings targeting the group and those around them.

            Who can the killer be? Someone in the group? None of them “seem” capable of deliberate murder, but someone could just be pretending. Teddy’s bigwig father (Billy Campbell) knew about his son’s involvement, and in true mayor-from-“Jaws” fashion, he wants to sweep all local violence under the rug to protect property values. The creepy local pastor (Austin Nichols) seems to have something nefarious up his sleeve. A true-crime podcaster (Gabbriette Bechtel) is snooping around town suspiciously. Why is she here? Because this is the same town where a similar string of fisherman-based murders occurred 30 years ago. Survivors Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr.) still live in the area, maybe they can help the new generation of hapless protagonists. Or do their violence-filled pasts make them a current danger?

            The “I Know What You Did Last Summer” reboot has to lean heavily into nostalgia to be appealing, because it can’t elevate itself on more creative merits like interesting new characters or well-earned scares. At least Hewitt and Prinze have important roles to play, they aren’t just cameos for the sake of cameos, not that there isn’t at least one of those. I’ll also confess that I got some laughs out of the mystery, if only because the film goes so far out of its way to make minor characters with two or three lines seem like potential killers. Still, I don’t feel like I missed much by not seeing the original “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and you won’t be missing much if you don’t see this one.

            With Zack Snyder’s version of the DC Universe having officially fizzled out, Warner Bros. is trying a hard reboot of the multi-faceted superhero franchise under the direction of James Gunn. First up for Gunn is “Superman,” with actor David Corenswet stepping into the role of space alien Kal-El/mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent/blue-suited metahuman Superman. Corenswet is a good fit for the role, as he unflinchingly nails the character’s strength and stoicism, as well as his unrelenting moral dedication and occasionally-naïve optimism. His mere casting is the first good decision by Gunn, getting the movie (and thus, the series) off on the right foot.

            The film forgoes its main character’s origin story and picks up three years after the Superman persona has become known to the public. He’s ready to help out wherever he’s needed, whether it’s a collapsing skyscraper in the American city of Metropolis or a hostile military invasion by the far-off dictatorship of Boravia. He’s a selfless force for good in the world, which of course means that many, many people have a problem with him. In particular, evil industrialist Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult, another solid casting choice with a good balance of smugness and intensity) wants to stop Superman, ostensibly so he can carry out grand schemes without interference, but really because he’s jealous that the hero’s many good deeds keep eating up the headlines.

            Speaking of headlines, “Clark” works, as always, at the “Daily Planet” newspaper alongside intrepid reporter Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan, yet another good casting choice with a sharp wit and excellent chemistry with Corenswet). At first it seems like these two have a bit of a cute crush on one another, but all is not as innocent as it seems. Lois has a tendency to make Clark feel insecure about the godlike, above-reproach identity he’s set up for himself, but maybe it’s good that he feels insecure so he can think about the consequences of his actions. Or maybe she’s wrong and he shouldn’t be worried about backlash or second-guessing himself. It’s a complicated issue without a straightforward answer, but they’re determined to work through it together.

            Surprisingly, Superman isn’t the only metahuman in Metropolis. The city is also served by Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), Hawk Girl (Isabela Merced), and Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi, who contributes so much to the movie’s heroics that he may as well be a co-lead). But Superman is more powerful than all of them because powers from the planet Krypton are in his DNA. Kal-El’s Kryptonian parents were able to send him to Earth from their dying planet with some advanced technology, which developed over the years into the Fortress of Solitude in Antarctica, complete with robot servants and Krypto the Superdog. They also threw in a message of encouragement via hologram. Kal-El doesn’t know what they were encouraging, exactly, but probably just a reminder to always be good, right?

            This version of “Superman” has all the makings of a great superhero movie, but I can’t say that it ever really becomes one. I recommend it overall, but for every well-realized character or interesting plot point, there are several others that just come off as unnecessary. For example, I may care about Lois and Clark’s co-workers at the “Daily Planet” down the line, but here I wonder why the movie needs to go to their offices at all when there’s already so much new information to take in. The same overcrowding problem applies to this franchise’s rivals over at the MCU, which is why so many of their movies have seemed like mush lately. Gunn has to opportunity here to not just bring the DCU back from the dead, but pull it ahead of the MCU while that once-great cinematic universe is mired in its mid-2020’s doldrums. This movie is not going to cause the DCU to overtake the MCU in a single bound, but for the first time in a long time, the DCU feels like a worthy contender for superhero supremacy.

            After three “Jurassic Park” movies and three “Jurassic World” movies, it seems the time has come to kickstart the “Jurassic” franchise again with “Jurassic World: Rebirth.” I’ll give the franchise credit for recognizing that there was no need to continue with the Chris Pratt or Bryce Dallas Howard characters from the last three movies, who were widely seen as uninteresting. Even the more popular “classic” characters played by Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum are probably best taking this movie off after fans got sufficiently caught up with them in 2022’s “Jurassic World: Dominion.” Good on this movie for coming up with a new set of heroes. I can’t say I always cared for the story, action, or generally the movie around them, but the movie is better for having them.

            The most-talked-about scene in the movie is its cold open, where a carelessly-discarded candy bar wrapper leads to catastrophic results. It reminded me a lot of one of those convoluted “Final Destination” death sequences, but that didn’t do the movie any favors, all it did was make me wish I was watching one of those movies instead. I’m sure the intention here was to have a scene where funny and scary were well-balanced, and I suppose technically it succeeds by delivering very little of either.

            Soon after, we’re introduced to our new cast. Capable covert operative Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) is recruited by shady pharmaceutical rep Krebs (Rupert Friend) to lead a team to an island of mutant dinosaurs to collect DNA samples that can be combined to form a cure for heart disease. The team also includes Zora’s longtime colleague Kincaid (Mahershala Ali) and unemployed paleontologist Dr. Loomis (Jonathan Bailey). As the new leads travel to the island, we’re also introduced to a civilian family: father Reuben (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), younger daughter Isabella (Audrina Miranda), older daughter Teresa (Luna Blaise), and Xavier (David Iacano), Teresa’s hapless boyfriend. Their boat is capsized by ocean-based dinos and they need rescuing from Zora’s team, much to the chagrin of mission-focused Krebs. The groups are briefly brought together, then quickly separated again once they reach the island so they can go on disparate adventures.

            Said adventures include Zora’s group collecting samples from prehistoric creatures on land, sea, and air. It’s the “air” that proves the most challenging, as they have to scale a perilous cliff to get to the nest of a fearsome predator. The family needs only to survive the island, but they don’t have things any easier. They need to make it down a river, but not if a T-Rex has anything to say about it. For the climax, the survivors of the two groups reunite for a shared showdown with the vicious mutant dinosaur that escaped its enclosure at the beginning of the movie. I at least liked the design of the new Big Bad, it’s got more going on than previous built-up surprises that usually just turned out to be variations on raptors.

            I liked the chemistry of the Johansson/Ali/Bailey team in “Jurassic World: Rebirth.” I liked them so much, in fact, that I was annoyed whenever there was any business with dinosaurs that prevented them from casually interacting. The sailing family could have been cut from the movie entirely. I know the movie wanted to throw in some cute kids for the dinos to terrorize, but they’re bland, at times annoying, and they detract from the more interesting storyline. As for the dinosaurs and the action around them, it’s par for the course. Don’t worry, they’re here, but the special effects are wonky at times and nothing they do will be surprising to anyone familiar with this franchise. I can’t say that I strongly dislike this installment with its change-up in human leads, but this series, now on its seventh installment, is no longer the unique property that established itself as a pop culture institution in the 90’s.

            “F1: The Movie” takes viewers inside the exciting world of Formula One auto-racing. The director is Joseph Kosinski, best known for taking “Top Gun: Maverick” to the top of the yearly box office three years ago. Between that movie’s jets and this movie’s cars, it seems the man’s specialty is directing movies about things that go “whoosh.” And yes, this movie is best enjoyed in premium-format theaters (for me it was a Dolby) that can really give the audience a good taste of the whooshing. That is to say I got maximum enjoyment out of the whooshing cars and very little enjoyment out of everything else.

            Brad Pitt stars as Sonny Hayes, a former Formula One driver whose career ended in a crash in the 90’s. Now he’s broke and lives out of his van, taking on freelance driving jobs whenever someone needs him in a pinch. As it happens, former rival-turned-friend Ruben (Javier Bardem), now a team owner, needs a driver in a pinch. His team hasn’t gotten a single top-ten finish all season and is in danger of being sold. Rookie driver Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) has a lot of potential, but he’s consistently being bested by more experienced drivers. It takes some arm-twisting, but Sonny agrees to come aboard as Joshua’s teammate.

            Sonny doesn’t fit in well at first. Most of team is European, he’s American. They’re up on the “current” Formula One, he’s been out of the game for 30 years. They’re high-strung, he’s easygoing, etc. He especially ruffles the feathers of Joshua, who sees him as a threat to his spot on the team, as well as lead engineer Kate (Kerry Condon), who thinks he isn’t cooperative with those who know better. Of course, by the end of the film, he’ll be these characters’ mentor and lover, obviously respectively.

            How does Sonny win everybody over? By racing, of course. He has instincts that the others don’t, and is willing to try things that others won’t. Sometimes this means unconventional tricks with timing, sometimes this means exploiting loopholes in the rules and flirting with penalties (some will see his tactics as very unsportsmanlike), sometimes this means doing things that are extremely dangerous. But he’s never going to be the best if he plays things safe, and he’s obsessed with being the best.

            Whether or not you like “F1: The Movie” comes down to two things: how much you like the Pitt performance and how much you like the racing scenes. To me, they both have the same problem: they’re top-notch at what they do, without impressing me much by doing it. Yes, Pitt is effortlessly charming, but he brings the same effortless charm to every role, and there’s little else to make the character unique. And I don’t just mean he’s not unique for a Brad Pitt character, I mean he’s not unique for this style of movie hero. I really felt like I was watching Tom Cruise in “Top Gun: Maverick,” maybe with a shade less dedication to the craft because I don’t think Pitt is putting his body through the wringer for all these racing scenes.

            As for the racing, much like Pitt’s charisma, I certainly can’t call it incompetent. I’m sure they got everything right in painstaking, extremely difficult detail. But also like Pitt’s charisma, the film thinks its ability to nail Formula One driving carries it to greatness and it just doesn’t. In just the past few years, “Ford v Ferreri” and “Gran Turismo” gave me equally exciting racing sequences, and both had better stories to go around them. So I’ll put it this way: if you’ve gone a long time without seeing a Brad Pitt movie, a racing movie, or a “Top Gun” movie, and you’re willing to give this movie premium-format prices and over two and a half hours of your time, then you might get something out of “F1: The Movie.” Otherwise, steer clear of this one.

            It has been 23 years (not 28, somewhat frustratingly) since British audiences were first introduced to the mind-and-body-ravaging Rage virus in “28 Days Later.” The virus turned everyone it affected into zombies, known as The Infected, obsessed not so much with feeding as with turning more people into zombies. The film’s heroes had a hard time evading The Infected, and then just when it looked like they were safe, they had to deal with the degenerate humans that had appointed themselves to power after the collapse of civilization. The Infected were still at large five years later in “28 Weeks Later” and humanity was more monstrous than ever. Nothing interesting must have happened 28 months later from the events of that film, because the series skipped right over it. Instead, it jumps to 28 years later, when older children and even adults have never known a world not affected by The Infected.

            Teenager Spike (Alfie Williams) lives what passes for a normal life on an island off the coast of Scotland that can’t be reached by The Infected because of high tides. His father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is a hero to both family and community, going on dangerous missions to the mainland to gather supplies and kill Infected, who are just as ravenous as ever. His mother Isla (Jodie Comer) is bedridden with an illness different than the Rage virus, yet still causing her great suffering both physically and mentally. She desperately needs a doctor, but there isn’t one on the island, and Jamie warns Spike not to seek out the one setting fires on the mainland.

            Jamie takes Spike to the mainland, where he tries to train his son to fend off and kill Infected as best he can. Unfortunately, the Infected are so aggressive and numerous that the lesson has to be cut short in the name of just trying to stay alive. The two barely make it back to the island. Spike failed at every turn during the excursion, but Jamie tells the town that his son was competent and brave. At first, Jamie’s lies putting over his son don’t seem so bad, but then Spike catches onto more lies, and the bond of trust is broken. Thinking that his father might also be lying about the trustworthiness of the doctor, Spike persuades Isla to come with him to the mainland, even though he has minimal survival training. Will Spike and/or Isla survive long enough to reach the doctor? Ralph Fiennes is billed in the film’s advertising, and he doesn’t seem to be playing a resident of the island, so… he’ll probably turn out to be the doctor, which means at least one character will have to meet him.

            That predictable aspect aside, this is a movie worth taking seriously. Director Danny Boyle is just as good with his worldbuilding here as he was with a ransacked London over 20 years ago. “28 Days Later” was my first exposure to eventual Oscar-winner Boyle (and eventual Oscar-winning star Cillian Murphy, for that matter), and even with a genre that doesn’t usually lend itself well to awards, he still managed to immediately prove to me that he was one of the most gifted filmmakers in the industry. The glut of zombie media since then has over-saturated me on the concept, which is why I couldn’t work up the same enthusiasm for this film that I could for the original, even though Boyle hasn’t lost a single step. “28 Years Later” is still visually spectacular, excitingly edited, occasionally funny and touching, and successfully scary. I know that a follow-up called “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” is scheduled for next January, so I won’t have to wait long, but if I didn’t know about that film, I’d say that I didn’t want to wait another 28 years to get another one of these.

            After three weeks of domination by the Disney live-action remake “Lilo & Stitch,” it’s time for the top spot at the domestic box office to be taken over by the Dreamworks live-action remake “How to Train Your Dragon.” It feels like it’s too soon to do a remake of a movie from only 15 years ago (Disney has yet to do one from inside of 20 years), but the studio has to promote a new attraction at the Universal Orlando theme park. Movies are always a business, of course, but this one’s existence seemed to be especially motivated by money-grubbing. Fortunately, the quick turnaround means that some of the creative voices of the original, like writer/director Dean DeBlois (also a writer/director of the 2002 “Lilo & Stitch”) are still around to work on this movie, leading to much of the original’s charm being retained.

            The story remains the same: young Viking Hiccup (Mason Thames) desperately wants to impress his chief father, Stoick (Gerard Butler, also carrying over from the original), who seems to care more about killing dragons than his own son. Using a crude homemade weapon, Hiccup manages to hit a dreaded Night Fury, which crash-lands miles away. But nobody sees either the hit or the dragon, and Hiccup is regarded as a nuisance around his island homeland, including by his crush Astrid (Nico Parker).

            Hiccup is soon remanded to dragon-hunting training under family friend Gobber (Nick Frost). It looks like Hiccup will screw that up like he screws up everything else, when he discovers the Night Fury wounded on an uninhabited part of the island. He has the opportunity to finish off the dragon, but he just can’t kill the scared creature. Instead he befriends the dragon, which he names Toothless, in the process learning about dragons and how to train them for a mutually-beneficial relationship. This makes him a standout in his hunting class, and even his father starts showing him rare affection. There’s potential for him to graduate at the top of his class, which will earn him a ceremony where he “gets” to kill a dragon in front of his father and the whole tribe. The problem is that he no longer wants to kill dragons, knowing from Toothless that humans and dragons can co-exist. What can he do to make everybody happy?

            It worked to the film’s advantage that I’d forgotten a lot about the original since I last saw it. I remembered the broad strokes, obviously the dragon gets trained, but I mostly just remembered the original for being sweet, having a cool visual style, and most of the jokes landing, even if I forgot what most of those jokes were. The new film is sweet, it has a cool visual style (Toothless’s big green eyes are as adorable as ever), and most of the jokes land.

            “How to Train Your Dragon” isn’t immune to some of the problems that notoriously plague live-action remakes of animated films. Certain visual gags don’t work well without the fluid movements of animation. It can be distracting that much of the cast, especially the teenagers, are clearly kids raised in the modern era. And I had to grit my teeth while Stoick had to learn the same lessons about communication all over again. But the movie pulled itself up to a recommendation with its stunning visual style and undeniable heart. I don’t want Dreamworks to get too reliant on the live-action remake formula (and Disney is welcome to buck the trend whenever they want), but in this instance, they did it pretty well.

Grade: B-

            The eighth “Mission: Impossible” movie, “The Final Reckoning,” sees Tom Cruise’s secret agent Ethan Hunt strive to save the world yet again. But this movie has “Final” in its title, so maybe Hunt won’t succeed this time. Maybe the world will be destroyed by the evil A.I. program known as The Entity. Or even worse, maybe Hunt will meet his end and the world will be denied any more of Cruise’s smoldering star power, at least in this franchise. At any rate, Hunt has to defeat not only the all-powerful computer program, but also old human enemy Gabriel (Esai Morales), who is somehow working “for” The Entity. The odds of surviving are really long – and at 170 minutes, so is the movie’s runtime – but Hunt is up to the challenge of saving the world and Cruise is clearly up to the challenge of keeping the audience entertained for that long. I can’t say he succeeds in the latter mission, but he chooses to accept it.

            Things don’t get off to a great start. We pick up a few months after the end of the seventh movie, with The Entity already causing damage across the world. World powers worry that their weapons programs are about to be compromised, making them wonder if they should launch weapons before they lose them, or before other, non-compromised countries can launch their own weapons first. Hunt has gone underground pondering what to do next. At least he has his team, like hacker Luther (Ving Rhames), gadget guy Benji (Simon Pegg), and con artist Grace (Hayley Atwell). He even breaks former enemy Paris (Pom Klementieff) out of prison to fight for good, and convinces Theo (Greg Tarzan Davis), one of her guards, to join them as well. They learn that Gabriel will be attending a formal charity event, and Hunt sees it as an opportunity to beat up bad guys while wearing a tuxedo… I mean, extract information.

            I’ve made the film’s first act sound more exciting than it is. The business with Gabriel is there, sure, but so much of it is just characters talking about how dangerous The Entity will be if it falls into the wrong hands and how Hunt is crucial to the survival of the planet. Much of it is exemplified by U.S. President Sloane (Angela Bassett) debating with her cabinet, which consists of so much star power (Holt McCallany, Nick Offerman, Janet McTeer, Charles Parnell, and Mark Gatiss) that the film seems to want to give them their own movie. There was so much talking that I was questioning if the film had somehow forgotten to add action sequences. The second act wasn’t much better, as Hunt has to rescue an item from a sunken submarine in the Arctic. I appreciated the danger and suspense, but the plan was so convoluted that I could never tell if Hunt was succeeding or not.

            Finally, the third act kicked “Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning” into gear. The fate of the world is on the line and it’s going to come down to a matter of seconds. More importantly, Cruise’s beautiful face is on the line as the actor engages in some of his trademark dangerous stunt work. The action is tense, creative, and even funny at times. In other words, it’s exactly what people come to these movies to see. If the whole movie had kept up this spirit, it would have earned a recommendation from me, but so much of what comes before it is a slog that I can’t recommend the movie overall. Fortunately, for all the talk of finality, Hollywood is certain to keep milking this franchise, ensuring that “Mission: Impossible” won’t really be going out on this disappointing entry.

            The latest edition of Disney’s trend of remaking its animated classics in live action or “realistic” CGI is “Lilo & Stitch.” I remember seeing the 2002 original with my mom, both of us huge Disney fans, and we agreed that the studio’s magic from its mostly-90’s “Renaissance” era was long gone. I’ve come to appreciate the film more over time, but it doesn’t occupy the same space in my heart as a “Beauty and the Beast” or “Lion King.” I thought this might actually work in the new film’s favor, with less concern about it having to live up to the legacy of a masterpiece. But no, it still does enough wrong to fall short of even lowered expectations.

            The story follows the two title characters, with their paths destined to intersect. Project 626, later known as “Stitch,” is a monster created in a lab on a faraway planet by crazed alien doctor Jumba (Zach Galifianakis). Too hostile even for the alien community, Stitch escapes his sentence of exile by stealing a spaceship, which he crash-lands on Earth. Jumba and Earth-obsessed scientist Pleakley (Billy Magnussen) are assigned to go to Earth and retrieve the creature, which just wants to run amok.

            Meanwhile, on Earth, in Hawaii, six-year-old human Lilo (Maia Kealoha) is having a hard time coping with the recent loss of her parents, often acting out and wreaking havoc of her own. Her adult sister Nani (Sydney Agudong) is trying to raise Lilo by herself so the family won’t be split up, but she’s having trouble adjusting to the role, unable to juggle the tasks of working to pay the bills and keeping tabs on the wild child. A social worker (Tia Carrere, the voice of Nani in the original), warns her that she could lose custody of Lilo if the household isn’t put in order.

            Needing a place to live, Stitch disguises himself as a stray dog. Recognizing a fellow free spirit, Lilo insists on adopting him, and Tūtū (Amy Hill), an elderly neighbor on babysitting duty, can’t say no. Nani thinks the crude creature is the last thing the fragile family needs, but Lilo is taken with him. Can the sisters and Stitch survive as a family? Can Stitch evade capture from Jumba and Pleakley? One thing is for sure: there will be lots of hijinks from the reckless child and alien along the way.

            The movie has some good things about it. There are gags that work, especially in the early outer space scenes. And the vibe can certainly be sweet when it wants to be. Perhaps best of all, the live-action humans are an upgrade from the occasionally-off-putting character designs that marred the original. Also, it’s a good idea that aliens Jumba and Pleakley take on live-action human disguises for a while, because while I have no problem with the CGI version of Stitch’s design, the update to Jumba’s look is… unfortunate.

            But for everything the remake of “Lilo & Stitch” does right, it does more wrong. Gags fall flat. Motivations are nonsensical. The movie pointlessly tries to wedge in beloved character Cobra Bubbles (Courtney B. Vance) despite Carrere being just fine as a different take on the movie’s requisite social worker. What’s really frustrating is that both central conflicts could be solved immediately by characters making the decisions that they end up making anyway not based on anything learned along the way. Disney has done worse to better properties in this controversial trend of live-action remakes, but still, this entry lacks magic even more than its predecessor.

            “Thunderbolts*” certainly scared off the competition in its second weekend at the domestic box office. This sometimes happens the weekend after the opening of a huge blockbuster. Other studios will know that they can’t compete against the powerhouse, so they hold off on releasing anything that they think has the potential to be a big or even midsize hit. When that happens, I have to review either a holdover or a newcomer that can only hope to become, at most, a tiny hit. “Clown in a Cornfield” definitely falls into the latter category. This thing is cheap even by horror movie standards, yet in a minor victory, it managed to open in fifth place for the weekend. I’d admire its pluck, but there’s no sleeper hit here, just a movie that didn’t fail too badly when it was sent out to die.

            The film follows Quinn Maybrook (Katie Douglas), a teenager moving to the rural town of Kettle Springs with her doctor father Glenn (Aaron Abrams). Sullen and supposedly shy, Quinn is expectedly standoffish toward her unsophisticated classmate Rust (Vincent Muller). But she’s able to make surprisingly fast friends with the cool clique: jock Matt (Alexandre Martin Deakin), joker Tucker (Ayo Solanke), friendly Ronnie (Verity Marks), mean Janet (Cassandra Potenza), and leader Cole (Carson MacCormac). Cole is the son of wealthy corn syrup magnate Arthur Hill (Kevin Durand), who chews scenery so viciously in straight scenes that it’s hard not to picture him delivering villainous exposition by the movie’s end.

            It soon becomes apparent that the adults in the town don’t much care for teenagers, especially Cole’s group. Teachers, shopkeepers, and the local sheriff (Will Sasso) seem to have a vendetta against the kids, punishing them for pranks that they only sometimes pull. Quinn knows that it’s normal for kids to “think” authority figures are out to get them, and it’s not like the teens completely abstain from mischief, but something seems off about the dynamic. Cole explains that it’s because the group is being unfairly blamed for a recent fire at the corn syrup factory that had a devastating economic effect on the town. Quinn takes him at his word that the fire was an unrelated accident, but should she trust him? Can any teenager ever be trusted?

            Never mind filling in blanks about the town’s past, there’s a killer on the loose! Somebody dressed as Frendo the Clown, the mascot of the corn syrup company, is killing off teens that have upset the establishment. As a matter of fact, their master plan seems to be to attack a group gathering for a booze/drugs/sex/music party set in a barn. And the barn is right next to… that’s right, a high-end golf course. Just kidding, it’s a cornfield. Get ready for some deaths by pitchfork.

            I wasn’t digging “Clown in a Cornfield,” and not just because it doesn’t do scares and violence well. It doesn’t, but I think the bigger problem is with the characters. These are some of the least-likeable protagonists I’ve seen in a while. The “broken family getting set up in a new town” trope has been done to death in every genre, but especially horror (and don’t think I’ve forgotten about you, “adult is barely able to keep custody of a child and scary happenings are the last thing they need”). Quinn and her father just seem like they’re this movie’s plug-in for character types, not characters of their own, and nothing about their chemistry with one another seems natural. And this is to say nothing of the collection of one-dimensional clown fodder that make up the circle of friends or shady townspeople. I live in New York City, and I’m about as likely to see this movie again as I am to see an actual cornfield outside my window.

            “Thunderbolts*,” the latest offering from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, seems like awfully familiar territory. In the film, a group of assassins, criminals, and burnouts band together to form a ragtag group of do-gooders looking for redemption. There are definitely shades of the MCU’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” in play. Or how about that Sony-controlled “Sinister Six” movie that may never materialize? Actually, the real template seems to be “Suicide Squad” from the DC Extended Universe. That was the crummy team-up of also-ran villains that had the hook of Margot Robbie playing Harley Quinn. “Thunderbolts*” can’t even boast Robbie’s Harley, but it also isn’t saddled with Jared Leto’s miserable Joker, so it’s roughly a draw.

            For all the emphasis on the team effort, there is an unadvertised clear-cut lead. Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), the adopted sister of the late Black Widow, is starting to feel bored with an unfulfilling life of black ops work. She visits her father, Red Guardian (David Harbour), but he isn’t much help. He loves her very much, but he’s never been the best father, and he mostly wants her to help him advance his own shambled career.

            Yelena takes an assignment in the base of a mountain, but it’s a trap. She’s ambushed by the molecularly unstable Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), seen here for the first time since 2018’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp.” Then the two of them are ambushed by disgraced soldier U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell), seen here for the first time since the 2021 Disney+ series “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.” Then they’re all ambushed by Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), seen here for the first time since 2021’s “Black Widow,” and if this group is the Suicide Squad, then she’s the Slipknot. Also present is an amnesia-stricken stranger named Bob (Lewis Pullman), but there’s not much time to learn his story, as the mountain is about to be incinerated.

            Pulling the strings and trying to cut off loose ends is CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). Much like Amanda Waller of “Suicide Squad,” she’s a morally-compromising government official who’s a little too eager to sacrifice her own people. She’s in the middle of an impeachment and wants to eliminate four of her most embarrassing assets. So she assigned them all to attack each other, with a follow-up plan to blow up the whole mountain anyway. Even though they don’t like each other, they work together to escape. With some help from Red Guardian and recently-elected congressman Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), frustrated that he can’t stop the dangerous de Fontaine as an elected official, they form a team temporarily known as the Thunderbolts.

            de Fontaine still wants to eliminate the Thunderbolts, but she’s intrigued by escaped test subject Bob. He unwittingly has tremendous superpowers, and with the right molding, he could be the best asset to the U.S. government since The Avengers. The problem is that he’s also capable of tremendous destruction and could also be the biggest threat to the world since Thanos. He’s so unstoppable with his ability to instantly turn victims into lifeless shadows that the Thunderbolts have to try to get him to choose to stop attacking people because they are in no way a match otherwise.

            There’s an admirable emphasis on mental health in “Thunderbolts*,” with the movie taking sensitive looks at Bob’s repressed dark side, Yelena’s uncertainty about her place in the world, and everybody’s past traumas. It’s why a lot of people have been won over by this movie, and I’m glad they’ve been able to find something of value here. But all I saw was the MCU realizing that they had too many directionless minor characters, so they consolidated them into one unoriginal, uninteresting movie.

            “The Accountant” was a midsized hit from 2016 that until recently had a reputation as a wannabe franchise-starter that never got a follow-up. I watched the first movie for research last weekend, and I would have guessed that the reason the film went so long without a sequel was that the key players knew that they had made a lousy movie and wanted to do better things with their careers. But apparently there was enough interest to bring about “The Accountant 2,” a film popular enough to make for one of the most crowded screenings I’ve attended in recent memory. I can’t say that I really see the appeal – either before or after the screening.

            Ben Affleck is back as genius accountant Christian Wolff. He takes jobs from the most dangerous people on the planet: mobsters, cartels, even terrorist organizations. So that nobody can ever track him to a permanent address, he lives a nomadic lifestyle in a trailer. He also has the extra insurance policy of being a highly-trained killer, though he prefers to not put those skills to use. To ease his conscience a bit, he supplies occasional tips on clients to the Treasury Department and donates much of his income to a private school for autistic children, where his mute partner Justine (played by Allison Robertson, with the voice of Alison Wright via computer) handles many of his operational logistics. Christian himself is autistic, which leads to difficulties in communication that range from funny to sad to scary.

            The film opens with Ray King (J.K. Simmons), Christian’s former contact at the Treasury Department, meeting with mysterious assassin Anais (Daniella Pineda) about the whereabouts of a Mexican family. The meeting is… violently broken up. Current Treasury agent Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) is determined to find out and fix the matter that was so important to her mentor. Her investigation leads her to teaming up with Christian, but continuing Ray’s mission may be too dangerous even for the two of them. Christian is going to have to reach out to his estranged brother Braxton (Jon Bernthal).

            The first “Accountant” kept Christian’s connection to antagonistic assassin Braxton a secret until the end (I know hindsight is 20/20, but it seems like this was an incredibly easy twist to guess, considering we knew from flashbacks that Christian had a brother raised by the same tough-love father), so they really only had one scene together. This movie, to its credit, takes much better advantage of Affleck and Bernthal as actors. Their chemistry, which mostly consists of sibling squabbling, is the highlight of the movie.

            Far from the highlight of the movie is the convoluted storyline about illegal immigration rings, prostitution rings, child internment camps, and how violent wildcard Anais fits into it all. The first movie was just as bad in this department, but at least it had squirrely villain John Lithgow to root against, it’s easy to forget that this movie’s fish-market-owning villain (Robert Morgan) is even a character. With the exception of gray-area Anais, all the bad guys in this movie are so inept that it’s impossible to take them seriously as threats to Christian and Braxton.

            Most of the reviews I’ve read either paint “The Accountant 2” as a decent buddy action movie hampered by a confusing mess of a story or a confusing mess of a story elevated by decent buddy action. I’m in the latter camp, which means I don’t recommend the movie overall. I was going to give it a “C-,” but then I decided that I should reward it for improving on the first movie by giving us more Affleck/Bernthal banter, so I’m bumping it up a little. Still, I hope that any future “Accountant” movies recognize and retain what worked about this movie (and the first) while also acknowledging that there need to be improvements made to the way the story unfolds.

            If “A Minecraft Movie” is the commercial hit that 2025 needed, then “Sinners” is the creative hit it needed. Writer/director Ryan Coogler has delivered a film that starts off as a compelling-enough 1930’s period piece before wildly shifting into supernatural territory. But the later developments don’t devalue the efforts made in the setup, they simply put the well-established characters on a path they didn’t anticipate. Speaking of anticipation, I’m going to be vague with story developments so readers can go into this movie anticipating little more than an unspecified good time.

            Frequent Coogler collaborator Michael B. Jordan stars as twins Smoke and Stack, a pair of wannabe gangsters returning to their hometown in Mississippi after limited success in Chicago. They purchase an old sawmill and immediately set about turning it into a nightclub. They get help from old acquaintances, like Smoke’s occultist ex-wife Annie (Wunmi Mosaku) to cook and wife-pleasing field worker Cornbread (Omar Benson Miller) to work security. Entertainment in the club is important too, which is why they recruit lushy pianist Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) and their timid cousin Sammie (Miles Caton) to play guitar. Sammie’s preacher father warns him that he’ll lose his soul at the club, but promises of music, money, and making moves on a married singer (Jayme Lawson) are too great to resist.

            Word of the club spreads quickly, and soon the whole town is excited for the grand opening. Even Stack’s tough-talking ex-girlfriend Mary (Hailee Steinfeld) shows up for the occasion, barely let in by Cornbread due to her whiteness, though he relents because she’s a community staple. It’s even harder to gain entry for Irish stranger Remmick (Jack O’Connell). He’s been lured to the club by Sammie’s playing, which is so good that it has taken on supernatural powers. Though ostensibly only there to play banjo, Remmick has ulterior motives that will drastically change the course of the movie.

            Again, the movie is pretty good even before Remmick shows up. Jordan has engaging chemistry with everyone, including and especially himself. Everything is top-notch technically, from the costumes to the camera work to the seamless effects that allow for two Michael B. Jordans at once. But things really get turned up a notch when Remmick arrives and the other shoe drops. And Remmick’s shoe really does drop, in a way, because… the genre shift I’ve been teasing isn’t “musical,” but there is a jig.

            The rest of the movie closely follows the tropes of the kind of movie it has become. But because there was such an elaborate setup, it seems like all bets are off, even though there are actually very few surprises to those familiar with the genre after a certain point. The characters make some questionable decisions that make me want to rhetorically ask if they’ve ever seen this kind of movie before. Then I have to remind myself that this is the 1930’s and no, they probably haven’t.

            “Sinners” is above average as a period piece and roughly average as what I can safely call a “thriller.” But what really makes it special is the way it combines the two genres, or at least that in combination with Coogler’s sharp creative voice. I don’t think I’m overselling it to say that this film represents the kickoff of the 2025 Oscars race. It’s not like there isn’t precedent – “Get Out,” another Black-led “thriller” with a “Black Panther” connection, scored a Best Picture nomination for 2017 with a February opening, meaning that the Academy has to remember “Sinners” for two fewer months. I’m not saying that I’m ready to hand this movie the Oscar, but it’s hard to picture a race where this movie wouldn’t be a worthy contender.

            After a mere two weekends, “A Minecraft Movie” has claimed the top spot of the 2025 domestic box office. It’s not shocking that this franchise piece beat out January fare, but since then we’ve had an MCU entry and this movie just blew right past it. And I have to ask: Why? Okay, I know why. It’s because the video game is popular. But bad movies based on popular video games flop all the time, why is this one in particular bucking the trend? Does the video game just have that big of a fanbase that they can turn it into a hit where so many similar attempts have failed? Or did fans and non-fans alike see the advertising for this movie and think that there might be a good movie here? I’m inclined to believe it’s the former, because I did not see any version of the advertising that made the movie seem like anything more than the hackery that it is.

            Jack Black stars as Steve, a lifelong fan of mining who stumbles across a portal to another dimension called the Overworld. The new setting allows Steve to arrange the environment however he wants using the building blocks at his disposal, most of which are literal blocks, as in cubes. But he runs afoul of local pig-like villain Malgosha (Rachel House), who wants to shut down creativity at all costs. She has Steve arrested, but he hands off the portal-orb to his dog Dennis for hiding on Earth so it can’t fall into the wrong hands. The orb falls into what may or may not be the wrong hands.

            The orb falls into the hands of fledgling arcade owner Garrett “The Garbageman” Garrison (Jason Momoa), who buys Steve’s abandoned things at a storage unit sale. He, along with a creative child he’s mentoring named Henry (Sebastian Hansen), are sucked into the Overworld, along with Henry’s adult sister (Emma Myers) and the siblings’ real estate agent (Danielle Brooks). The movie has no idea to do with three of these characters, they’re just there to pad out the cast beyond Black and Momoa, who are basically playing the same burnout-with-rock-n-roll-energy anyway.

            A conditionally-released Steve teaches the newcomers how to survive in the Overworld, which includes introducing them to all sorts of bells and whistles that I’m sure are familiar to fans of the game. They also have to go on a quest to find their way home, which includes fending off zombies, pig armies, and even a monster riding a chicken for a literal chicken fight. A better movie would probably have the heroes try to make friends with the different races, but here they’re just enemies to either kill, evade, or knock aside while trying to attain a larger goal for themselves.

            This movie is a mess. The jokes aren’t funny, the action isn’t interesting, and the writers were apparently all working on different movies. How else to explain the sincere tone of the Natalie-raising-Henry storyline or the painful tangent where an Overworld villager stumbles into the real world and begins dating Henry’s vice-principal (Jennifer Coolidge)? And none of it makes me want to play the “Minecraft” game. I’m not much of a video game person anyway (which yes, means I’m not the movie’s target audience, though I seriously doubt knowledge of the game would have endeared me to these underdeveloped characters), but a good adaptation knows how to cultivate new fans of the source material. As glad as I am that people are going to the movies, it baffles me that their choice is “A Minecraft Movie.”

            Jason Statham has a new movie out. He plays with a guy who used to work in a violent profession, but he’s sworn to leave that life behind. But now some bad people have messed with his employer (the only people to help him out when he was at a low point), and he’s going to make the bad guys pay. Cue a series of investigations, interrogations, and of course, action sequences. He’ll go through several tiers of bad guys, until he’s contending with a huge crime empire that probably could have gone on unimpeded if a low-level employee hadn’t caused problems for Statham. Oh, and the whole thing is directed by David Ayer. The movie is called “The Beekeeper 2.” Okay, not really, it’s called “A Working Man,” but as similar as it is to that Statham vehicle from last year, it might as well be.

            Statham plays Levon Cade, a former soldier now living out of his pickup truck and working construction under the kindly Garcia family. Daughter Jenny (Arianna Rivas) gets kidnapped by human traffickers, and father Joe (Michael Peña) offers Cade some much-needed money to get her back. Cade needs the money and stability to help in the custody battle for his daughter (Isla Gie) against his father-in-law, the Most Punchable Man in the World (Richard Heap). With a little help and encouragement from his blind comrade Gunny (David Harbour), Cade sets out on a mission to rescue Jenny.

            Cade’s path of destruction will pit him against drug dealers, biker gangs, corrupt cops, and Russian gangsters, and all of that before the human traffickers. In an unusual move, Cade doesn’t spend the whole movie working his way up to the highest-ranking Russian gangster (Jason Flemyng), rather, he spends about half the movie working up to the Big Bad and the other half working his way down, since the human trafficking is just a small part of the Russian mafia’s operation. The villains he really wants are bumbling couple Viper (Emmett J. Scanlan) and Artemis (Eve Mauro), and they’re so incompetent that a deus ex machina does half the work for him.

            The movie doesn’t work as straightforward excitement, the most entertainment I got was laughing at how stupid it is. There’s the staggering idiocy by most of the bad guys – it’s hard to believe they were ever smart enough to put together a criminal empire. And yes, this is the kind of movie where Cade has expert marksmanship and not a single bad guy can hit the broad side of a barn. Some of the characters just look ridiculous, especially the nephews of the Flemyng character, who are dressed like they’re going to a costume party as 80’s break dancers. There’s an actual costume party in the last act and the partygoers there don’t look half as gaudy as these schnooks.

My favorite way to pass the time during “A Working Man” was pretending that the Russian gangsters were connected to the goons from “Anora.” Like maybe the Flemyng character and Anora’s Russian boyfriend had the same interior decorator or something (both houses give off the same fancy-but-the-owners-don’t-enjoy-it vibe). What I’m saying is that I checked out of this garbage movie and started thinking about a better one. That is, when I wasn’t thinking about another crummy Statham/Ayer movie in “The Beekeeper,” which this movie just lazily retreads. Sitting through “A Working Man” was real work.

            Disney’s “Snow White” is the latest live-action remake of one of the studio’s animated classics. In this case, it’s perhaps the biggest “classic” of all, as 1937’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” was the first full-length animated feature in American history, and in 2008 was named the greatest animated film of all time by the American Film Institute. The film’s historical significance is undeniable, but frankly I don’t think it holds up as entertainment. Advancements in both animation and sound recording technology have left that movie in the dust, not to mention that Disney writes their princesses with more complexity these days. So maybe a remake that smooths out some of the rougher edges of the past isn’t a terrible idea. But this movie goes in some directions that are definitely a terrible idea.

            The story hits all the familiar beats. Princess Snow White (Rachel Zegler) is the stepdaughter of the Evil Queen (Gal Gadot), who seized control of her kingdom with underhanded tactics. The queen seeks constant validation of her beauty from a Magic Mirror (Patrick Page), until one day when the mirror declares Snow White to be “fairer” than she. The queen freaks out and orders her Huntsman (Ansu Kabia) to take Snow White into the woods and eliminate her. The Huntsman instead affords Snow White the opportunity to escape, and she flees deep into the woods, where she stumbles upon the home of (and I’ll use the Disney spelling) The Seven Dwarfs. She becomes an ally to miners Sneezy, Sleepy, Happy, Grumpy, Dopey, Doc, and Bashful, and she helps them straighten up their cottage as she tries to figure out what to do next. Perhaps the answer lies with the band of loveable bandits led by the charismatic Jonathan (Andrew Burnap) on the outskirts of the woods.

            Unlike other Disney remakes (looking at you, “Lion King”), there are some strong deviations here from the original film. Zegler’s Snow White cares deeply about the kingdom’s subjects, and we see her pay attention to their stories and needs whenever possible. She takes a more active role in overthrowing the queen, and the third act will be unrecognizable to anyone with the original ending stuck in their heads. There are even new songs, with Zegler’s “Waiting on a Wish” fitting seamlessly into the Disney songbook, while Gadot gets to wickedly chew the scenery with the villain anthem “All Is Fair.”

            The film pulls my opinion in two opposite directions. On one hand, there’s Zegler’s performance as Snow White, bringing much-needed life and passion to a character that had previously been dismissed as one of the more useless waifs in the Disney catalogue. I’ll also throw a compliment toward Burnap, playing a better-developed love interest than the unbranded, uninspired prince from 1937. I have to recommend the film based on these elements, right? But then there are the dwarfs. These hideous CGI monstrosities from the depths of the uncanny valley are offensive, not just in the sense that actual dwarf actors could have been cast in these parts (six of the seven voice actors are not dwarves), but offensive to anyone with working eyes. I can’t recommend the film based on these elements, right?

            I’m going to give “Snow White” the mildest of recommendations just because my expectations were so low going in. There’s been no end of bad publicity surrounding the races, heights, and political stances of the film’s cast, and these live-action remakes have a sour reputation for being lazy retreads of beloved animated properties. I was ready to declare this movie the worst of 2025. Instead I got a valiant, vibrant adaptation that I would sooner watch again for entertainment than the 1937 version. It isn’t perfect, and I completely understand why someone would consider the dwarfs to be deal-breakers for the entire film. But thanks mostly to Zegler, I saw enough Disney magic in the film to give it a pass.

            “Novocaine” stars Jack Quaid as Nathan Caine, a man with a condition that makes him unable to feel pain. This is an action movie, and it sounds like a man who can’t feel pain would fit right into the role of action hero, right? Actually, no. Caine’s condition is just terribly inconvenient in his everyday life. He could get cut or burned without realizing it, and if the wound is left untreated, he could get an infection. He doesn’t have the instinct to keep his tongue away from his teeth, so he has to abstain from solid foods or else he could chomp right into his tongue. He can’t even feel the pangs associated with having to go to the bathroom, so he just goes every three hours whether he needs to or not.

            Caine’s condition has led to social awkwardness, and although he’s nice to people, he has few real friends outside of unseen online gamer Roscoe (Jacob Batalon). But things change when he starts a relationship with fellow bank employee Sherry (Amber Midthunder), who has her own history with physical pain. They go on one date and Caine immediately knows he’s in love with her. He’s at a rare high point in his life at work the next day when a trio of robbers massacre that bank and take Sherry hostage as they flee. The sense of fear and potential loss is the worst feeling Caine has ever had in his life, and he’s going to rescue Sherry no matter what happens to his body in the process.

            This means getting into a series of fights with the robbers (Evan Hengst, Conrad Kemp, and Ray Nicholson). He’s nowhere near as tough or skilled as they are, but he can use his condition to his advantage. He can get hit, but he can get back up. He can stall for time by taking a beating or enduring torture until help arrives. He can even use weapons that his enemies are too afraid to touch because they’re scalding hot or submerged in a deep fryer. By the way, is it weird that this movie makes me unusually cannibalistic with a scene where Caine makes his hand extra-crispy?

            This movie can thank its lucky stars for Jack Quaid, whose sincerity and commitment to the character are the only interesting things about it. I was really looking forward to seeing Amber Midthunder again after she carried the “Predator” prequel “Prey” in 2022, but she’s disappointing in a predictable role here. Batalon is just playing a less interesting version of his “Spider-Man” sidekick character. Betty Gabriel has some heartfelt moments as a cop, but her character doesn’t have much impact on the story. Perhaps most disappointing is Ray Nicholson as the lead villain. He was so expressive and unnerving last year in “Smile 2,” but I didn’t get any of that from his bland performance here. I’d have let Conrad Kemp carry the load as primary antagonist, he has some scene-stealing qualities about his face.

            Caine’s convoluted rescue mission reminded me of the convoluted plot of “Love Hurts” from last month, a movie that I decried while praising Quaid’s performance in “Companion” in the same article. Perhaps it’s appropriate that my opinion of “Novocaine” falls squarely between those two films. This movie could have been a lot more brainless, but I quibble with its predictable story (I guessed one twist just from the trailers), lame characters outside of the lead, and tonal inconsistency. The advertising makes this movie look a lot more comedic than it is. There are gags, to be sure, but there are also long stretches where the movie plays things unexpectedly straight. Not that actors like Quaid and Gabriel aren’t good at playing things straight, but there were times when I noticed I hadn’t laughed for what seemed like several minutes. Like many of the punches Caine takes, this movie wasn’t exactly “painful,” but it certainly didn’t do me much good. 

            “Mickey 17” is the kind of movie where you just have to trust the filmmaker to take you on a ride. Fortunately, it’s a filmmaker who has proven trustworthy with such rides in the past. Six years ago, writer/director Bong Joon-ho released “Parasite,” another movie that didn’t really telegraph its story. Even if people knew about its early stages about an impoverished family taking on jobs as servants of a wealthy family, they probably wouldn’t have been able to guess where the story was going. But enough people trusted Bong enough to see the film, which they overwhelmingly loved. Word of mouth carried the film to a Best Picture Oscar win, even though it was still a tricky movie to summarize because of all the subtleties and tonal shifts.

“Mickey 17” isn’t nearly as complex or obscure as “Parasite,” but it requires a similar leap of faith. That is to say, the mere premise of Robert Pattinson on a spaceship dying over and over again may not sound all that appealing, but Robert Pattinson on a spaceship dying over and over again, brought to us by the guy that did “Parasite”? I’ll buy a ticket, because I’m sure Bong is going somewhere awesome with this. And yes, the movie does go to some awesome places, though not every place it goes is awesome.

Pattinson plays Mickey, an “expendable” onboard a spaceship headed toward an alien planet. He was only allowed on the spaceship, which got him away from loan sharks on Earth, because he volunteered for the most dangerous job. The deep-sea pipeline workers in last week’s “Last Breath” were said to have one of the most dangerous jobs on Earth. With all due respect to those characters, Mickey’s job is the most dangerous off of Earth, and the likelihood of death is 100%.

Mickey’s job is to be a test subject for all things deadly. The dangers of outer space, viruses, artificial food, and the atmosphere of the new planet are all things tried on Mickey. And sometimes he dies. But it’s okay, because the ship’s scientists can use an elaborate printer to make a new body, upload his conscience from a computer, and just like that, Mickey’s ready for another task. When we join Mickey, he’s died 16 times and is mostly just bored with his job, though he does enjoy the company of friend from Earth Timo (Steven Yuen) and girlfriend onboard the ship Nasha (Naomi Ackie). Still, Mickey 17 isn’t thrilled about being left for dead on a freezing planet with creatures known as Creepers descending on him.

To Mickey 17’s surprise, he survives the encounter, and returns to the ship to discover that there’s already a Mickey 18. This is a big no-no with the cloning technology, punishable by death for both beings. The two have to work out a way to co-exist, which means finding a way to share work, rest, food, and… “affections” from Nasha. Plus they want to save the population of both the ship and the new planet from war-mongering commander Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) and his power-hungry wife Ylfa (Toni Collette). Sorry to introduce these characters as near-afterthoughts, but the movie never does quite find a way to fit them neatly into Mickey’s story.

There’s really only one great thing about “Mickey 17,” but it’s the most important thing, and that’s Pattinson’s relatable everyman (and multiple-man) performance. Funny, endearing, and of course multi-faceted, Pattinson is literally doing the work of many men to earn this movie a recommendation by the skin of its teeth. The rest of the movie is something of a mess with its weird chronology, superfluous subplots, unnecessary screentime for its villains, and pointless ambiguity in a sequence toward the end. The film is based on a book, and maybe certain detours worked better on paper than they do onscreen. Maybe the script should have gone through a few revisions and Mickey-style regenerations.

            The newly-crowned Best Picture Oscar winner stars Mikey Madison (herself the winner of the Best Actress Oscar) as the title character, a sex worker who doesn’t allow herself to have any delusions about her life. That is, until she meets wealthy young Russian Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), who falls in love with her and promises her a life of luxury. For possibly the first time in her life, Ani allows herself to be hopeful about the future, and her dreams seem to come true when she and Vanya get married. But one day, three “business associates” (Karren Karagulian, Vache Tovmasyan, and Oscar nominee Yura Borisov) of Vanya’s oligarch father show up at Vanya’s house, tasked with getting the marriage annulled. Anora’s chance at a better life is about to fall to pieces, and Vanya doesn’t help things by simply disappearing, which sends everyone on a crazed search together, but with conflicting goals.

            The cast plays well off each other, and the desperate search scenes play deliciously into my anxieties in a way that no movie has triggered since 2019’s “Uncut Gems.” But the heart of the movie is in the Madison performance as a character who refuses to admit how pathetic she truly is, including and especially to herself. In that way, “Anora” is the most heartbreaking film of 2024. It’s also the funniest film of 2024, with all the shenanigans between Anora and the Russian goons, especially Borisov. Oscar-winning director Sean Baker made sure all tones were covered in his Oscar-winning script, then he went and won another Oscar for editing. This movie is so tragic, uproarious, infuriating, and beautiful that I was literally stumbling around in a daze after I left the theater. The one thing that was clear was that I had just seen the best movie not just of 2024, but the last five years. And if you have room in your heart for a very raunchy indie movie, I suggest you see it too.

Grade: A for Anora!

            This movie tells the real-life story of a mission to rescue a deep-sea pipeline worker stranded at the bottom of the ocean. Finn Cole plays the terrified diver, Simu Liu is his partner and the only diver capable of such a dangerous rescue, Woody Harrelson operates the underwater vessel that Cole and Liu use as a base, and Cliff Curtis is the captain of the ship in charge of the vessel. Everyone has to be very smart, capable, and careful, and they have to do it all in the middle of a huge storm. It doesn’t look good for our marooned main character, who has only a ten-minute supply of oxygen.

            “Last Breath” has its heart in the right place, trying to make a memorable cinematic experience out of real heroism. It does what it can to wring every last drop of suspense out of an operation that, mathematically, must have been over relatively quickly (quickly for a feature-length movie, not to be without oxygen). But the banter, emotional beats, and character types can be found in any number of similar films. The only thing this movie really has to boast about is its ability to recreate danger and make its audience very uncomfortable. How eager are you to sit through a movie that can’t sell itself on anything other than making you uncomfortable?

            “The Monkey” is a movie on the sillier end of the horror spectrum. It’s so silly that the catalyst for the many, many deaths that occur throughout its runtime is a literal toy. Granted, it’s a toy that I’ve never known anyone to actually like, and come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one referenced in popular culture without accompanying commentary about its creepiness. I’m speaking, of course, about the eponymous monkey: a wind-up primate that plays a drum. The monkey in this movie is indeed creepy, but it’s far from the scariest I’ve ever seen. In fact, I’d say this hard-R horror movie has a less freaky monkey than the one in the G-rated “Toy Story 3.” But the scares here don’t come from the monkey itself so much as the horrific (but again, very silly) violence that accompanies the monkey everywhere.

The film follows twins Hal and Bill Shelburn, both played by Christian Covery as children and by Theo James as an adult. I’m a sucker for actors giving multi-character performances (I’ve always been nuts about Mike Myers in “Austin Powers”) and this movie gives us not one, but two solid entries into the tradition. As kids, Hal and Bill stumble across a toy monkey abandoned by their absentee father (Adam Scott). The bullying Bill is quick to dismiss the toy, but the meek Hal sees potential in it. He winds up the toy, it bashes its drum, and later that night someone in the vicinity of the boys dies.

Following one of the silliest funerals in movie history, Hal figures out that winding the monkey gives him power over life and death. He knows he shouldn’t use the power for evil, but maybe just one more time to fix a problem. The problem doesn’t get fixed as planned, and the boys’ dynamic with their jaded-but-loving mother (Tatiana Maslany) is changed forever. Hal confides with Bill about the monkey’s power, and the two try to destroy it to no avail. They imprison the monkey at the bottom of a well, and that works for a few decades, but this being a horror movie of course it’s going to come back to haunt them as adults.

Adult Hal is a mess, feeling guilt over the deaths he caused and allowing himself very little contact with his son Petey (Colin O’Brien) out of fear that the monkey may strike again. The two go on a road trip for some rare quality time, but monkey-influenced killings start up almost immediately. Hal wants answers, which can only be found at the site where the monkey was exiled. It turns out that the monkey has been on a sort of killing spree throughout the town, with all the deaths rules as accidents, of course. The answers must lie with Bill, from whom Hal is estranged, having never even introduced him to Petey. In order to stop the killings, Hal and Bill are going to have to reconcile and face their past, at which time they can hopefully think of something to do about the killer monkey.

The story description of “The Monkey” doesn’t sound all that funny, but trust me, this is a movie with humor at almost every turn. I say “almost” because there are just enough serious scenes for the movie to suffer from tonal whiplash, especially in later stages. I know director Osgood Perkins wants us to enjoy the film while still considering the deep themes about the responsibilities one has to their family. It’s not that I mind the film attempting to balance the heavy with the light (to the extent that over-the-top violence can be considered “light”), but it never manages to pull off the balancing act as seamlessly as it wants. Still, I’m giving the movie a recommendation because its appeal lies in its dark humor, and on that front, it’s roughly as fun as a barrel of monkeys.

            The Marvel Cinematic Universe at large got to take a break in 2024. Sure, “Deadpool & Wolverine” was one of the biggest hits of the year, but that was more about Disney showing off its newly-acquired 20^th Century Fox toys than advancing the lore of its bread-and-butter franchise. But “Captain America: Brave New World” brings back the classics, invoking two characters that brought fans into the MCU in the first place: Captain America and The Incredible Hulk. Sure, it’s the Sam “Falcon” Wilson (Anthony Mackie) version of Captain America, and the Hulk connection doesn’t actually involve Bruce Banner, but a good movie can make audiences care about the evolution of these characters even without the more familiar faces. Unfortunately, this particular movie seems to be reminding people less of the glory days of the MCU and more of why it needed to take a break.

            It has been six years since Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers handed over his shield and moniker to protégé Sam Wilson. Before he was even comfortable calling himself Captain America, Wilson went through an adventure with the Winter Soldier on a Disney+ show I didn’t see, and now he spends his days on government-sanctioned missions with his own protégé, Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez), who seems to have been unofficially promoted to Falcon. The team performs so well in a mission to stop mercenary Sidewinder (Giancarlo Esposito), that they and mentor Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) earn an invitation to the White House under old Hulk nemesis and newly-elected President Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford, taking over the role from the late William Hurt). Ross is so happy with Wilson’s recent work that he offers to let him reform a sanctioned version of The Avengers. But the deal falls through when Bradley inexplicably tries to assassinate Ross, which leads to Bradley imprisoned and Cap wanting answers.

            Conducting an unauthorized investigation against the orders of Ross and security advisor Ruth Bat-Seraph (Shira Haas), Wilson discovers that Bradley was the victim of mind control. The goal was not to kill Ross, but to kill a peace treaty that he hoped would define his legacy. The next step is to cause a world war to kill the treaty, because the entity pulling the strings on the conspiracy just hates Ross that much. As if the possibility of war weren’t enough, the villain has another trick up their sleeve related to the Ross-turning-into-Red-Hulk imagery that’s been used in all the advertising.

            The popular complaints about this movie are legitimate. The evil plan at the center of the film is ridiculously complicated and requires multiple exposition dumps, and in addition to the multiple dumps about Ross’s ascension to the Presidency, there’s a whole lot of dumping going on. New characters like Torres, Bat-Seraph, and even Sidewinder add little to the story, the latter of which is especially disappointing considering how much I’ve liked Esposito in other roles. The villain is pathetic and their motivations are childish. And I’m not sure if this is the fault of Ford or the effects team, but Red Hulk looks silly, not threatening.

            All of this leads me to not recommend “Captain America: Brave New World.” There are things to like about this movie, namely the performances by Mackie and Ford. Mackie’s passion proves that he is more than capable of carrying a Captain America movie, though hopefully he’ll get to carry better ones in the future. Ford conveys a real anguish with a character whose world is doomed to come crashing down at any moment, he just wants to achieve one goal for good before that moment comes. These two efforts, along with Lumbly as a traumatized veteran forced to live through all-new traumas, come close to saving the movie, they really do. But the MCU is the gold standard for blockbusters, and it needs to put out better complete packages than what we get here.

            For whatever reason, the studios decided that the Valentine’s movies America wanted this year weren’t romantic comedies or sweeping dramas, but violent R-rated fare with varying degrees of love and relationship theming. Frankly none of these movies are going to be big commercial hits, with “Captain America: Brave New World” sure to be the holiday’s real winner. That’s why I’m smooshing these movies all together here, because they have a way of cancelling each other out. For example, even though the lot includes my favorite film of 2025 so far, it also includes my least favorite. Which brings me to…

“Love Hurts”

            Ke Huy Quan stars as Marvin Gable, a suburban realtor with a dark past. He used to be an enforcer for his crime-boss brother Knuckles (Daniel Wu), but quit when he couldn’t kill loose-end lawyer Rose (Ariana DeBose). He let Rose live on the condition that she disappear and let Knuckles think she was dead, but now she’s tired of hiding. She wants to take Knuckles down for good and she wants Marvin to help her do it. Should Marvin leave his agreeable new life behind? Do he and Rose even have what it takes to defeat Knuckles and his army of henchmen and hitmen?

            The film is a storytelling mess, with a convoluted storyline about stolen money distracting from Marvin’s key arc. Supporting players, most of them hitmen, try to steal scenes by being quirky, but they’re just annoying time-wasters (although Quan’s “Goonies” co-star Sean Astin has a juicy scene as his best friend). Exposition is dumped in awkward narration. The choppy action scenes are even more awkward. This is a movie that wants to be nothing more than a series of fights, has no idea how to put a story around them, and then doesn’t even get the fights right.

Grade: D

“Heart Eyes”

            “Heart Eyes” stars Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding as a pair of bickering co-workers who, by the law of romantic comedies, are destined to fall in love on Valentine’s Day. Problem is, this is no rom-com, this is a slasher movie with a killer whose fetish is killing loving couples. Our leads run afoul of the killer, even though they’re not really a couple, though they might end up as one through this shared experience… if they manage to live, of course.

            The movie has two charismatic leads and some genuinely funny, twisted jokes. But its constant need to subvert cliches becomes predictable after a while (“what will ruin the sweet moment this time?”) and it really falls apart toward the end when it starts playing its horror straight. There are some fun ideas in play here, but not enough for me to say that I love this movie.

Grade: C

“Companion”

            “Companion” stars Sophie Thatcher as Iris, a woman being taken by her boyfriend Josh (Jack Quaid) to a remote mansion in the woods to meet his friends. She tries to fit in for Josh’s sake, but his friends seem weirdly standoffish. One of them assaults her and an even more brutal act of violence follows. In the aftermath, we learn that the seemingly mild-mannered Josh has been more… “controlling” of Iris than previously thought.

            The film is an equally funny and sick series of cat-and-mouse games between the two leads. Thatcher, between this and last year’s trapping “Heretic,” can now officially call herself a Scream Queen. But it’s Jack Quaid who steals the movie. This role is going to make it hard for him to get a date for a while. I’m not saying that he isn’t handsome, but there’s an unmistakable brand of inner ugliness in play. See this movie with a date and you’ll both have fun squirming.

            All January long, I’ve been mentioning (okay, “whining”) that the month is a dead zone for new movie releases. So it makes sense that the biggest release of the month would be one that opened on the very last day (Friday the 31^st) before making most of its money in February. With an estimated $36 million in its first three days, “Dog Man” is already the biggest new movie of 2025. And its success isn’t just commercial, the joyful film also gets my first recommendation of the year. It’s a chilly recommendation, appropriate for January I suppose, but a recommendation nonetheless.

            The animated film is a spinoff from the “Captain Underpants” franchise. Apparently it’s based on a comic book created by the two kid protagonists of that series. Although I’ve never read any of the books or seen the 2017 film, this film does indeed seem like the brainchild of actual children. This is good because the film never loses its childlike sense of wonder or energy. But it’s also a hindrance because the story can sometimes seem like it was thrown together for a school assignment. It was like one of the kids realized at the last minute that their story was nothing but jokes and action, so they halfheartedly threw in some serious moments and a lesson so the teacher wouldn’t take points off for lacking substance.

            The story goes that human police officer Knight (Peter Hastings) and his dog partner Greg fail in an attempt to disable a bomb planted by the evil Petey the Cat (Pete Davidson). The resulting explosion destroys Knight’s head and Greg’s body, but thanks to a dubious feat of medical engineering, a singular being with the dog’s head and the human’s body can be salvaged. The resulting Dog Man is a “Supa Cop” with Greg’s smarts and Knight’s physical conditioning – the best of both worlds. He’s a great boon to the community, much to the chagrin of the unpopular Chief (Lil Rel Howery), but his sights are set on shutting down the villainous Petey for good.

            Petey, irate that he unintentionally just created the best cop in the city, clones himself in an attempt to double his brainpower and productivity, but this too backfires. He does indeed get another version of himself, but as a newborn… or at least as an adorable young kitten (Lucas Hopkins Calderon) that essentially serves as a son, in need of love and care. Petey isn’t cut out for fatherhood because he’s so evil, and because he doesn’t need a youngster interfering with his plan to resurrect a telekinetic fish (Ricky Gervais) to defeat Dog Man, and because he had a bad relationship with his own father (Stephen Root). Petey has so many problems at once that he winds up stealing the movie from Dog Man, whose need to be a do-gooder following his creation is predictably commonplace and surprisingly dull at times.

            Ultimately it’s the child character that brings out the best in the adults around him, and in a way that’s the perfect metaphor for this childish movie likely bringing out the best in the adults that watch it (if you can call my low-level recommendation my “best”). Simply put, even though this movie doesn’t do much for me, it’s practically impossible to dislike. Even though I wish the heartfelt moments weren’t so forced, there were fewer go-nowhere storylines (the Chief practically disappears toward the end of the movie), and the humor was more to my taste (I don’t like jokes about dogs licking things), I just can’t stay mad at a movie this silly and sweet. “Dog Man” is less a movie for adults to enjoy and more a movie for them to enjoy how much their kids enjoy it. But I can at least picture how much kids are bound to enjoy it, and that helped me enjoy it.

            I notice that I’ve given a “C” rating to every movie I’ve reviewed in 2025. That’s four straight times I’ve basically said that the movie, while not worth writing off entirely, isn’t worth recommending. I even split the review last weekend and gave out two “C” ratings. Director Mel Gibson’s “Flight Risk” ends the “C” streak. It doesn’t end the streak by earning my recommendation, but by being a movie that I feel is indeed worth writing off.

            The film follows U.S. Marshal Madolyn Harris (Michelle Dockery) as she captures mob accountant Winston (Topher Grace) in rural Alaska. Winston agrees to testify against a dangerous crime boss, which means that he and Madolyn will be targets for assassination until she can deliver him to ironclad protective custody in Anchorage. The handoff will be easy, as long as nothing goes wrong with the transfer flight. Things go wrong with the transfer flight.

            The pilot, ostensibly named Booth (Mark Wahlberg), seems like a nice guy, if a little bumpkin-y and eager to share his romantic history. But there’s nothing to indicate that he isn’t a competent pilot, so Madolyn and a bound Winston board his rickety plane. It’s only when the three are in the air and miles away from anywhere safe to land that things start to go awry. The plane goes through more turbulence than it should. The communication system goes on the fritz. Booth says things that don’t add up. And Winston finds an ID for the plane’s pilot, who looks nothing like Mark Wahlberg.

            It turns out that Wahlberg’s never-properly-named character is an assassin that took out the real Booth and stole his plane in an effort to kill Madolyn and Winston. The reason he didn’t kill them as soon as they boarded was that he wants to fly them deep into the wilderness and have unspecified “fun” with them. It’s weak reasoning, but without it the film can’t set up its central conflict: that of Madolyn and Winston trying to stay alive despite the threat from both the assassin inside the plane and the elements outside. Because neither Madolyn nor Winston know how to fly the plane and the assassin doesn’t have much interest in getting them to safety.

            The bulk of the film is the three characters playing off each other as they try to make it out in one piece. Occasionally a call is placed to someone on the ground, like Madolyn’s superior at the Marshal’s office (Leah Remini) or the office’s director (Paul Ben-Victor) or a flirty piloting expert (Maaz Ali), but if the plane is going to land safely, it’s going to have to be by somebody on the plane. Arguments and negotiations inevitably ensue, but it’s easy to tell that the whole thing is going to come down to violence.

            “Flight Risk” is trying to be the kind of “bottle movie” where the isolation itself makes for an intense atmosphere and what the cast lacks in quantity, the actors make up for in quality and chemistry. The problem is that these actors can’t come close to saving this material. Grace brings a sitcom-level energy to a character with sub-sitcom-level jokes. Wahlberg’s assassin, once exposed, is so sadistic and crazy that it’s unbelievable that he was ever smart enough to keep up the ruse for so long. At least Dockery gets out relatively unscathed with her perfectly rootable heroine that keeps this movie above the “D” level. Everything else about this movie wishes it could pass for average. The dialogue is below average. The action (especially at the end) is below average. And once his character loses his cap, we see that Wahlberg’s hairline is way, way below average.

            “One of Them Days” follows two roommates and best friends, Dreux (Keke Palmer) and Alyssa (SZA), as they struggle to raise an emergency $1,500 to avoid eviction. Dreux is the responsible one, on the verge of a big promotion at work. Alyssa is the irresponsible one that trusted her no-good boyfriend (Joshua David Neal) with their rent money in the first place. Together they’ll get into some increasingly crazy and desperate adventures involving predatory loans, blood donation, abandoned sneakers, and more.

            The good news is that Palmer and SZA have given life to two very funny and likeable characters that play extremely well off each other. The bad news is that they’re only funny with each other, the film fails to create any other funny or memorable characters. This wouldn’t be a problem if the story could emphasize the mains more, but this is a movie that requires its leads to interact with a whole wacky neighborhood that can never find quite the right way to be wacky. It’s not even that the auxiliary characters are annoying or actively unfunny, they’re just so bland that they make no impression.

            Watching “One of Them Days,” I thought about the film’s obvious influences, from “Clerks” to “Friday” to “Do the Right Thing,” and I thought about how those films would have gotten the most out of the clearly-eager supporting cast and put together a more memorable film as a whole. As it is, we have a comedy where I’d estimate that a third to half of the gags work. I’ve had some painful experiences with worse ratios, but I can’t say this one made me feel fulfilled.

            It’s an odd choice to do a sequel to the 2018 heist movie “Den of Thieves” in 2025. The first film made less than $50 million at the domestic box office and to my knowledge doesn’t have much of a cult following. I didn’t see that film at the time, but I did see it on Max to prepare for the sequel, and was unimpressed. There was some competent action, but the story and characters were unoriginal and unengaging. I would have given it a C-. For such a bland movie to get a sequel at all seems unlikely, let alone one that goes to theaters and isn’t dumped on streaming or Video on Demand. For all I know, that was the plan and then some studio executive noticed there were no wide releases scheduled for this past weekend, so they just threw in whatever they had. The tactic worked, the film took the #1 spot away from the fourth weekend of “Mufasa,” but this is not a movie that I could see succeeding through any means other than a lack of competition.

            Gerard Butler is back as L.A. detective Nick O’Brien, still in pursuit of the elusive Donnie Wilson (O’Shea Jackson Jr.). Donnie and a crew stole $30 million from the Federal Reserve in the first movie in a job that left both cops and criminals dead, with Donnie himself getting away scot-free. Nick seems more concerned with avenging his own humiliation than any fallen comrades. Whatever his motivations, he tracks Donnie to France, where he and another crew are about to ransack the World Diamond Centre. Nick could just arrest Donnie, but he makes another play: joining in on the heist himself.

            What follows is your standard heist movie protocol: Nick gaining the trust of the Pantera crew led by Jovanna (Evin Ahmad), pushing out those that don’t trust him, doing some light bonding with Donnie and the faithful members of the crew, manipulating the technology and staff of the WDC, and getting on the bad side of the local mafia for an inevitable third-act twist. Then there’s the heist itself, which is so smooth that the movie barely remembers to throw in a few wrinkles to keep viewers from falling asleep. Clocks tick, cars are driven. There’s never really a question of whether or not the crew can evade the WDC’s security, the suspense comes from wondering who’s going to betray whom and how violent it will be. The film is R-rated and the first movie was pretty violent, so things could get messy.

            As with the first movie, this one just doesn’t make much of an impact. Neither film ever rises above coming off as a “Fast & Furious” knockoff. This film admirably tries to give some much-needed depth to the Butler and Jackson characters, and the actors are fine, but even with the fleshing-out, these characters are completely standard for a movie like this. A third movie is heavily teased, and I won’t exactly say no to spending more time with the surviving characters, but the studio is going to have to find another deserted weekend if it wants me to have any enthusiasm. And getting one of these movies down to under two hours certainly wouldn’t hurt.

            After I saw “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera,” my friends asked me if I liked it. When I told them I didn’t, they all asked some variation on, “So it didn’t live up to the original?” No, the original was too disposable. This one is only mildly disposable. I can see the game being upped a smidge. It’s not to a point where I give it a recommendation, but for a sequel to a movie that was easy to dismiss seven years ago, it’s surprisingly hard to dismiss now.

            Like many critics, I despised the 2019 version of “The Lion King.” The washed-out animation was ugly and the rehashing of the story from the 1994 classic without many changes made the whole thing seem unnecessary. But unlike many critics, I’m not ready to throw prequel “Mufasa: The Lion King” away just because of the sins of its predecessor. I’m not saying that it’s not still inextricably tied to the 2019 film, especially with its still-terrible CGI animation, but the story and characters can do some roaming on their own that makes for a breath of fresh air.

            The film opens with familiar characters Simba (Donald Glover) and Nala (Beyoncé Knowles-Carter) going away on some adult lion business and leaving their cub Kiara (Blue Ivy Carter) in the care of comic relief meerkat Timon (Billy Eichner) and warthog Pumbaa (Seth Rogen). A storm is approaching, Kiara is scared, and Timon and Pumbaa’s danger-fraught stories aren’t helping. Wizened mandril Rafiki (John Kani), an old friend of the family, steps in and tells Kiara a story about her grandfather Mufasa’s bravery so that she won’t just be soothed, she’ll be inspired to be brave herself. The framing device isn’t a bad idea in and of itself, and Kiara is important to this world with the Circle of Life and all that, but Timon and Pumbaa are nothing but grating here. Their tired, lowbrow schtick gets the movie off to such a bad start that frankly I can understand why some people think they’re a deal-breaker for the entire film.

            Fortunately, things pick up once the movie commits to the story of Mufasa (voiced as a cub by Braelyn and Brielle Rankins). A flood took him away from his parents (Anika Noni Rose and Keith David – because of course it took two of the greatest voices in the world to sire a character with the all-time great voice of James Earl Jones) and he was rescued by Taka (Theo Somolu), an unblemished prince from a faraway pride who is quick to consider him a brother. King Obasi (Lennie James) allows Mufasa to live with the pride on the condition that he mostly live with the lionesses, led by Queen Eshe (Thandiwe Newton). This is supposed to be humiliation, but while Taka grows up learning rotten lessons from his jerk father, Mufasa picks up useful practical skills. He’s even able to protect Taka and Eshe from the son of evil lion Kiros (Mads Mikkelsen), who sets his sights on wiping out the entire pride, sending Taka and Mufasa fleeing toward a sanctuary called Milele.

            Along the way, Mufasa (now Aaron Pierre) and Taka (now Kelvin Harrison Jr.) make friends with Rafiki, as well as fellow lion Sarabi (Tiffany Boone) and her guide-bird Zazu (Preston Nyman), and they form an unlikely pack. Both Taka and Mufasa develop feelings for Sarabi, but Mufasa is bound by his honor to defer to Taka. Sarabi falls for Mufasa anyway, and Taka considers it a betrayal. The team has to not only worry about making it to Milele with Kiros in pursuit, but dissention between two lions that were, for all intents and purposes, brothers.

            Yes, it’s easy to see where the story is going when you consider that certain characters have to end up in certain places by the time “The Lion King” rolls around. Yes, the animation still isn’t great, but it’s only obnoxiously bad in close-ups, which admittedly the film does far too often. And yes, the songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda (which sometimes invoke “Moana” more than the actual “Moana” sequel from a few weeks back) aren’t as memorable as the Elton John songs from 1994. But sorry, no, none of that ruins the movie for me. I still found myself invested in these characters, Timon and Pumbaa aside. I see enough effort and passion here that I’m willing to give “Mufasa: The Lion King” a very shaky recommendation.

            Robert Eggers is one of those directors that always puts out exactly the movie he wants. I’m not saying that as a comment on his professionalism or his attitude, I’m saying that because he clearly has the ability to shut down naysayers. If he didn’t, we’d never get the archaic dialogue of 2015’s “The Witch” or the grainy imagery of 2019’s “The Lighthouse.” Here’s another idea that must have sounded ludicrous to his financial backers: a remake of a groundbreaking vampire film from over 100 years ago, a film whose legendary status makes it practically untouchable. The original came out five years before groundbreaking talkie “The Jazz Singer,” and there must have been a fear that Eggers’ take on the material would be about as well-received as the 1980 Neil Diamond version of that film (which is to say not well). But because Eggers puts out only what he wants, we have this sexually-tinged horror movie competing with Christmas blockbusters at the box office, and admirably holding its own.

            The film tells the tragic story of Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) and Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), a young couple living in Germany in 1838. Real estate agent Thomas is on the verge of a promotion by his boss, Herr Knock (Simon McBurney), who needs him to do just one thing before securing his future: travel to Transylvania and get a signature from a wealthy client, an eccentric count. Ellen (who dabbled in summoning supernatural spirits when she was a teenager) doesn’t want Thomas to go, as she’s having weird dreams and fearing that her past may not be done with her. But Thomas needs the promotion, so he leaves Ellen with friends Friedrich (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Anna (Emma Corrin) and sets out to meet the mysterious count by the name of… Orlok (Bill Skarsgård). Yeah, we know it’s really Dracula, but the 1922 film couldn’t get the rights to the book, so we’re stuck with Orlok.

            Orlok is as imposing as he is bizarre. He lives in the creepiest castle imaginable, drinks questionable beverages (an Eggers staple), and sleeps in a coffin all day. Thomas takes care of business and later gets into a fight with Orlok, which both parties barely survive. He flees to what he thinks is safety at home, unaware that Orlok is already traveling there to seize control of Ellen, herself becoming more sickly as Orlok grows in power, much to the distress of her caretakers. The vampire (or “nosferatu”) wants her all to himself, and he’s willing to bring a deadly plague upon the entire country, not to mention harming her loved ones, in order to have her. Thomas’s only hope lies with controversial doctor Von Franz (Willem Dafoe), who is an expert on vampires in theory, but has no practical experience. Things get really icky as Orlok unleashes his powers further, including using hypnosis to get victims to violate some serious taboos.

            “Nosferatu” is certainly a competent movie. Eggers is seeing his vision through to its full potential in areas like production design and performances. His drive and eye for detail are required of any filmmaker that wants to take on the challenge of such a cinematic institution. I can’t think of a filmmaker that could have done a better job with this material, I just question how badly we needed this job done at all. I would have been fine with leaving the 1922 classic alone and not subjecting audiences to some of the more unsavory aspects of this movie. Indeed, Robert Eggers has once again put out exactly the movie he wants. I just can’t say that it’s the movie “I” want. If you’re not in the mood for something so dark, serious, and occasionally stomach-churning, then this probably isn’t the movie “you” want.

            The “Sonic the Hedgehog” movie franchise has had quite the history. In 2019, jokes about the poorly-received first trailer were everywhere in pop culture. Paramount, to its credit, took the vitriol as constructive criticism and spent months redesigning the main character to have a more palatable appearance. When the upgraded movie was released in 2020, all was forgiven and the movie was a hit. The 2022 sequel was also a bigger hit than expected, with “Morbius” bombing the week before and audiences hungry for a blockbuster. And with the third film already earning over $60 million at the domestic box office in its first weekend, it’s a safe bet that it will be the biggest hit of Christmas 2024. The journey from Internet punching bag to must-see holiday destination is indeed an inspiring one, much more than anything that happens onscreen in the mess that is “Sonic the Hedgehog 3.”

            As we check in with Sonic (Ben Schwartz), he’s enjoying domestic life on Earth with his adoptive human parents Tom (James Marsden) and Maddie (Tika Sumpter) and his home-planet sorta-siblings, fox Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessey) and echidna Knuckles (Idris Elba). But the good times can’t last, as the government needs Team Sonic to fight off a threat from another superpowered space hedgehog. Shadow (Keanu Reeves) has escaped from a secret government facility and is up to no good. Even with a 3-on-1 advantage, the heroes are easily bested and Shadow gets away. If they want to defeat Shadow, they’re going to have to align with hedgehog expert and dormant supervillain Dr. Ivo Robotnik (Jim Carrey).

            Robotnik and his long-suffering assistant Stone (Lee Majdoub) help Team Sonic track Shadow to an abandoned facility where they learn that the heelish hedgehog isn’t working alone. Dr. Gerald Robotnik (also Carrey), Ivo’s grandfather, has been helping the former science specimen for decades. Together they’re working on an evil scheme to control a doomsday device. Ivo immediately turns on the others once he discovers that family is involved, so the next battle in London is essentially a 3-on-3 with Team Sonic vs. Shadow and the Robotniks. Then, of course, the final showdown is at the weapon itself with only seconds to spare, most of those seconds used by the heroes to try to convince the villains not to blow up the world.

            Action and story-wise, this movie is a yawn. I can’t imagine anybody coming out of this movie saying that it was really cool when a character did this or it was a surprise when the movie took that turn. That leaves humor as the movie’s distinguishing characteristic, which is a shame because a lot of it missed for me. The heroes’ jokes could be found in any number of similar family action movies, including but not limited to the MCU. The returning character that probably got the most laughs out of me was Knuckles, thanks to Elba’s gravitas-filled delivery, but even his lines feel like Drax the Destroyer leftovers. As for comedy legend Carrey, I assure you that playing two characters doesn’t make him twice as funny. Twice as annoying, maybe, but he’s doing all of his infamous mugging without much of his famous passion. I say “much” because, like Elba, he did get a few laughs out of me, but not enough to come close to saving the day.

            As far as I’m concerned, the only thing that “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” has going for it is that it could be worse. We could be three movies deep into this franchise with the way Sonic originally looked, with the lanky body and humanoid teeth. Yes, I know that releasing the first movie like that might have killed the sequels, but it also could have brought about two even uglier sequels. At least this way it’s a marginally better-looking character getting shoved down our throats.

            In between the blockbusters of the Thanksgiving season and the blockbusters of the Christmas season comes “Kraven the Hunter,” a movie that was never going to be a blockbuster in any season. Sergei “Kraven” Kravinoff (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is another one of those Spider-Man villains that’s getting his own movie because Sony still has a piece of the “Spider-Man” franchise and they think fans will mistake it for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is owned by Disney. “Venom,” “Morbius,” and “Madame Web” are all part of the same branch. Supposedly there are (or at least “were”) plans for a big Avengers-style crossover down the line, but these movies keep bombing so badly that fans don’t care if they continue.

            Kraven’s origin is that he and his brother Dmitri (Fred Hechinger) were brought up by their imposing Russian gangster father Nikolai (Russell Crowe), who was big on hunting metaphors. After their mother died under mysterious circumstances, Nikolai took the boys on a hunting trip, where Sergei was mauled by a lion. He nearly died, but aspiring voodoo priestess Calypso (eventually played by Ariana DeBose) gave him a magical potion that not only restored his health, but gave him the ability to communicate with animals. Now Kraven is a hunter like his father, but instead of animals, he hunts people. Sometimes this just means tracking people down to talk to them (like Calypso, who’s now a lawyer), but usually it means killing bad guys.

            Kraven spends most of the movie trying to protect Dmitri, whether it’s from their father’s control or from a rival gangster known as The Rhino (Alessandro Nivola). The Rhino employs an assassin called The Foreigner (Christopher Abbott), whose gimmick is that he can disappear while he counts to three, then pop out somewhere unexpected, usually to kill someone. The moment I met this character, I knew his downfall was going to come in a scene where he disappears for a two-count, then something “surprising” keeps him from reaching three. The movie could have done without the dull Foreigner, since it already has a pretty good surefire villain in The Rhino and a complicated villain in Nikolai.

            For that matter, the protagonists aren’t bad either. I can actually see Taylor-Johnson, Hechinger, DeBose, Nivola, and Crowe making an effort here. I can see Taylor-Johnson turning Kraven into a cool character under different circumstances. I got a few chuckles out of Nivola’s scenery-chewing. But this isn’t a movie that knows how to capitalize on the talent in its ranks. This is a movie that is here to slap together a few smoldering shots for publicity stills, a few action scenes for trailers, and call it a day. Taylor-Johnson is fine when he’s giving a performance, but not when “Kraven” is unconvincingly hopping around a supposed maximum-security prison. Nivola gives his character some engaging personality, but it’s hard to notice when he’s become an ugly (not terrifying, just ugly) CGI Rhino.

            “Kraven the Hunter” is just another in a long line of Spider-Man-adjacent bombs. There’s only one way I see these Sony also-rans having any kind of future: Disney needs to buy them for a song and bring them over for the crossover with the one character that can make them interesting. I’m not talking about Spider-Man, I’m talking about Deadpool! Don’t laugh (or do, I don’t care), he’s helped the public regain interest in the likes of Elektra, Chris Evans’ Human Torch, even himself after his awful 2009 debut. He’s on a roll and I’d love a movie that’s 20% superhero adventure and 80% jokes at the expense of how badly these characters flopped in their own movies. And yes, this movie is a such a flop.

            “Gladiator II” has some awfully big sandals to fill, both commercially and creatively. Its predecessor, 2000’s “Gladiator,” made $187 million at the domestic box office. The new film has thus far made an estimated $132 million after three weekends of release. With a lot of money up for grabs in the upcoming holiday season, another $55 million isn’t out of the question. Maybe I could even stretch to see it making the $68 million it needs to hit the $200 million mark. Yes, inflation means that it’s less impressive to make these numbers now than it did nearly a quarter-century ago, but these are attainable goals. What I do not see as attainable is the sequel ever becoming as well-regarded as the original. That film won the Academy Award for Best Picture, so already the new one has to live up to an impossibly high (dare I say “gold”?) standard. But even with realistic standards, this movie is still a disappointment.

            The second film takes place a few decades after the first, with the once-great Roman Empire ready to collapse under the blissfully-ignorant rule of twin emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger). They’re still greedy enough to want to expand the empire, so they send out top general Acacius (Pedro Pascal) to conquer a kingdom in Africa. Acacius doesn’t believe in the imperialist cause, but he’s sworn allegiance to his home, so he sacks the kingdom, which includes killing the wife of top soldier Hanno (Paul Mescal), who swears revenge.

            Hanno is taken prisoner and sold into slavery, where he’s served up as a potential gladiator without much consideration. But he impresses in his tryout against a troop of baboons, and is purchased by Macrinus (Denzel Washington), a former slave who sees managing gladiators as a way to curry favor with the emperors, feeding into political ambitions and possibly even a power grab. He makes a deal with Hanno that if his “personal instrument of destruction” can become a superstar in the Colosseum, he’ll eventually give him a chance at revenge against Acacius.

Hanno is conflicted between wanting revenge and not wanting to be used as a political pawn for a slimeball like Macrinus. He’s not conflicted about wanting to stay alive, however, so he plays along in putting together a string of victories. Also, Acacius’s wife Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), the daughter of former emperor Aurelius, notices that Hanno bears a striking resemblance to her long-lost son Luscious. And Luscious’s father… is not Acacius.

The story and action aren’t very engaging in “Gladiator II,” with choppy editing and plodding pacing. But the real weakness of the movie is the acting. Pascal and Nielsen are fine, and the emperors get to do some fun scenery-chewing, but whoever thought that bland pretty-boy Paul Mescal could be an inspirational protagonist on par with the iconic Russell Crowe made a severe miscalculation. Also, and I’m not saying that the rest of the cast is exactly making me feel immersed in Roman culture, but there’s something so unmistakably American about Denzel Washington. Maybe it’s his voice, maybe it’s his mannerisms, maybe it that he shares a last name with the nation’s capital, but he belongs at Caesar’s Palace much more than he belongs at… these Caesars’… palace. He’s too Vegas-y is what I’m saying.

“Gladiator II” has my permission to be a modest financial hit as long as it stays in the shadow of superior recent releases “Moana 2” and “Wicked,” the latter of which has much scarier CGI primates. But it hasn’t won me over as a movie worth recommending, and I definitely don’t consider it an awards contender. Am I not entertained? Taking into account the wording of that question, I can say that yes, I am not entertained.

            2016’s “Moana” is probably my favorite animated Disney movie of the modern era. I have plenty of nice things to say about “Frozen,” “Zootopia,” “Encanto,” and several others, but “Moana,” with its timelessly-relatable main character, sharp physical comedy, and multiple memorable songs, puts it just a coir above the competition. When an evidently-rushed sequel was announced earlier this year, I became nervous. What if the new film was so disappointing that it affected my opinion of the original? Now that I’ve seen the film, I’m happy to report that my enjoyment of the original is not tarnished by this underwhelming sequel.

            The film takes place three years after the original, with Moana (Auli’i Cravalho) now her island’s premier wayfinder, or boat navigator. The community is thriving, and she’s gradually finding clues that will hopefully lead her to discover more islands with communities that can be joined. But she receives a vision that if she doesn’t find far-off island Motufetu very soon, everything she holds dear will be lost. She throws together a mission with a ragtag crew that includes overeager builder Loto (Rose Matafeo), grumpy farmer Kele (David Fane), oafish historian Moni (Hualālai Chung), pet pig Pua, and chicken Heihei, and sets off on an adventure with more self-doubt than she’s ever had in her life.

            Along the way, she meets up with an old enemy: the tribe of sentient coconuts known as Kakamora. The two sides battle until they discover that they both need somebody to find Motufetu, at which point one of the Kakamora joins the quest as an enforcer. Not long after, the crew find themselves swallowed by a giant clam, which is home base for new villain Matangi (Awhimai Fraser), who has abducted Moana’s former ally, the demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson). It turns out that Matangi needs Moana to find Motufetu as well, though her motivations probably aren’t as pure as the Kakumora just wanting to find their way home. With Maui now officially on the crew, it’s a race to reach Motufetu before unhappy god Nalo (Tofiga Fepulea’i) can stop them with his storm-conjuring powers.

            Slowly but surely, the downgrades from the first movie come to light. New songwriters Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear try valiantly to give Moana an anthem as powerful as “How Far I’ll Go,” but “Beyond” falls just a bit short. “Get Lost” from Matangi isn’t quite as memorable a villain song as “Shiny.” And as far as Maui goes, “Can I Get A Chee Hoo?” is a fall off a cliff from “You’re Welcome” that matches Johnson’s own falling star power. His tired, somehow-mugging-for-the-camera-even-in-animation schtick is probably the worst thing about this movie, other than an inexplicable overreliance on gags that involve creatures excreting from various orifices.

            The movie still gets a recommendation from me. Cravalho is great as always, the new characters are compelling enough, the jokes hit at an acceptable ratio, and there’s an overall agreeable tone for an animated adventure. There’s nothing here that makes me want to turn against the “Moana” brand, which is good because we’re going to be getting a lot more of it in the future. Supposedly this movie was supposed to be the first few installments of a television miniseries, and harsher critics will say that it should have been stuck on television. I don’t agree with that assessment, I think theaters are lucky to have “Moana 2,” even if it’s a step down from the original. But Moana’s journey is clearly far from over, and however it continues, I hope it doesn’t lose any more magic than it already has.

            It was in 2004 that I first saw Idina Menzel and Kristen Chenoweth perform the showstopping “Defying Gravity” from Broadway blockbuster “Wicked” at the Tony Awards. Since that moment was over 20 years ago, it means that I have waited literal decades for a big-screen version of “Wicked.” I’ve more than satisfied my appetite for the stage version, having seen it five times, once with Menzel still in the cast. But I’ve always wanted the vast production to be available to the world, with added scale and visual spectacle to boot. Now the wait is finally over, and the result is… reasonably acceptable.

            The story takes place before, during, and after the well-known events of “The Wizard of Oz.” As this film is only the first part of a two-part saga, it mostly focuses on the “before,” though it opens in the “after.” Glinda (Ariana Grande), the “Good Witch of the North,” informs the citizens of Munchkinland that Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), the “Wicked Witch of the West,” has been killed via melting. The townspeople are overjoyed that the local villain has been thwarted, but some want to know how she came to be so wicked in the first place. Glinda recalls that their paths crossed years ago, and the rest of the movie is a flashback.

            Elphaba and Galinda (as she was then known) were students together at the prestigious Shiz University. Elphaba’s green skin made her an outcast even in her own family, and she was only allowed to attend so she could tend to her sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode), who used a wheelchair. Galinda was pretty and popular, but also spoiled and egotistical. Her (figurative) bubble was burst when, for the first time in her life, she wasn’t given preferential treatment over someone like Elphaba. Goat-professor Dr. Dillamond (Peter Dinklage) couldn’t even pronounce the first vowel in her name, yet got along with Elphaba because she was kind to animals at a time when the land of Oz was turning against them. Magic professor Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) also preferred Elphaba because she had natural telekinetic abilities while Galinda didn’t have an ounce of magic in her body. Even studly prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) found Elphaba more intriguing precisely because she didn’t fall for his “brainless bad-boy” routine. The girls started off loathing each other, but became friends after Galinda (with selfish ulterior motives) got Nessarose a date with nerdy munchkin Boq (Ethan Slater).

            Eventually, word of Elphaba’s magical prowess reached the Emerald City, earning her an audience with the all-powerful Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum). Glinda tagged along to meet the mysterious Wizard, and together the pair discovered that his power was more about charisma than magic, though the magic Elphaba could do was real. For example, she could give wings to the Wizard’s monkey guards so they could fly. She could even give the power of flight to nonliving things, like a broom. After a falling-out with The Wizard, Elphaba became the most feared person in all of Oz, but was it justified?

            “Wicked” certainly succeeds in delivering the epic proportions that I demand, including an epic 160-minute runtime that I didn’t necessarily demand. That’s a mere five minutes short of the length of the Broadway show, and this movie only covers Act 1. Sometimes the extra length is good, it means that the movie can throw in bonus content like a stage show in the Emerald City that had the audience at my screening squealing with delight. Other times it just makes the movie plodding, or interferes with the flow of key moments. I hate to say it, but “Defying Gravity” is thrown off because the movie wants to do more visually than the song’s traditional runtime will allow, so some extra beats have been added that I don’t think serve it well. This movie has all the magic of the stage version and more, I just don’t think I care much for the “more.”

            “Red One” desperately wants to be an “edgy” Christmas movie. Edgy Christmas movies throughout history have included everything from raunchy comedies (“Bad Santa,” “The Ref”) to intense action (“Fatman,” “Violent Night”) to straight-up horror (“Black Christmas,” “Silent Night, Deadly Night”). When edgy movies turn Christmas on its head just right, they can become blockbusters and classics like “Home Alone” or “Die Hard.” When they fail, well, they’ll do whatever “Red One” is going to do at the box office because this movie is a big miss.

            The heroes of “Red One” are security chief Callum Drift (Dwayne Johnson) and hacker Jack O’Malley (Chris Evans). Callum works for the one and only Santa Claus (J.K. Simmons), and both love delivering presents to the good people of the world. But Cal has become jaded and lost passion for his work. It’s not that he doesn’t love being around Santa and his positive energy, he just thinks that the world has become overrun by people like Jack. Jack is a deadbeat dad, an unscrupulous hacker, and – given that he literally steals candy from a baby in the film’s opening moments – a total sociopath. I know the point is to show that this character needs the redemption that he’ll earn through the rest of the movie, but after he does that, I wasn’t rooting for him to earn anything besides a prison cell.

            Despite Callum’s best efforts, Santa gets kidnapped by evil witch Gryla (Kiernan Shipka). Callum’s boss Harlow (Lucy Liu) learns that Jack did some hacking in relation to the abduction, and orders him brought in for questioning. The civilian gets a peek at the M.O.R.A. (Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority), which hints at the start of a cinematic universe that I doubt will ever be expanded.

            Jack doesn’t know who exactly was paying him, but middleman Ted (Nick Kroll) might. Cal reluctantly escorts Jack to Aruba to follow the lead. The scenes in Aruba last about five minutes, yet I suspect that about $200 million of this film’s reported $250 million cost was spent there. The money sure didn’t go toward making the movie decent, I can assure you of that.

            Jack and Cal eventually have to visit Santa’s brother (Kristofer Hivju) for more information. The film builds suspense around the identity of the brother, and I was like, “Krampus, right?” The movie treats the answer like some kind of big reveal, but I was more shocked that Benedict Cumberbatch in “Star Trek Into Darkness” wasn’t playing a guy named Harrison.

            Jack and Cal make a pair of unlikely partners as they race to save Santa by Christmas. There are chases and fights and hustles and one-liners, barely any of which are funny and none of which are exciting. The action scenes are all murky and cheap, and Gryla is one of the most underwhelming villains in recent memory. Somewhere along the way, Jack gets the redemption he needs and Cal learns to see the good he needs to see – which means he’s not watching this movie.

            Since “Red One” is all about the season of giving, I’ll give the movie a gift and boost it above a “D” rating. The reason is simple: J.K. Simmons. The Oscar-winner is primarily responsible for the one good scene in the movie, where Santa and Cal debate the necessity of generosity in an increasingly-cruel world. And I guess some of the tricks Santa uses to visit houses all over the world are cute – like wormholes, transformation technology, and military escorts (“Red One” refers to the sleigh, by the way). But the movie spends a good 90% of its runtime in “D” territory. The better edgy Christmas movie of 2024 was “Terrifier 3,” and it’ll be a Christmas miracle if that one stays in theaters much longer.

            “Heretic” follows two young Mormon missionaries (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East) as they pay a call on potential new convert Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant). The stranger is friendly, intelligent, and bubbly, essentially the Hugh Grant from all those romantic comedies. Except this isn’t a rom-com, it’s a horror movie. Unlike with the other movie, I didn’t know much about this one going in, but I knew that once the young women were invited into Mr. Reed’s house, they wouldn’t be getting out anytime soon.

            Not that Mr. Reed’s true colors are immediately apparent, even once the door has closed behind the visitors. He plays the gracious host, offering them warmth from the blizzard outside. He engages them in thoughtful religious discourse, occasionally veering into controversial topics as red flags gradually pop up all around him. I couldn’t pinpoint an exact moment where his villainy becomes official, but after several scenes of discussion and debate, the women find themselves trapped in his basement and at his mercy. Mr. Reed doesn’t want to kill them, he’s not that kind of villain. But he does want to do some converting of his own.

            “Heretic” is a taut, slow-burn thriller that focuses more on mind games and suspense than action and violence. The three main performances are all excellent, with Grant at his career best and Thatcher and East immediately establishing themselves are future stars. Unfortunately, the film loses steam in the third act, when the script gets greedy with how many twists it wants to pile on. The movie does so well for so long, some early scenes are truly memorable (especially a lengthy board game analogy), and I do recommend it overall, but it just misses out on becoming a contemporary classic.

            Sadly, “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” started off at a disadvantage with me from which it never quite recovered. It wasn’t the lack of flashiness or edginess or intensity. I’m perfectly fine with watching a family-friendly movie about a small-town Christmas pageant. It’s that I read the book by Barbara Robinson as a child, and the movie couldn’t measure up.

            The story follows young Beth (Molly Belle Wright, though the movie is narrated by Lauren Graham as an adult Beth) as she sees her mother (Judy Greer) take over as director of the church’s high-pressure Christmas pageant. Things fall apart almost immediately when the six unruly Herdman kids – led by oldest sister Imogene (Beatrice Schneider) – insist on taking the six biggest roles in the play. Will the pageant be the disaster that most of the community is expecting? Or will Beth’s mother pull off a miracle and get a decent show out of the little misfits?

            Even if I hadn’t read the book first, I could probably guess that the movie was heading in a direction where the Herdmans are reluctantly made better by the church and the church is reluctantly made better by the Herdmans. This is not a movie that takes many risks or makes many deviations from the source material. I was able to recall dialogue word-for-word from the book in some scenes. It’s not a “bad” movie, just an unambitious one. I must dismiss it with the line that adaptations dread: the book was better.

            The last time audiences saw superpowered alien symbiote Venom (Tom Hardy) and his human “host” Eddie Brock (also Hardy) on the big screen, it wasn’t in a “Venom” movie, it was in a mid-credits sequence in 2021’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” The scene saw the pair briefly hop universes into the Disney-controlled Marvel Cinematic Universe, but then quickly get sucked back into the Sony-controlled Marvel universe – the one that has “Spider-Man” characters, but no Spider-Man (and is not to be confused with the animated Spider-verse). The scene is shown again at the beginning of “Venom: The Last Dance,” but it has no bearing on the story. Fans of the character should not expect MCU quality from this movie. This is the “Morbius”/”Madame Web” arm of the franchise.

            The new film sees Eddie and Venom as fugitives in Mexico following some frowned-upon crimefighting in 2021’s “Let There Be Carnage.” They try to flee to New York, but they face threats from more than just human authorities. Venom’s recent activity inadvertently activated a device called a Codex, which exists as long as a symbiote and its human host are both alive. Supervillain Knull (Andy Serkis), imprisoned on a faraway planet, can use his minions called Xenophages to steal the Codex, break free and conquer the universe. I think the way it works is that if the Xenophages can swallow Venom alive, that counts as stealing the Codex for Knull. And simple evasion isn’t an option for Venom because the Xenophages are sure to cause a lot of collateral damage to Earth, and he’s the only one that can stop them. He and Eddie are going to have to fight.

            If you thought I was spouting too much exposition just now, wait until you see the subplot about the secret Area 51 facility where symbiotes are studied by scientists like Dr. Teddy Payne (Juno Temple). The character comes complete with a backstory about feeling guilt over the death of her brother, who wanted to be a scientist. I get the impression that she only devotes herself to science out of guilt and not passion. If the character is supposed to be passionate about her work, it’s not coming through in Temple’s performance. She has several conversations with the facility’s enforcer Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor), one of those grunts that wants to kill any being he doesn’t understand, where all they do is explain the facility’s purpose to one another. Almost all of their dialogue could be preceded with the dreaded words “as you know…” because there’s no way these characters wouldn’t know all of this information already, but the audience has to be filled in.

            Literally thrown off their flight, Eddie and Venom hitch a ride with the hippie Moon family, led by Martin (Rhys Ifans), on their way to Area 51 to try to see aliens. I guess the family’s scenes are supposed to be comic relief, but they aren’t funny. What is funny is a brief stop in Las Vegas where Eddie and Venom share a dance with franchise mainstay Mrs. Chen (Peggy Lu). Could the scene be cut without doing a disservice to the story? Yes. Should the scene stay in because it’s a welcome distraction from the story? Also yes.

            That scene aside, “Venom: The Last Dance” is a slog. The script is a mess, the new characters unlikeable, the action murky and hard to follow, and the mindless Xenophages are terrible antagonists, with Knull not exactly helping by sitting on the sidelines the whole time. I’d say that Hardy comes off relatively unscathed because he has pretty good chemistry with… himself (I can’t decide if that makes the repartee easier or harder), but then I found out he has a story credit on this slop, so I can’t let him off the hook. I hope this really is the “Last Dance” for these “Spider-Man”-adjacent movies outside the MCU and Spider-verse.

            Here’s a movie that certainly surpassed expectations. The low-budget “Terrifier” franchise is not usually one that makes big bucks. The first film from 2016 made less than $1 million. The second, in the glorious year for horror that was 2022, was lucky to pass $10 million. Now comes a third entry that not only made more than the other two movies combined in its opening weekend with $18 million, it took the #1 spot at the domestic box office.

No doubt “Terrifier 3” was sent out to capitalize on the evil clown momentum started last weekend by “Joker: Folie à Deux.” It wasn’t supposed to beat the huge blockbuster, just ride its coattails to a decent, maybe second-place showing. But audiences kicked that giant letdown to the curb (all the way to #3, behind the third weekend of “The Wild Robot”) and decided that they wanted a movie that does evil clowns right. Well, maybe “right” is the wrong word, but the villainous Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) is closer to what I expect from an evil clown than the mopey Arthur Fleck.

The new film sees the previously-killed Art resurrected via literal rebirth courtesy of his disciple, Final Girl of the first movie Vic (Samantha Scaffidi). The two slip into a suicide-induced hibernation for five years, with their awakening coinciding with the release from a mental hospital of Sienna Shaw (Lauren LaVera), the Final Girl of the second movie. All poor Sienna wants to do is live a peaceful life with her uncle (Bryce Johnson), aunt (Margaret Anne Florence), and cousin (Antonella Rose), as well as keep in healthy contact with her brother Jonathan (Elliot Fullam), away at college. But she and Art are destined to keep fighting until one slays the other for good, so peacefulness is out the window.

The film actually spends quite a bit of time on Sienna and her mental health, and I have mixed feelings on this aspect. On one hand, it’s admirable that the film wants to have some substance related to its protagonist to prove that this series is about more than a clown and his creative kills. On the other hand, it maybe overcorrects and gives Sienna too much healthy time before things inevitably fall apart. It’s a perfectly fine performance by LaVera, but she’s not the one people are here to see.

Indeed it is Art the Clown and his joyful streak of terror that are selling the tickets. And oh does this movie deliver on the gore it promises and more. Art has never met a weapon he doesn’t love or a person he’s not eager to kill. He even breaks the unwritten slasher rule of not using guns or explosives - as long as people can die from it, he’ll use it. Unique to this movie is that it takes place around Christmas, so he dons a Santa suit and pulls weapons out of a sack of “toys.” He’s particularly fond of a tank of liquid nitrogen. Because it isn’t enough that he has to outdo The Joker, he also has to make a better Mr. Freeze.

“Terrifier 3” is strictly for people that already know they like slasher movies. It takes a sick sense of humor to appreciate a movie like this, and frankly it also requires knowledge of the first two movies. I recommend the “Kill Count” videos on the “Dead Meat” YouTube channel as pre-film tutorials, and even those may prove to be too much for some people (including my mom… long story). My favorite moment at my screening was when the audience sat in a stunned silence after a scene of staggering violence, and someone broke said silence with a well-timed obscenity. I appreciate the plucky underdog charm of these movies to a degree, but I’m not ready to say that they actually count as good movies.

            Back in 2019, “Joker” managed to make over $1 billion at the global box office and earn itself 11 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and a Best Actor win for Joaquin Phoenix. I recall respecting the movie for Phoenix’s performance and the inspired idea to paint him as a Scorsese-style antihero, but I also recall not really “enjoying” the film in the traditional sense where I laughed or was thrilled very much. The film took a very realistic, mental-health heavy approach to the origin of the beloved Batman baddie, and I couldn’t help but feel that a movie that combined an evil clown with the world of standup comedy shouldn’t feel so grounded. In other words, “Why So Serious?”

            Five years later, Phoenix and director Todd Phillips are back and have added some much-needed outrageous elements. Arthur “Joker” Fleck (Pheonix) is on trial for the crimes he committed in the first movie. His lawyer Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener) can save him from the death penalty if she can convince the court that Joker is a separate personality from Arthur that can be subdued. The prosecutor is none other than Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey), and of course fans are already licking their chops at the deliciousness of the character that is to become known as Two-Face arguing against a fellow Batman adversary having a split personality. It won’t be much of a surprise to say that Arthur isn’t going to follow his lawyer’s by-the-book counsel, and will instead use the televised trial as a forum to give the unhinged performance of a lifetime.

            But Dent isn’t the only new member of Batman’s rogues gallery in the mix. The movie throws in a new take on Harley Quinn, played by the notoriously-audacious Lady Gaga. Arthur meets Harley while touring another part of Arkham Asylum, and a sadistic guard (Brendan Gleeson) lets them spend some time together, probably just so he can hurt Arthur by taking her away from him later. As if it weren’t enough for Gaga to be Phoenix’s figurative dance partner, she’s his actual dance partner too, because this movie is a musical! Over 20 song and/or dance numbers are performed throughout the film. Musical numbers still not enough? Okay, there’s also animation – a cartoon opens the movie. There shouldn’t be a single dull moment onscreen. And yet… this sequel is even more boring than the original.

            How did this happen? I’ll start with the scenes of dialogue. There’s too much pausing and talking slowly. For all the talk of humor, these characters don’t have a great sense of timing. The musical numbers are all just dreary renditions of songs that make allusions to things that are comedy-related, but don’t have the energy to match. I guess Phillips thought he was onto something with that “Send in the Clowns” scene from the first movie, but that scene was only memorable because it was so unbelievable that a random stockbroker would know all the words to that song. As for action scenes, there isn’t much besides guards abusing their power, a non-fatal fire, and some admittedly good stuff toward the end that makes for too little, too late.

            I get that “Joker: Folie à Deux” isn’t trying to be one of the zanier Batman movies, and it’s not like I don’t see an effort being made with the passionate performances. But to take characters as wild and chaotic as The Joker and Harley Quinn (not to mention the musical genre) and make them this lifeless is just a bad idea that should have been revised into something more palatable. The movie itself may even realize that this continuity has no future, as it seemingly passes up a perfect opportunity to set up a third installment. This film squanders so much promise… it’s laughable.

            For better or worse, late September this year is certainly the time for animated robot movies. Fortunately, we got the “worse” out of the way last week with “Transformers One.” Now we can sit back and enjoy the “better” with “The Wild Robot.” Many people did indeed sit back and enjoy this movie, as the theater at my screening was more crowded than usual. The added cheering and laughter made the experience all the more endearing, and it was heartwarming to think of all the families bonding over their shared love of this movie.

            Lupita Nyong’o stars as Roz, a robot programmed to help with tasks on a distant space colony. Something goes wrong with the delivery, and she winds up stranded on an island on Earth. Eager to help, but unable to find any humans to give her orders, she instead looks to the local animal population. She even takes the time to learn how animals communicate, to the point where she can filter their various squeaks, squawks, and other utterances into English in real time. And that’s how this becomes a talking animal movie.

            Roz is eager to help, but the animals don’t necessarily want her help. Okay, they “decidedly” don’t want her help. At first, they’re all afraid of her, given that she’s gigantic, made of metal, dangerously confused, and relatively clumsy (she moves nimbly for a robot of her size, but isn’t built for the unpredictability of nature). Then they fight against her, knocking her down and stripping her of gears and features. She’s even attacked by her closest physical match, a bear named Thorn (Mark Hamill), who knocks down a cliff, causing her to crush a bird’s nest.

            Roz sees that a single egg has survived, and the lifeform inside must be protected. She saves it from getting eaten by a fox named Fink (Pedro Pascal) by launching the predator into a porcupine, though she instinctively helps him remove quills afterward. The egg hatches, and the gosling, named Brightbill, doesn’t see why Roz can’t be mother material. Roz is prepared to be a helper, but not a primary caregiver. In other words, she doesn’t have any programming that makes her fit to be a mother. “No one does,” says opossum Pinktail (Catherine O’Hara), who becomes her mentor.

            The rest of the movie is Roz trying to raise Brightbill (Kit Connor) as best as she can, knowing that she’ll have to teach him to swim, then fly, then leave for months on migration. The other geese tease him for coming from an unnatural family, but leader Longneck (Bill Nighy) sees that he only lives to help others, just like his adoptive mother. The migration makes for an adventure unto itself, as does Roz and the rest of the forest trying to make it through an unexpectedly harsh winter. On top of all that, Roz still recognizes an obligation to try to get to the human colony, and tracking robot Vontra (Stephanie Hsu) could arrive at any time. That the last matter probably should have been saved for a sequel is my only real gripe with the movie.

            “The Wild Robot” came to theaters riding the single biggest wave of critical praise I’ve seen all year. The quantity of praise is well-deserved, as I can’t imagine anybody disliking this movie, but it might make it a tad vulnerable to expectations. I consider it “among” the best movies of the year, but I was never quite ready to hand it the top spot (still “Dune: Part Two,” by the way). Still, my heart melted at several points, whether it was from cuteness (the opossum family), sadness (the straining of the Roz/Brightbill relationship), or the sheer amount of love on display. By all means take the family to see this movie, turn it into a success, and encourage Hollywood to make more movies with this much heart.

            I actually had high hopes going into “Transformers One.” Not because I’m a big fan of the toys or anything, but because this movie promised to correct some of the mistakes made by its predecessors. Namely, I was excited that there wouldn’t be any live-action actors. For some reason, this franchise has never shied away from shoving human Shia LeBeouf or Mark Wahlberg characters down our throats when we all know it’s the giant robots that sell tickets. This time, no humans, all robots. Also, animated versions of previously-live-action franchises have been pleasing me lately. Both “Spider-Verse” movies are outstanding, and last year for the first time I found myself liking a “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” movie with “Mutant Mayhem.” Could “Transformers One” turn me around on another property that I had previously dismissed as a series of glorified toy commercials? Sadly, no.

            The new film is a prequel that looks at the friendship-turned-feud between Optimus Prime (Chris Hemsworth) and Megatron (Brian Tyree Henry) back when they were just humble miners on the planet Cybertron. The robots, known then as Orion Pax and D-16, respectively, live to serve planetary leader Sentinel Prime (Jon Hamm), but they can’t do much since they lack the gears to Transform. Orion believes that if he can retrieve an ancient artifact known as the Matrix of Leadership, he can help the struggling planet more than Sentinel ever could. He hatches various harebrained schemes that include breaking into forbidden records rooms, entering he and D-16 in a race off-limits to non-Transformers, and exiting the mines and visiting the planet’s surface ultra-dangerous surface.

            It’s on the surface that they meet left-for-dead Prime robot Alpha Trion (Laurence Fishburne), who warns them of a threat to the entire planet. They also come across a roving band of disavowed High Guard robots led by Starscream (Steve Buscemi), who may become allies if Orion and D-16 can win them over. History is learned, secrets are revealed, some characters are captured by the villains for the final act. Along for the ride are disgruntled ex-mining supervisor Elita-1 (Scarlett Johansson) and waste management grunt B-127 (Keegan-Michael Key). Supposedly the latter will eventually become Bumblebee, a Transformer I know to be more competent than Optimus Prime, but here is just an annoying screwup, making me understand why “Bumble” is part of his name.

            B-127 is responsible for about a third of the unfunny comedy in this movie, meaning that he’s the “most” responsible, but he’s not the only one. There’s a weird… what I’ll call “frat boy” energy permeating the scenes with male robots in this movie, outside of Fishburne. It’s like Hemsworth, Henry, and Hamm are all competing to nail the perfect ratio of humor, chill, and action stardom. The result is three performances that are basically the same, which might work if the humor was funnier and the chill was necessary. And by “chill” I mean overly casual mannerisms, not the reassuring calmness that an actor like Optimus Prime’s previous voice actor Peter Cullen brought to the role.

            The action scenes didn’t really do it for me either. It’s nice that the animated movie doesn’t have to worry about Earthly limitations, but with every character being an arguably-soulless robot, it’s hard to care about anyone having an advantage over anyone else. Plus, while the characters may have some color to their trim, their skeletons are all the same grayish metallic color, and that’s what you mostly see during action sequence, so it’s hard to tell who’s winning.

            “Transformers One” doesn’t have much to offer outside of the Orion/D-16 relationship, which does provide some nice emotional moments from Hemsworth and Henry. Otherwise, this movie is right on par with the live-action “Transformers” movies that I wanted to leave behind. To be sure, getting rid of the humans is a step in the right direction, but it will take many more steps before I give one of these movies a recommendation.

            “Speak No Evil” is a remake of a 2022 Danish movie with a famously vile twist. I went into this film expecting it to have the same twist. That’s not to say that I expected it to have the same “ending,” exactly, as I knew the film might deviate from the source material once it reached a certain point. But there could be no question that it was indeed winding its way to that point. It was no surprise that what came after that point was horror movie shlock, but I was surprised by how captivated I was by what led up to that point.

            The film finds protagonist couple Ben and Louise Dalton (Scoot McNairy and Mackenzie Davis, respectively) on vacation with their daughter Agnes (Alix West) in Italy. They’re about as unhappy there as they are at home in London, which is to say pretty unhappy, with Ben falling short as a provider and Louise possibly dabbling in infidelity. But things pick up when they meet fun couple Paddy (James McAvoy) and Ciara (Aisling Franciosi) and their mute son Ant (Dan Hough). The kids become fast friends, the families have a great time together, and Paddy and Ciara invite the Daltons to their house in the country.

            The thing is that when everybody met, they were all on vacation, so the playing field was level in terms of accommodations and shared mood. The dynamic shifts a little when the Daltons are guests in Paddy and Ciara’s home. At first it’s just little inconveniences like the guest room sheets having stains and there not being a proper bed for Agnes. But as the days go by, the Daltons find that they like their hosts less and less. Paddy and Ciara don’t treat an immigrant neighbor very well, they’re too open about their sex lives, and they have some differing views on parenting that they’re increasingly unafraid to impose. Also, Ant keeps urgently trying to tell them something, which is frustrating because a condition with his tongue makes it impossible.

            The film is at its best in this portion. Everyone has acquaintances whose sense of boundaries don’t quite mesh with their own, and the film milks that universal anxiety for all it’s worth. It might not be “horror” in the traditional sense, but I’d sure be scared to be in some of these situations where I might come off as a bad friend or ignorant or “in the wrong.”

Of course, this movie isn’t being sold on exploiting the audience’s fear of social faux pas, eventually the other shoe has to drop and proper horror elements have to present themselves. And from that point forward, this movie becomes just another exercise in flat tires, cut phone lines, and characters running up the stairs when they should be bolting out the door. Oh, and a villain or villains that have been meticulous for years suddenly getting so sloppy that you’ll wonder how they ever had any success in the first place.

            “Speak No Evil” was doing so well for so long. The astute technical team recreates certain shots perfectly from the original movie and the gradual dissolution of politeness and respect is paced beautifully. Part of me was hoping that the Daltons could get away from Paddy and Ciara just so their battle of passive-aggressiveness could be picked back up at another time. But no, this just has to be a movie with a body count, and the chances for a sequel are as bleak as the original’s ending. I do give a recommendation to “Speak No Evil,” but it would be evil of me to say that you should expect a truly excellent movie.

            In preparation for “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” I watched the original film from 1988. I found that I liked “some” things about it, like the set and character designs and much of the humor, but it’s not a film I would recommend overall. The special effects weren’t well-integrated (even for the 80’s), motivations between the warring factions made no sense, and worst of all, the characters just weren’t likeable. I’m not talking about obvious villains like the ruthless profiteers or Michael Keaton’s sleazy trickster-for-hire Betelgeuse (hereafter referred to as “Beetlejuice”). I mean that I couldn’t even root for harmless yuppie couple the Maitlands (you guys are dead, find something to do with your eternal lives and stop bothering the living) or Winona Ryder’s teenage goth icon Lydia Deetz (“’somebody’ wants attention”). The good news is that the new film is better about making its protagonists likeable. The bad news is that, while it addresses one issue, others remain and a few new ones pop up.

            The story finds the now-adult Lydia returning to her family’s old home to attend her father’s funeral. In tow are her eccentric artist stepmother Delia (Catherine O’Hara, reprising her role from the first movie), her manipulative fiancé Rory (Justin Theroux), and her distant daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega). Though moody around her family and bullies, Astrid isn’t as standoffish as Lydia was in the original. She even makes friends with local boy Jeremy (Arthur Conti) and the two have a sweet little romance that you know is too wholesome for this movie, so something’s going to have to go wrong.

            What isn’t too wholesome is what’s going on in the Netherworld. Ever-scummy bio-exorcist Beetlejuice isn’t having much luck with his favorite pastime of haunting Lydia, appearing to her for only a split-second at a time, which makes her question her sanity. He’s being haunted himself by his ex-wife Delores (Monica Bellucci). The two have a tumultuous history, having killed one another in their human forms. Now she’s back in his (after)life and she wants… to suck out his soul, I think. Or maybe she wants to remarry him? Or use him for a demonic ritual? Like its predecessor, this movie has a problem establishing motivations. Her inventive introduction in a scene where she fixes her own dismemberment is supposed to compensate for a lack of character development. Also underdeveloped is Willem Dafoe as Wolf Jackson, an actor who played detectives in his lifetime before transitioning to a career as an actual detective in the afterlife. Sometimes he gets his roles and his job mixed up. Great idea for a character, but the movie never quite knows how to work him into the story.

            Twists and turns wind toward a wedding between Lydia and Rory that Beetlejuice wants to crash. Poor Lydia just wants to keep her family alive and Beetlejuice out of her life, but of course things can’t be that simple. She has to go through an ordeal filled with demonic babies, a half-devoured-by-fish ex-husband (not to be confused with her half-devoured-by-fish father), a literal Soul Train, and another forced musical number that wants to outdo the “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” sequence from the original.

            Like the original “Beetlejuice,” I like the creativity and humor on display here, but I don’t like that the script is full of holes (and not just of the “afterlife rules are random” variety) and plot threads that go nowhere. What helps is that in this movie, the three generations of women that serve as protagonists are ultimately more loving and supportive than the characters in the original. In fact, it helps so much that, unlike its predecessor, I will recommend this movie. I’ll even look forward to the inevitable third installment, as I seriously doubt that a franchise obsessed with saying a character’s name three times is going to stop at two.

            Nobody is going to mistake cut-rate biopic “Reagan” for a great movie. At best, it’s a pretty standard greatest-hits collection of important moments in the former President’s life. At worst, it’s a laughably underfunded production made by people who, for whatever reason, want to sell America on Ronald Reagan in 2024. But the movie is not always at its worst. It’s a subpar movie that I think some critics are mistaking for a terrible movie.

            Reagan’s life story is told by former KGB agent Viktor Petrovich (Jon Voight) as he teaches a young Russian politician about the mistakes the Soviet Union made in underestimating Reagan in the 1980’s. Petrovich understands his enemy so well that he can have flashbacks to Reagan’s childhood, where the takeaway is that his faith got him through family drama. Then he became a lifeguard, where he mostly “saved” women who weren’t really drowning, and really saved others before they knew they were drowning. Petrovich observes that Reagan forever remained a lifeguard.

            It’s not long before we get to Reagan as an adult, played by Dennis Quaid. Sadly we don’t see much of his acting career (this movie could have really used a monkey), but we do see him as an increasingly-frustrated commercial pitchman as his career fizzles out. We also see his marriage to Jane Wyman (Mena Suvari) fall apart. But things perk up when he becomes vice-president of the Screen Actors Guild. Not only does he meet his wife Nancy (Penelope Ann Miller) through the position, but he learns that political-type leadership might be his strong suit. After that, it’s the California governorship, a failed run at the Republican Presidential nomination in 1976, and then of course, the Presidency in 1980.

            As President, Reagan bravely gets the economy back on track, survives an assassination attempt, and negotiates a near-end to the Cold War. And he does it with all the charisma that a talented actor like Dennis Quaid can bring to the role. There is barely any mention of scandals like Iron-Contra or the controversial War on Drugs or Reagan’s reluctance to address AIDS. Yes, this movie is a pro-Reagan puff piece, one whose goal is almost certainly to get Americans excited about a Republican President just a few months before an election. It’s a pretty transparent political tactic, but I’d rather get positive productions like this instead of the ugly documentaries that accompanied the 2012 and 2016 elections.

            The movie doesn’t creep into “memorably, hilariously bad” territory as much as some people are saying. The makeup in most scenes is tolerable, except for one in a hospital bed where the poor makeup is clearly struggling with gravity while Quaid is lying down. At that point, his face might as well be one of those creepy puppets from the Genesis “Land of Confusion” music video. Ill-advised cameos from Pat Boone (as a preacher talking to Reagan, next to Chris Massoglia playing a young Boone) and Creed frontman Scott Stapp (as Frank Sinatra, though I thought it was just some gaudy cover artist until the credits) go by too quickly for them to register. In fact, the same can be said for many historical figures in this movie, they’re in and out before their role in the Reagan’s life or administration is clear.

            This brings me to the thing I liked most about “Reagan” - the pacing. It’s not “good” pacing in that I won’t argue with critics who say the movie is too rushed and choppy. But at the same time, I’m grateful for the way that the movie skips briskly along, whether it’s appropriate or not. Reagan led an action-packed life, and an aggrandizing biopic like this could have gone three, maybe four hours. I know this is a cold compliment, but the movie will have to settle for it since I don’t have many other nice things say: I left the theater feeling like I’d gotten off easy.

            “Alien: Romulus” started out at a disadvantage with me because I haven’t liked any of the “Alien” films that came before it. I’m not just talking about the heavily-maligned third and fourth installments from the 90’s, the “Predator” crossovers from the 2000’s, or the uneven Michael Fassbender arc of the 2010’s. I mean that even the “classic” original from 1979 and beloved first sequel from 1986 have never done it for me. I find them to be little more than glorified haunted house movies with one cool creature design and some extra squishy special effects. That isn’t to say that I think they’re terrible, exactly, just not worthy of their pedestals in popular culture. Now “Alien: Romulus” is a movie that I do think is terrible, exactly.

            The movie follows new heroine Rain (Cailee Spaeny) and her glitchy android “brother” Andy (David Jonsson) as they try to escape a miserable mining planet owned by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. They get an invite from her friend Tyler (Archie Renaux) to join him on an unsanctioned mission to a floating research station that contains stasis chambers and is set to arrive at a desirable planet in nine years. Also along are Tyler’s pregnant sister Kara (Isabela Merced), his cousin Bjorn (Spike Fearn), and Bjorn’s girlfriend Navarro (Aileen Wu).

            Of course, things don’t quite go to plan. There isn’t enough fuel to run the stasis chambers, so the team has to look all over the ship for more. Another little snag is that the ship took an alien known as a Xenomorph onboard and now the ship is infested with everything from big, cumbersome, deadly aliens to smaller, more nimble, but still very deadly aliens. Also, the aliens have acidic bodily fluids that are capable of tearing through the ship itself, not to mention any unfortunate humans. Also, the station is owned by Weyland-Yutani, a company that never misses a chance to endanger humans for its own bottom line – and it wants that precious alien DNA. All of this is explained by the ship’s android science officer, and let’s just say that one of Weyland-Yutani’s cost-cutting measures is recycling android designs.

            Since the characters aren’t interesting and the action isn’t exciting, I whiled away the time waiting for cast members to get killed off. There’s a big billboard in Times Square depicting Navarro getting attacked by a face-hugging Xenomorph, she’s a goner for sure. Bjorn is rude to everybody, he’s no doubt toast. Tyler is bland even for this movie, he has “killed off somewhere in the middle” written all over him. Kara exists solely so her pregnancy can be exploited for body horror. This franchise’s affinity for heroines takes away a lot of suspense from Rain, though Cailee Spaeny is no Sigourney Weaver. The only character whose life or death I couldn’t predict with 99% certainty was Andy, and he arguably doesn’t even have a “life” in the first place.

            Walt Disney World used to have an attraction called “Alien Encounter,” unrelated to the “Alien” franchise, but certainly reminiscent of it. Guests would sit strapped in a seat and be “terrorized” by an alien animatronic in the form of wind, water, and sound effects in a darkened room. Disney got complaints that the attraction wasn’t child-friendly, so they made the lighting dim instead of dark, scaled down the intensity, and generally made the whole thing less appealing to thrill-seekers. “Alien: Romulus” reminds me of a later version of that ride. While not devoid of violence by any means, the film can’t properly pull off a thrilling or scary atmosphere to save its life. Nor does it have the dramatic or comedic chops to be an interesting movie on any other level. That was what saved the first two “Alien” movies from being terrible, the human characters were likeable, even if I didn’t like their chances of survival. I think I liked this film’s five human characters less than Paul Reiser’s intentionally-detestable corporate sellout in “Aliens.”

            I was on vacation two weekends ago, so I missed the chance to review this movie when it nearly took down “Deadpool & Wolverine” for the #1 spot at the box office. Two weeks later, the film has dropped to #3, but it still outperformed everything that opened this past weekend, not to mention racking up an impressive $120 million domestic total. It is time to officially take a look at this movie, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to do so.

            Blake Lively stars as Lily Bloom, a woman who loves flowers. Fortunately the movie is only this annoyingly on-the-nose this one time. She meets handsome neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid (Justin Baldoni, also the film’s director) on the roof of her apartment building while he’s in a furious mood over a dead child. She’s put off by his violent anger, but supposes that anyone can lash out over something so horrific. He apologizes, and the two get to talking. He discloses that he’s not one for relationships. She discloses that she had a relationship with a homeless guy named Atlas as a teenager (she is played by Isabela Ferrer and Atlas by Alex Neustaedter in flashbacks). The conversation isn’t exactly what you’d call a Meet Cute, but it does make Ryle want to see more of Lily.

            The two start steadily building a relationship. Lily opens a flower shop with the help of Ryle’s sister Alyssa (Jenny Slate). They go to the finest restaurants, including one owned by the now-successful Atlas (Brandon Sklenar). Ryle still has some anger issues involving his late brother, and she has some trust issues involving her parents, but it’s nothing their love and support can’t overcome. Then a kitchen incident leads to him hitting her in the face. An enraged Atlas attacks Ryle when he sees Lily’s bruised face, which gives all three characters pause and forces them to consider the role of violence in their lives.

            Going into this movie, I knew that the subject matter dealt with domestic violence. I briefly wondered if it was only going to go as far as the kitchen incident and then the feud between the men would escalate from there. Was this movie really going to build its entire conflict around a hot oven repelling Ryle’s arm into Lily’s face? Sadly, the escalation does lead to violence that is not an accident, and not just involving the men. Lily is abused in at least one scene that is bound to go down as one of the most disturbing of the year. I saw this movie the same day as “Alien: Romulus,” and the violence here was much harder to watch than Xenomorphs bursting out of people’s bodies.

            With all due respect to the rest of the cast and crew, the movie is nothing without Lively’s performance. Everything about Lily in the last third of this movie is heartbreaking, from her literal pain to helplessness to anger to even understanding. With the sympathy she inspires with her anguish and eventually strength, I can understand why this property has the following it does.

            “It Ends with Us” is maybe not a great movie all-around. The courtship scenes drag on too long, flashbacks are too frequent and awkwardly inserted, and certain elements probably worked better in the Colleen Hoover novel than they do onscreen (example: Lily jokingly calling herself an “unreliable narrator” and then the movie taking a second look at a scene it pretends we misread but is clearly completely different the second time). But what does work is too affecting to dismiss. It’s accurate to call this movie a tearjerker, but thanks to Lively, those tears are well-earned.

            With “Trap,” writer/director M. Night Shyamalan has given us a half-decent movie. By which I mean that half of it is… decent. The first half delivers the taut thriller we’ve been promised, and it’s not great or anything, but it’s reasonably suspenseful and enjoyable. And then the movie becomes garbage. Not the unique, crazy garbage that only Shyamalan can deliver, but uncreative garbage that no self-respecting filmmaker wants to deliver.

            At the beginning of the film, we are introduced to doting dad Cooper (Josh Hartnett). He’s taking his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to a concert by her favorite pop star, Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan). He learns from oversharing merchandise seller Jamie (Jonathan Langdon) that the FBI is monitoring the concert. They have a hot tip that a serial killer known as The Butcher is in the arena, and with the help of profiler Dr. Josephene Grant (Hayley Mills), they’re going to catch him.

            This makes Cooper very worried. He starts behaving erratically and evasively, and it certainly looks like he’s The Butcher… because he is The Butcher. Don’t buy into any of those ridiculous fan theories about how, say, preteen daughter Riley is really The Butcher just because “the trailers ‘imply’ Cooper is The Butcher, but they don’t flat-out say it.” I’m flat-out saying it. The suspense in this movie comes from whether or not Cooper will be stopped or if he’ll kill anyone along the way. If you come into this movie expecting a mystery about The Butcher’s identity, you’ll be disappointed by more than just the weak second half.

            The stuff about Cooper trying to weasel his way out of the arena really does work. The well-cast Hartnett is as engaging a lead as this movie could have, and Shyamalan expertly keeps the tension steadily growing. This being a Shyamalan film, it’s also important to note oddball supporting characters like Jamie and the mother (Marnie McPhail) of a girl that doesn’t get along with Riley. These characters effectively add to the suspense, and they’re completely unaware of it. I complained about these types of scene-stealers in my review of “Longlegs” a few weeks back, but this movie isn’t as obnoxious about trying to make everyone quirky.

            The good times don’t last. Eventually the action leaves the arena and goes back to Cooper’s house, complete with wife Rachel (Alison Pill) and son Logan (Lachlan Miller). The perspective even shifts from Cooper to someone else for a little while. The venue change isn’t exactly where things start going downhill for this movie, but it’s soon after. The real turning point is when Cooper has to drop the façade and start behaving like a stereotypical bad guy. I was digging scared, desperate Cooper, but when he’s The Butcher, he’s neither scary nor interesting.

            Then, of course, there’s that interminable ending. Cooper manages to fool the FBI more than once, which is all the FBI should be permitted. The agents are all dumb as bricks. Cooper should have just taken his chances with being questioned at the concert and he probably would have gotten away. He makes some annoying mistakes too, but I can somewhat chalk those up to mental instability. More problematic than the plausibility of the characters’ decisions is that the timing and energy are all off, like Shyamalan’s inspiration just ran out of gas. I guess he was so dead-set on getting the concert scenes right that he considered everything else expendable.

            The pop music of Lady Raven is a good enough metaphor for “Trap.” It isn’t disastrous, like previous efforts from the Shyamalan family. I was relieved when Saleka proved to be a better singer and actress than her nepo-baby credentials would suggest. But at the same time, I couldn’t imagine any of these unmemorable songs becoming major hits. Just like I can’t picture “Trap” being anyone’s favorite thriller or Shyamalan movie. Here’s hoping you can easily get out of the theater.

            If nothing else, “Deadpool & Wolverine” is Disney taking a victory lap for acquiring 20^th Century Fox and the Marvel properties it controlled. We got a taste of this last year in “Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness” when the advertising bragged about bringing in Patrick Stewart’s Professor X from the X-Men and then the movie threw in John Krasinski as Reed “Mr. Fantastic” Richards from the Fantastic Four just because it could. This time, two former Fox characters are front and center for a Disney release, and they’re bringing some very un-Disneylike mannerisms with them.

            Wade “Deadpool” Wilson has fallen into a funk since we last saw him. He was turned down for a job with The Avengers, broke up with his girlfriend Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), and now does a lousy job selling cars. It’s hard to believe that a highly-skilled assassin with regenerative superpowers wouldn’t be able to get a better job even without The Avengers, but whatever, he’s in need of a comeback. He’s sought out by Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen), who runs a clandestine organization dedicated to preserving timelines. Wade’s timeline is about to end because of the death of Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) in 2017’s “Logan.” In fact, Paradox is just a few days away from deleting the timeline himself with a device that will erase the world painlessly.

Wade isn’t giving up on preserving his universe, so he kidnaps a Wolverine from another timeline to replace the one that his world is missing. Paradox finds the replacement insufficient and banishes both Deadpool and the new Wolverine to The Void, a desert world reserved for entities that Paradox and his organization want to sweep under the rug. The Void is ruled by Nova (Emma Corrin), the heretofore unknown twin sister of Professor X.  She wants to kill the heroes, and they ironically need her help to return to Wade’s timeline to stop Paradox.

The bad news is that neither Deadpool nor Wolverine can hope to succeed on their own, or even together for that matter. It doesn’t help that the two don’t like each other, with this version of Wolverine wanting nothing more than to wallow in self-pity and Deadpool insisting that he put aside his failures and help save a timeline that isn’t his own. The good news is that there’s help out there in The Void. Remember, multiple-timeline and multiverse rules are in effect here. I will say that there are other versions of Deadpool played by Reynolds and other versions of Wolverine played by Jackman. Are there versions of these characters not played by Reynolds and Jackman? Will anyone else from the “X-Men” universe show up? Maybe some even stranger bedfellows?

The appeal of “Deadpool & Wolverine” lies in its ability to elicit laughter and gasps. The kind of gasps I can talk about here relate to crude humor and creative violence, which tie into the laughter anyway, so really the appeal of this film is its humor. Obviously this movie isn’t going to appeal to audiences that want their Marvel movies at the PG-13 level or tamer. But it also isn’t going to appeal to people that don’t like Deadpool or are sick of Deadpool. It’s hard to imagine anybody not falling for the charm that Reynolds and Jackman bring to their characters. It’s easier to imagine that people are tired of this schtick after eight years, with all the “shock” and meta-humor and excitement over silly things like ill-fitting pop songs. For me, there was just enough juice left in the tank for me to give this movie a recommendation, but I suggest seeing this movie early while the screenings are still a party, because I don’t think this movie is going to age well once the novelty wears off.

            It’s usually at the end of the review that I talk about a film’s MPAA rating, but I’ll twist it up for “Twisters.” Or rather, for its 1996 predecessor “Twister” and its all-time terribly-worded rating justification. The film was rated PG-13 for “intense depiction of very bad weather.” Yes, the depiction was intense, and yes, the weather was very, very bad, but those twisters were so violent and destructive that “weather” seems like the wrong word to describe them. They may as well have used the term “extreme windiness.” The twisters are similarly violent and destructive in “Twisters,” which is much more sensibly rated PG-13 for “intense action and peril, some language and injury images.”

            The new film stars Daisy Edgar-Jones as Kate and Glen Powell as Tyler, two storm chasers with different reasons for traveling Oklahoma looking for tornadoes. She’s trying to set up a 3-D mapping system that will help scientists understand how tornadoes form and thus save lives. She used to think she could rig up a chemical reaction that could actually stop a fully-formed tornado, but a field test in the film’s opening moments turns deadly, so she has to settle for the mapping system endorsed by her old friend Javi (Anthony Ramos). Tyler wants to shoot fireworks into a tornado to make a cool visual that gets him subscribers on Youtube and increase his celebrity so he can sell tacky merchandise. Kate is glad to have the moral high ground, or so she thinks.

            As the film progresses, Tyler shows he has more layers than Kate initially thought. He’s a learned meteorologist and a big-hearted humanitarian. It also turns out that Kate may have jumped on the wrong bandwagon. She and Javi are noble, but their team’s sponsor isn’t. Kate and Tyler find that they like chasing the storms together, helping recovery efforts together, and just plain spending time together. Cute squabbling turns to cute flirting. Please tell me it’s not much of a spoiler to find out that there’s romantic chemistry between the smoldering cowboy and the beautiful scientist.

            Then there are the twister sequences themselves. I used to be terrified of tornadoes, but the fear mostly dropped off when I hit my teens. This movie may rekindle some of that fear, especially after the opening sequence. The rest of the sequences are fine. I was never unconvinced that there was danger afoot. One thing I knew going in was that twisters, while they can form quickly, don’t lend themselves to jump scares, so I was wondering what the film would have to do to push my buttons that way. There are two effective jump scares that made me scream for half a second and then laugh for several full ones.

            You can probably guess the kind of experience that “Twisters” provides. It’s a PG-13 disaster movie. The action scenes, while fraught with mortal danger, aren’t going to feature anyone getting ripped limb from limb. The comedic and romantic scenes are perfectly predictable as well, with Edger-Jones and Powell having the pleasing chemistry I knew they’d have. Of the characters that survive among Kate, Tyler, Javi, and Tyler’s colorful team, I wouldn’t mind seeing these characters in more movies. I’m sure the filmmakers can come up with more creative storm scenarios. For now, this was exactly the movie I expected it to be, but I had a reasonably good time watching very bad weather.

Grade: B-

            The gruesome horror movie “Longlegs” pulled something of an upset at this past weekend’s domestic box office. It wasn’t enough to upset “Despicable Me 4” for the #1 spot, but it did do the best among new releases. Great reviews were seemingly enough to pull the family-unfriendly indie darling into the #2 spot and make it the only movie to pull in half of what “Despicable Me 4” made. And to all the critics whose diligent word of mouth turned this scrappy upstart into a surprise hit, I have to say: you must have seen a different “Longlegs” than I did, because the movie I saw was a joke.

            Maika Monroe stars as FBI agent Lee Harker. She’s super-intuitive to the point where neither she nor the Bureau can figure out if she’s psychic or just highly intelligent. Whatever the reason, she’s competent enough for veteran agent Carter (Blair Underwood) to put her on a high-profile case. They’re looking for a person of interest called Longlegs, connected to a series of family murders. The murders themselves are apparently committed by members of the respective families, but a cryptic, Satanic note attributed to Longlegs is always found at the scene. The mystery is, what’s Longlegs’ deal?

            Nicolas Cage plays Longlegs, who I’d describe as a cross between “Silence of the Lambs” villain Buffalo Bill and Michael Jackson. But not actually-convincingly-creepy “Thriller” Michael Jackson, but screechy, ultra-white, only-unintentionally-creepy Michael Jackson. But at least Buffalo Bill was able to behave somewhat normally in a few scenes so he could plausibly fool victims and authorities. Longlegs doesn’t have a single moment where he’s not a total wackaloon. I’m convinced the only reason this movie is set in the 90’s is because at any subsequent time, he’d be filmed on a phone and arrested - not for the murders, but for being a public nuisance. Some will say that he has to be taken seriously as a villain because of the gravity of the crimes in his vicinity, but even he knows he can’t be taken seriously and needs to find a way around it.

            It’s clear that Longlegs is either mentally ill or demon-possessed. The same can be said for Lee’s hoarder mother Ruth (Alicia Witt), as well as minor characters with direct connections to the case like scene-stealing survivor Carrie Anne (Kiernan Shipka). But I can’t for the life of me figure out why every actor in this movie has to play their part like a total weirdo. A crime lab specialist is quick to posit wild theories about a mysterious container. A mental hospital ward is so trusting that he doesn’t check ID’s on visitors. Even Lee is filled with quirks, like wanting nothing to do with Carter’s daughter Ruby (Ava Kelders, herself playing her part with distracting stiffness). The lack of social grace wasn’t funny when Dakota Johnson did it in “Madame Web” and it isn’t funny here.

            “Longlegs” would have worked better if more characters were played straight, so the odd ones would stand out more. Not that the odd ones don’t stand out, but they have to overcompensate, hamming up their performances to ridiculous levels. Director Osgood Perkins clearly told every cast member, “we like weird, people!” apparently forgetting that it was both subtle and broad strokes that made his father Anthony such a memorable horror villain in “Psycho.” Imagine if Norman Bates popped out in a dress in all his scenes instead of just one and you’ll understand my problem with “Longlegs.” The movie is effectively scary in some early scenes where we don’t quite know the enemy, but it loses that effectiveness when the enemy, along with too many other characters, proves to be phony and silly.

Grade: C-

            For a franchise that has been fairly consistent with its style of PG animated humor, the “Despicable Me” movies are kind of all over the place for me. I couldn’t stand the first one, loved the second one, thought the first “Minions” spinoff had its moments, felt the shtick was stale for the third one, and was pleasantly surprised by the second “Minions.” Now comes the fourth entry chronologically from the first, the sixth in the series overall. Unfortunately, I found this one to be on the lower end of the spectrum. It didn’t send me into a days-long depression over the state of family entertainment like the original did, but it is quite possibly the worst since the first.

            The new movie finds reformed supervillain Gru (Steve Carell, his Eastern-European accent as grating as ever) at odds with his old high school rival, the coackroach-obsessed Maxime Le Mal (Will Ferrell). The very idea of a high school for aspiring supervillains is cooler than anything onscreen here, and since this series likes to do prequels, it might be a good idea to set one there. Gru and his new colleagues in the Anti-Villain League are able to imprison Maxime, but he escapes and vows revenge on Gru and his family, especially his new baby.

            The family is forced to go into hiding, and everybody has little B-stories where they try to start a new life in a posh neighborhood under new identities. Wife Lucy (Kristen Wiig) tries to become a hairdresser with disastrous results. Middle daughter Edith (Dana Gaier) stands up for little sister Agnes (Madison Polan) at karate class. Oldest daughter Margot (Miranda Cosgrove)… gets about three lines. Gru tries to endear himself to his snooty neighbor (Steven Colbert), but ends up getting blackmailed into pulling a heist with the neighbor’s aspiring-villain daughter Poppy (Joey King). The movie could have had a more positive message by having Gru teach Poppy that a life of villainy is not the way to go, but no, she’s validated and wants to be a supervillain as much as ever by the film’s end.

            The Minions (all voiced by Pierre Coffin) get their own subplot where some of them are given superpowers by AVL boss Ramsbottom (Steve Coogan). This thread doesn’t work for me because the Minions were already non-human without many physical limitations anyway, so giving them superpowers just seems like a lateral move. Example: one of them gets the power to stretch. Okay, but another Minion, one that isn’t given superpowers, gets stuffed into a vending machine and spends the entire movie living there. Seems to me the Minions were pretty stretchy already.

            Almost all of the spoken jokes are terrible – painful, even. I think there was a logic that if Carell and Ferrell (or Carell/Colbert) were just allowed to be in a scene together, the chemistry they’ve shown in other projects would just punch up the material automatically. There was admittedly something of a precedent for this, as Carell’s chemistry with longtime collaborator Alan Arkin did elevate the last “Minions” movie, but that’s not the case here. The movie doesn’t even capitalize on the potential for a Gru/Megamind crossover, even though both characters starred in 2010 animated movies about supervillains turning their lives around.

            “Despicable Me 4” is too innocuous to make me truly mad, and the animation is as bouncy and pleasing as ever. The new baby is undeniably adorable and I thought the visual physical gags hit at an agreeable rate. A wheelchair equipped with monster truck tires got me giggling, I’ll admit it. But it’s clear that very little attention was given to the script, and characters and storylines are underdeveloped even for the low bar I have for this series. I seriously doubt that this movie is going to turn any fans off of the “Despicable Me”/”Minions” franchise, but I even more seriously doubt that it’s going to turn around anybody that wasn’t a fan already.

            “A Quiet Place: Day One” made a grave miscalculation with its advertising. Scenes were filmed with the intention of putting them in the trailers, but not the movie. This way, when people saw the movie, they wouldn’t be able to properly anticipate the surprises and story progression. To that end, the advertising succeeded, I was indeed thrown off while watching the movie. But here’s where they didn’t succeed: the scenes shot just for the trailers were terrible, with clumsy dialogue and careless pacing. I was so mad at Hollywood for continuing this series without the creative vision of director John Krasinski, especially when the movie looked like garbage without his input. I only saw this movie out of obligation for the column, and I wouldn’t be surprised if fans of the series stayed away entirely because of those awful trailers. But it turns out that not only is this movie better than the trailers, it’s better than the two installments that Krasinski directed.

            “Day One” casts aside the familiar Abbott family in favor of new protagonist Sam (Lupita Nyong’o). Sam is a cancer patient taking a trip from her hospice to Manhattan along with her nurse Reuben (Alex Wolff) and service cat Frodo. Sam only agrees to the trip on the condition that the group stop for pizza at her favorite place in Harlem. The sudden invasion of echolocating aliens means a delay in pizza. Honestly, Sam is only interested in self-preservation to the end that it means eventual pizza.

            Sam shelters in place for a bit with Reuben, who has a great scene where he stares down an alien like he’s staring down death itself. Also in the shelter is familiar character Henri (Djimon Hounsou) from “Part II” of the series, here forced to make an unthinkable decision. She moves on to helping some children in Central Park before finding a companion in anxious wreck Eric (Joseph Quinn). Can the two survive in alien-infested New York long enough to get a slice of pizza? If so, what happens after that?

            “Day One” has the most suspense yet for a “Quiet Place” movie. It was scary enough that characters had to keep quiet to save their lives on a family farm or in small town. But in New York, the noises are as big as the pizzas. Speaking of food, I wonder if the characters’ best bet for survival would be to let the aliens fill up on noisy people and then hope they’re too stuffed to give chase. Maybe that’s why the film’s biggest flaw is that the main characters get away with making as much noise as they do.

The film does an excellent job of wringing scares out of not only the slightest sounds, but loud-looking images. Even with everybody promising to be quiet, a crowd of people is going to make noise eventually. So if the characters find themselves as part of a crowd, the clock is already ticking. And that’s with a reasonable amount of effort being made. Some people just aren’t cut out for quiet, and associating with those people in this environment could prove fatal.

            “A Quiet Place: Day One” had me afraid to breathe loudly in the theater, a testament to the film’s immersiveness. And yet, the suspenseful atmosphere is only the second-best thing about the movie. The real star here is, well, the star: Lupita Nyong’o. This movie doesn’t have returning players John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, or even recent Oscar-winner Cillian Murphy, and Nyong’o makes up for all of them. One way or another, Sam doesn’t have much time left on this Earth, but you’ll want to be there for every moment. It took until nearly the exact halfway point of the year, but I think we have our first serious contender for an acting Oscar. Not bad for a movie whose advertising had me thinking it would be one of the worst films of the year.

            Watching “The Bikeriders,” the word “inauthentic” kept driving through my mind. For example, I wasn’t buying pretty-boy Austin Butler as a tough biker. There is a planet where Butler can come off as intimidating and that planet is called Arrakis. Here on Earth, he looks like a clean-cut actor making a calculated decision to take on a grungy role to make people notice his range, but it’s backfiring because it is so transparent. And it’s even worse for the actors that I regarded as tough guys going into this movie. Based on other performances they’ve turned in, Michael Shannon, Damon Herriman, and Boyd Holbrook all seem like good choices for a rough-and-tumble biker pic. But here they’re buried under so much bad makeup and unconvincing acting choices that it will actually be harder for me to take them seriously the next time they try to look dangerous in a good movie.

            The movie follows a Chicago biker gang called The Vandals from the mid-60’s to the early 70’s. The main character is actually Kathy (Jodie Comer), the wife of longstanding member Benny (Butler), who is relaying stories about the gang to a reporter (the ever-frail-looking Mike Faist, fortunately not cast as a biker). Comer is a British actress doing a Midwestern accent that I think impressed friends in acting workshops with how different it was from her natural voice. I have no doubt that the accent took effort and caused strain and discomfort and I hate to say it was all in vain, but I’m sorry, it just comes off like she’s seen “Fargo” too many times.

            Speaking of laughable accents, Tom Hardy is in this movie as Johnny, the gang’s leader. His Chicago accent wasn’t too distracting at first, and it even looked for a while like he might get out of this movie with some dignity intact. But then I remembered that this was the same voice he used for Al Capone in that awful direct-to-VOD biopic back in 2020 that I only reviewed because it was gaining notoriety for being terrible. I think he leans more heavily into the accent as the character gets older, either that or I was unconsciously very forgiving in his early scenes because by the end the accent is grating.

            There’s not much of a through-line to the narrative, just stories about the gang being tough. When some bar patrons injure Benny, Johnny and the gang burn down the bar and treat getting revenge on the perpetrators as an afterthought. Benny and Kathy struggle with his decision to stay in the gang, with Benny heavily implying that he’ll choose the gang over her if he she makes him choose. The movie goes out of its way to establish an aspiring gang member (Toby Wallace) as a character without ever really tying him to The Vandals, a surefire sign that his role here is to kill somebody important.

            I can’t say that I went into “The Bikeriders” as a fan of biker culture. I can say that after seeing the movie, I’m even less of a fan. The unintentional message of the movie is that bikers are either every bit the stereotypical lowlifes they’re made out to be, or they think they’re above the lowlife stereotype, except they’re not. Real-life bikers that aren’t lowlifes should be unhappy with this movie, both because it’s a negative depiction of their lifestyle and because the ones doing the depicting are bad at their jobs.

            Back in 2015, Disney and Pixar introduced us to 11-year-old Riley and the squabbling emotions inside her prepubescent head. To make a long story short, Joy (Amy Poehler) tried to retain dominance over the girl, but Sadness (Phyllis Smith) kept creeping her way in. The struggle led to both emotions getting kicked out of Riley’s conscience. Following an adventure through the girl’s psyche, both emotions made their way back and Joy realized that she had to share Riley with other emotions, even unpleasant ones, in order for her to get the most out of life. In this new movie, Riley’s five core emotions want to retain dominance over the girl, but new emotions creep their way in. This leads to a struggle where the old emotions get kicked out of Riley’s conscience. They’ll have to go on an adventure through the girl’s psyche to make their way back and hopefully obliterate the new emotions. Or maybe they’ll learn to share and the message will be exactly the same as in the first movie.

            For the record, I wasn’t a big fan of the first movie. Don’t get me wrong, I thought it was okay, and it kept the streak of at-least-passable Pixar alive until “Lightyear” two years ago. But setting up this elaborate world of personified emotions led to countless questions that the movie wasn’t prepared to answer, and without answering those questions, it didn’t make sense. Sometimes the nonsense played to its adventage, like a deus ex machina toward the end involving stackable crushes. Other times it hurt the movie, like leaving me wondering if these characters even had lives that were at stake, and what might happen to Riley if those lives were lost. The new movie raises more new questions than it answers, but this time I’m a little more comfortable knowing that the movie is prepared to answer some questions and not others.

            For the new movie, Riley (Kensington Tallman) is going to hockey camp with her best friends Grace (Grace Lu) and Bree (Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green). Joy is looking forward to guiding her, along with core emotions Sadness, Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Liza Lapira), and Fear (Tony Hale). But Riley hits puberty the night before the camp, ushering in new emotions Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), and Ennui (Adele Exarchopoulos). Anxiety proves useful in a few social situations, but clashes with Joy when the latter wants Riley to stay loyal to her old friends, as opposed to endearing herself to the more popular Val (Lilimar). The new emotions banish the old emotions to the back of Riley’s mind until she can be completely reworked.

            My problem with the movie, other than that the story progression is pretty much the same as the first movie, is once again at the literal level. I can understand a kid with conflicting emotions, but what happens when a kid is missing five of them, as is the case here? If Riley is being controlled by the four new emotions, what’s making her competent at hockey? And why do the filmmakers think that Anxiety doesn’t manifest until puberty? What are young kids famous for saying on car trips? “Arewethereyet? Arewethereyet?” That’s Anxiety, guys.

            Of course, just as the “Inside Out” movies teach audiences to take the bad with the good, I must remember to take the good with the bad. And there is a lot of good here. The animation is as colorful and delightful as ever, the emotional moments had me feeling for the characters, and the humor consistently hits. My favorite gags involve cartoon characters stuck in the back of Riley’s mind. Video game character Lance (Yong Yea) is another helpful crush of Riley’s, Pouchy (James Austin Johnson) is a little too happy to provide explosives, and Bloofy (Ron Funches) is a fourth-wall breaker with no fourth wall to break. These characters, more than the emotions, were the highlight of this passable Pixar affair.

            I’m not going to go into a lot of depth about the story in “Bad Boys: Ride or Die.” Miami detectives Mike Lowery (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) are back for another cop adventure. They do some investigating, clash with superiors, run afoul of bad guys, the bad guys endanger their loved ones, and then there’s a big showdown with the bad guys at the end. There’s no suspense in predicting that the movie will stick to that formula. The real suspense comes from wondering what the action scenes will entail, what jokes will be cracked, and, this being a “Bad Boys” movie, how ridiculous it will all be. With that in mind, I have some thoughts…

            -Will Smith is back! The A-lister’s career has gone through some major ups and downs the past few years, with the pinnacle of each coming at the same Oscars ceremony. He was unofficially suspended from the limelight for a while, but this movie marks his comeback. And I’m glad to have him back, with his blockbuster presence as strong as ever, if not with a sharper edge. Fans are eager to find out if and how the film will address Smith’s real-life bad boy behavior. I’ll give you this tease: someone gets slapped in this movie.

            -Martin Lawrence is back too. I don’t have much to say for his star power, but I will praise his performance. Marcus suffers a heart attack early in the movie and spends much of his screentime spouting apparent nonsense about his experience in a coma. In the time since I saw this movie, I have encountered no fewer than two individuals on the New York City subway with similar tendencies. They made me appreciate Lawrence’s cadences in this movie. I don’t know if it’s research or just keen observation, but he’s really got it down.

            -The evil plan of bad guy McGrath (Eric Dane) involves framing Captain Howard (Joe Pantoliano), Marcus and Mike’s longtime superior who was killed in the last movie. The plan makes zero sense, since it draws attention and scrutiny to crimes that probably would have otherwise gone unnoticed. Howard actually has a sizeable presence here, with everything from pre-recorded messages to appearances during near-death experiences. We know the characters miss him, but how can we miss him if he won’t go away?

            -Howard warns Mike and Marcus that there’s been a decades-long cartel mole in Miami. Realistically, how many characters could this be? Fellow team members played by Vanessa Hudgens and Alexander Ludwig are too young. Howard’s daughter (Rhea Seehorn) is a U.S. Marshal that probably doesn’t even live in Miami. I suppose it could be new captain Secada (Paola Nuñez), but I can’t help but notice that she’s engaged to a smarmy politician (Ioan Gruffudd). Does the movie realize which of these two is the obvious suspect and who would count as subversive?

            -To get information on the mole, Mike and Marcus have to interview Mike’s imprisoned son Armando (Jacob Scipio) from the last movie. Eventually the three have to work together to combat the bad guys. I was skeptical about bringing Armando back, thinking that the character might not be interesting enough to span multiple movies. But I had nothing to worry about, Scipio makes a good action hero, better than he did a villain.

            -But Armando’s return has nothing on Reggie (Dennis McDonald), Marcus’s notoriously-bullied, seemingly-unmotivated son-in-law. Turns out Mike isn’t the only one with a family member with action chops. As I was leaving this movie, nobody was talking about Will Smith, everybody was talking about Reggie. And I’ll say that Reggie is just what the movie needs to bump it up to a recommendation. I was on the fence about where I stood on the whole “it’s dumb, but it’s supposed to be dumb” attitude that these movies embrace. But with Reggie, “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” has enough heart to cover the missing brain.

            “Garfield and Friends,” based on comic strips by Jim Davis, was one of my favorite cartoons growing up. With all due respect to the show’s talented writers and other voice actors, the best thing about the show was Lorenzo Music’s performance as the title tabby. Music’s voice, which somehow always sounded like a yawn, was the perfect fit for a character that spent every waking moment wishing he wasn’t awake. Yes, Garfield would engage in frenzied eating, especially of lasagna, but that was mostly handled with whooshing noises from the sound effects team. Otherwise, Garfield, with Music’s voice, was the personification (cat-ification?) of laziness.

            I take this moment to applaud Music as Garfield because I have nothing but negative things to say about Chris Pratt as the character in “The Garfield Movie.” The guy just doesn’t have it in him to sound that lazy. It’s not like he doesn’t have experience playing lazy. He was always something of slacker as Star-Lord and his “Parks and Recreation” character spent most of the first season milking an injury. But here, he always sounds like he’s up for an adventure. The movie around him isn’t much of a winner anyway, but it’s already off on the wrong paw when Garfield doesn’t sound like Garfield.

            The story opens with a glimpse into Garfield’s days as a kitten, when he was left in an alley by his father Vic (Samuel L. Jackson) and found his way to Jon (Nicholas Hoult), his doormat of an owner. The household soon adds loyal dog Odie (Harvey Guillen, limited to dog noises) and the pets live in sedentary luxury. Of course, something has to happen to keep Garfield from enjoying complacency, and one night he finds himself cat-napped, as opposed to indulging in a cat nap. He and Odie are brought to a hideout where they meet the long-absent Vic. But Vic isn’t their captor, he’s very much on a short leash himself.

            The operation is actually headed by feline crime boss Jinx (Hannah Waddingham) and her hench-cats Roland (Brett Goldstein) and Nolan (Bowen Yang). She has a vendetta against Vic for abandoning her during a milk heist at a farm (sadly not Jim Davis’s “U.S. Acres,” though I would have loved that crossover) years earlier. But Vic can repay his debt if he, Garfield, and Odie can pull off the same heist now, with the farm having stronger security. The three reluctantly take on the assignment, even though Garfield and Odie are pampered housepets and Garfield and Vic’s relationship is sorely strained.

            The rest of the movie is an adventure-comedy that could be filled by characters from any franchise with a spoiled lead lacking in skills and street smarts. The only thing that makes it recognizable as “Garfield” is that Odie, to the movie’s credit, is as awesome as ever with his ingenuity and unwavering friendship. A few physical gags work, and there are some scene-stealing moments from the villains and a bull voiced by Ving Rhames (I took twisted delight in the very idea of the Arby’s pitchman voicing future roast beef). But every time there’s a string of solid gags or decent action, the miscast Pratt will open his mouth and I’ll be reminded that this movie has a major flaw at a fundamental level.

            “The Garfield Movie” is mostly middling, brought down by how much Pratt pales in comparison to Lorenzo Music. At least it has the decency to be wholly animated, as opposed to the Bill Murray movies where the environment was live-action and Garfield was a CGI abomination. The new movie is never “that” painful, but it doesn’t strike me as anyone’s best work either. I guess what I’m saying is that this movie, while it could have been worse, is lazy – and not in a way that’s on-brand for Garfield.

            2015’s “Mad Max: Fury Road” was one of the most critically-lauded action movies not just of its year, not just of its decade, but of all time. I will forever curse “Pitch Perfect 2” for opening the same weekend and doing better at the box office, thus keeping me from reviewing “Fury Road” (for the record, I would have given it an enthusiastic B). While Tom Hardy’s Max was an important presence in that movie, audiences seemed to find themselves drawn to another character, one that had an even more commanding screen presence, did more to make the film instantly iconic, and more than warranted an expensive prequel. Alas, we’ll have to keep waiting for that origin story for the guitar-playing Doof Warrior. In the meantime, we have this movie about another beloved “Fury Road” character, Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa.

            “Furiosa” follows the character (played as a child for much longer than the advertising implies by Alyla Browne, then by Anya Taylor-Joy as an adult) as she is taken from her home in the lush Green Place and put in the custody of aspiring warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth). Surprisingly, he genuinely wants to take care of the child and sees her as a sort of daughter. The feeling is not mutual, as Furiosa seethes with hatred toward Dementus for killing her mother and raising her among his deplorable biker crew in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. When she sees an opportunity to be traded to crazed ruler Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme), she takes it just to spite Dementus, though she quickly finds out that it’s not much of upgrade to be a breeder for Joe.

            Furiosa quickly ditches the breeder life and takes up as a mechanic on Joe’s many armored vehicles. She also gets in on the security detail for Joe’s best driver Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke). She tries to steal the vehicle to get back home to the Green Place, and while Jack can’t allow this, he does allow her to stay on as a student, and later as a partner. The two are caught in the middle of a war between Dementus and Joe, and even though both bosses are utterly despicable, Furiosa’s hatred toward Dementus is her literal driving force.

            The story is exactly what I’d expect a Furiosa origin story to be. Taken from family? Check? Robbed of her childhood and subjected to horrors at a young age? Check. “Toughened up” on her way to becoming an action heroine? Check. Loses her arm at some point (as we know from “Fury Road”)? You know that’s a check. Misses out on a happy future with Jack? The guy isn’t in “Fury Road,” so what do you think? About the only bullet point I wouldn’t have predicted was Dementus’s big fake nose, and the trailers gave that away.

            Admittedly, the appeal of “Furiosa” doesn’t lie in character development. It lies in the action sequences: all the shooting and stabbing and exploding from every vehicle the movie can conceive. And yes, you’re going to get that. Frankly, I contend that we get too much of that. As the movie went along, I had increasingly nagging thoughts of, “Let me guess, they’re going to settle this with cars and violence.” And I was right every time. It’s a wonder how this movie manages to be so long considering how many people get killed in every scene. It seems like the world should be plum out of people by the end. I’m not saying “Furiosa” doesn’t do the action well, it does it just as well as its multiple-Oscar-winning predecessor. To paraphrase a line from this movie that’s gradually weaving its way into popular culture: “Furiosa” definitely has it in itself it make it epic, but I’m sorry, I don’t think it has it in itself to make it interesting.

            My biggest complaint about writer/director/star John Krasinski’s new movie “IF”… is that it’s a movie. What I mean is that Krasinski clearly has some broad ideas for worldbuilding and there are many interesting characters in the mix, but the movie has to rush so much to stay within the “movie” format of a two-hour runtime that the whole thing is kind of a mess.

            The story follows 12-year-old Bea (Cailey Fleming) as she stays with her grandmother (Fiona Shaw, charmingly reminding me of my own grandmother) while her widower father (Krasinski) is in the hospital for heart surgery. Her family does their best to keep her in good spirits, but Bea can only bring herself to split her time between being bored and worrying that she’ll lose another loved one.

            One night, while her grandmother is asleep (she’s not the best at keeping tabs on the child), Bea catches a glimpse of a figure that doesn’t look like anything that’s possible. Following some snooping, Bea learns that the cartoon-like Blossom (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) is an Imaginary Friend, or “IF,” long forgotten by her human friend, who grew up. Blossom and enormous IF goofball Blue (Steve Carell) live in an apartment upstairs from Bea’s grandmother alongside Cal (Ryan Reynolds), a grumpy adult. Cal has some sort of job trying to find new children for the IFs, but business doesn’t seem to be going so well. As in, I don’t think he’s ever succeeded. Bea volunteers to help.

            Cal reluctantly takes Bea to a sort of retirement home for forgotten IFs. Bea meets all sorts of unusual creatures, usually anthropomorphic food or the embodiment of some dream occupation. The home’s teddy bear proprietor (the late Louis Gossett Jr.) is delighted that Bea is taking an interest and encourages her to not only put her best foot forward, but push Cal to step up his game as well.

The two get to work trying to find new children for the IFs, but are new children really the answer? It might be that what the IFs really need is to reconnect with their old children, despite them now being, well, old. Maybe a burst of childlike inspiration is just what the cynical adults need. This certainly seems to be true in the case of Blue’s sullen, now-grown child Jeremy (Bobby Moynihan). Are Blue and Jeremy still right for each other? Is what’s right for Blue right for all the other IFs? Keep in mind that Bea has to balance all these questions and goals with her father’s critical surgery drawing ever closer. Even if everything goes perfectly, emotions will still be high and tears will be shed.

The high-stakes business with the father’s health has to bookend the story, I’m not disputing that. But I wish Krasinski, with all his clout in Hollywood, had found a way to expand the middle part of this project. The movie is constantly having to establish rules and exposition that half the time it can’t keep straight anyway. For example, are the IFs in danger of disappearing? If so, under what circumstances, exactly? The possibility is brought up a few times but never expended. Then there are all the IFs besides Blossom and Blue that are voiced by talented people like Bradley Cooper and Emily Blunt that get maybe three lines and are relegated to rapid-fire sequences of no importance.

“IF” this movie had instead been, say, a 10-episode television or streaming miniseries, then maybe the first and last episodes could focus on family drama, but the other eight could have been for Bea and Cal just going on adventures to help the IFs, which is what I think Krasinski really wanted for this project. I want to be grateful for what we do get: a half-decent kids’ movie at a time when kids could use a decent movie. But I can’t help but think that when it came to directing more time, money, and resources at this material, what IF…?

            In this era of constant reboots and re-imaginings and the like, “Planet of the Apes” has had a pretty successful run. 2011’s “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” was such a big hit both commercially and critically that pundits were talking about an unprecedented motion-capture-based Oscar nomination for Andy Serkis as lead ape Caesar (it didn’t happen, but it was fun to speculate). Two follow-up films in 2014 and 2017 weren’t shabby either, and it looked like the series was going to stop at a taut little trilogy. But now we’re back with “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” which takes place in the same continuity as Caesar without overextending the neatly-wrapped arc.

            Set 300 years after Caesar’s passing, apes have taken over the world landscape, while humanity is all but wiped out. The apes have formed tribes and communities, and even taken to domesticating animals like horses. Our new hero Noa (Owen Teague) is part of a tribe that trains eagles, even bonding with them like family members. He and his friends Soona (Lydia Peckham) and Anaya (Travis Jeffrey) make risky climbs to pick out the best eggs for a ceremony to impress leaders Dar (Sara Wiseman) and Koro (Neil Sandilands), Noa’s mother and father, respectively. Noa has a rare encounter with a human, followed by an even worse encounter with a malevolent ape army that ransacks his village and takes surviving tribe members hostage.

Left for dead, Noa soon sets out on a mission to rescue what little remains of his home and family. He meets wizened old ape Raka (Peter Macon), who becomes his mentor. He also re-encounters human Mae (Freya Allan) and the two form an unlikely bond, even though the two species have been feuding for generations. They’re eventually captured by head pillager Sylva (Eka Darville) and taken to the titular Kingdom. The good news is that Noa is reunited with the rest of his tribe, the bad news is that they’re all enslaved by mad king Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand).

Surprisingly, Proximus doesn’t hate humans as much as the other apes in these movies. He likes their culture and even keeps one (William H. Macy) as a sort of pet. Unfortunately, his love of humans has led to him picking up some of their worst tendencies, like greed and manipulation and a thirst for power. He’s convinced that if he can get into a locked human vault, he can use the human “knowledge” (mostly weapons) inside to take over the world. Noa and Mae agree that they can’t let that happen, but they have different, and perhaps conflicting motivations.

To be honest, until it reaches the Kingdom, this movie drags. The destruction of the peaceful village is just so expected from this kind of movie, as is the journey filled with unlikely friendships. Fortunately things pick up toward the end, with the psychology of shifting loyalties and some memorable action. Let’s just say that this movie adds another chapter to this franchise’s complex history with gun violence.

The exciting conclusion is admittedly quite successful in making the audience (including myself, since I’m recommending it) forget what a slog the movie was beforehand. “Kingdom” is going to do well enough that we’ll probably see another “Planet of the Apes” in the near future, and sure, I’m interested enough to stay with this continuity for a while. No character in this movie is as memorable as Serkis’ Caesar, of course, but I’d like to see how some relationships and journeys develop. It won’t happen for this movie, but who knows, maybe a future installment can finally score one of the apes that elusive Oscar nomination.

            There has been a push in recent years for the Oscars to add an award for stunt work. I’m all for it, sure, give some often-unrecognized professionals their moment in the sun. My guess is it’s going to happen eventually, given the passion of the advocates and no apparent strong argument against it. Director David Leitch is no doubt a proponent of the movement, seeing as he’s a former stunt performer himself and his film “The Fall Guy” is basically a two-hour plea to give stunt performers their due. Which isn’t to say it isn’t a highly entertaining plea. It’s just about the most fun you can possibly have watching a plea.

            Ryan Gosling stars as stunt performer Colt Seavers. At the start of the film, Colt spends his days building a relationship with aspiring director Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt) when he’s not doubling for megastar Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). A stunt goes wrong and Colt’s back is broken, which also damages his relationship with Jody. Eighteen months later, Colt’s back is healing, but things between he and Jody may be permanently severed.

But then he gets a call from Gail (Hannah Waddingham), Tom’s go-to producer. Tom is filming a movie in Australia, and everyone wants Colt for stunt work. And “everyone” means Tom, Gail, and the movie’s director: Jody. He reluctantly makes the trip only to learn that Jody emphatically does not want him and Gail has ulterior motives. Tom has gone missing and Gail needs an able-bodied nobody to help track him down. Colt agrees to investigate, only because this movie is Jody’s big break as a director and it can’t be completed without Tom.

Colt is soon spending his days filling in for Tom on set, helping Jody with her film in the only way he knows how, by doing dangerous stunts. It takes some time for her anger to subside, but he’s soon back in her good graces and there’s even a hint of the two rekindling their relationship. But then there’s his night job of tracking down Tom. It’s even more dangerous, with drug dealers, gun-toting henchmen, a sword-wielding girlfriend (Teresa Palmer), and a dead body on ice. The adventure requires Colt to use all his expertise as a stuntman, which means Leitch and the movie’s stunt team get to show off all their expertise.

Indeed all the stunt work is impressive, though I feel like the film is cheating a bit by actively trying to get me to pay attention to it. And it’s distractingly smooth at times, like Colt is way too competent for a person in this position. It’s been established that he can handle stunts in a controlled environment, but can he really handle action this well in the moment when he’s unprepared? The trailer hints at the disparity between movies and “real life” in a moment when Colt decides he can’t safely make a jump from a rooftop, but there are hardly any other scenes like that in the movie. Also, it’s really unwise to have Gosling do scenes where he flies through glass unharmed when certain viewers will remember a scene from 2016’s “The Nice Guys” where his character thinks he can handle broken glass easily and faces consequences when he’s wrong.

Still, “The Fall Guy” delivers on what audiences came to see: creative, stunt-filled action and a delightfully witty romance. Couples that see this movie together are going to wish they had the chemistry of Gosling and Blunt, even when they’re arguing. Movie buffs will be equally enchanted by the love this movie has for the industry, especially stunts. Fans of well-conceived mysteries may sadly feel left out on this one. But overall, I can say that I “fell” for “The Fall Guy.” That line makes me want to bang my head against a wall. I wish I had a stunt double for that.

            Since “Challengers” begins practically at the end of its story, I think I’ll begin this review by talking about the movie’s ending. It ends, as we see in early scenes and is pretty predictable anyway, with feuding tennis stars Art (Mike Faist) and Patrick (Josh O’Connor) playing against each other in the finals of a tournament, with Art’s wife Tashi (Zendaya) watching from the stands. While ultimately one player will have to win and one will have to lose, the real winners are fans of great tennis. As with the match, “Challengers” doesn’t concern itself with things like results and fate, it just wants to give you a thrill in getting there.

            The 2019 match between Art and Patrick is a framing device that we see throughout the film, but the story is mostly told through flashbacks, not all necessarily told in order. We go as far back as 2006 when Art and Patrick were doubles champions and best friends. They found themselves both smitten with up-and-comer Tashi, and they invited her back to their shared hotel room. A minor conflict arose when the two couldn’t work out who between them would get some alone time with Tashi. They figured that she’d give an indication of who she’d prefer, but Tashi…didn’t pick a side. Maybe it’s just me reading too much into things, but I think the film’s advertising has implied that more happens in the ensuing encounter. It’s just a makeout scene with Tashi promising her phone number to the winner of an upcoming match between the two.

            Patrick wins the match and Tashi’s phone number, and he soon turns pro with Tashi as his girlfriend. Tashi and Art both attend Stanford with plans to turn pro after college, but also have some additional skills if tennis doesn’t work out. A jealous Art engineers a fight between Patrick and Tashi, and although he didn’t intend it to go quite so far, he’s the only one there to comfort Tashi when she suffers a career-ending injury on the court.

Years later, Art has become an international superstar with Tashi as his wife and coach (though their marriage is hanging by a thread), while Patrick’s career and life have deteriorated so badly that he’s living out of his car. Apparently too much time away from Tashi will do that to a man. Art and Patrick both have to win this small-time tournament, Art to gain momentum going into the U.S. Open, Patrick to resurrect his fledgling career. Of course, they’re really battling over Tashi all over again, as well as trying to one-up each other.

I mentioned this movie wanting to give its viewers a thrill on par with the intense final tennis match. After the early stages culminating in the scene in the hotel room, the movie pairs off Art, Patrick, and Tashi in combinations of two for the rest of the movie. The three banter, argue, and manipulate one another in a series of scenes whose snappiness is worthy of the comparison to a well-contested match. It’s not exactly a nail-biting intensity, but the three keep up with each other in a complimentary fashion.

Where “Challengers” fell apart for me (aside from my inability to understand tennis scoring, so I kept thinking the climactic match was over when it wasn’t, which affected the movie’s momentum) was the utter un-likeability of the three main characters. Yes, they have good chemistry, but that’s just another way of saying that these miserable people all deserve one another. It’s one thing to cultivate conflicting opinions about who to root for because it makes for a lively debate. But did the movie have to make me wish that all three characters could lose somehow? I read an interview with Mike Faist where he described the characters’ dynamic as “everyone’s right and everyone’s wrong.” Ironically he’s only right about the “everyone’s wrong” part.

            After last week’s heavy, serious, ultraviolent “Civil War,” I needed a movie like the lighter, sillier, also ultraviolent “Abigail.” Is this film as intelligent and thought-provoking as last week’s offering? No. Is this film going to leave much of an impact on popular culture? Probably not – it doesn’t do much to stand out from similar movies, some from the same people that made this movie. But would I pick “Abigail” over “Civil War” to watch in my free time because it’s much more fun? Oh, yes.

            The film starts out as a kidnapping thriller. A team of strangers work together to abduct 12-year-old Abigail (Alisha Weir) from her family’s home and take her to a mysterious mansion overseen by Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito). He insists on taking everyone’s phones and tells them not to give each other personal details like their real names, though he assigns them nicknames based on the Rat Pack (seems like the kind of detail that should have been worked out ahead of the actual kidnapping, but you’ll be asked to suspend disbelief much further by the movie’s end). Lambert just needs the team to watch the girl for 24 hours while he does Head Kidnapper stuff, during which time Joey (Melissa Barrera) is the only one allowed to tend to Abigail, so she doesn’t see anyone else’s face. Assuming nothing goes wrong, they’ll soon be able to go their separate ways with their share of a $50 million ransom. Things go wrong.

            We spend a few scenes getting to know the team. The aforementioned Joey is a recovering drug addict that just wants to pull this one job and then be a doting mother to her estranged son. Frank (Dan Stevens) is a former cop that has thus far kept his obvious anger issues in check, but looks like he could snap at any moment. Peter (Kevin Durand) is a dumb musclehead that wants people to think of him as more than a dumb musclehead, but is too much of a dumb musclehead to figure out how to change his image. Rickles (William Catlett) is a former soldier clearly harboring many secrets. Sammy (Kathryn Newton) is a spoiled rich kid that turned to a life of crime out of sheer boredom. And Dean (Angus Cloud) is a 99%-useless idiot that happens to have a talent for driving. I mean no disrespect to Cloud, who passed away last year, but this is a movie where characters are expected to be killed off, and I was hoping that Dean would go early. Given how much effort Cloud clearly put into making Dean annoying, I’m sure he’d take me rooting for the character’s death as a compliment.

            But then there’s Abigail herself, and although I don’t want to go too far into spoilers, she turns out to be a doozy of a kidnapping victim. In one swift shift, this goes from a movie about a little girl being locked in with six kidnappers to a movie about the kidnappers being locked in with… what they thought was a little girl. She’s not happy with the kidnappers or what they’ve done in the past. Alliances and deals are made and broken to avoid slaughter at Abigail’s tiny little hands or huge deadly fangs.

            “Abigail” isn’t necessarily a great movie by itself, but it works well as something to hold over certain horror fans. Upset that the “Scream” series is in limbo? Here’s a movie from Radio Silence, the directors of “Scream VI,” plus star Melissa Barrera. Can’t wait until next year for “M3GAN 2.0”? Get your dancing little psycho girl fix here. Sorely miss people exploding like bloody water balloons like in Radio Silence’s 2019 horror hit “Ready or Not”? This movie just might have you covered. History will probably see “Abigail” as a middling horror movie at best, but here and now it earns bonus points for coming along at the right time.