I’m probably among the ideal adult audience members for a movie based on those games. I recently played through both Galaxy re-releases for Nintendo Switch, so I was primed for any of the visual references the studio would include. And visuals are definitely where The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is at its strongest. But no matter how ready I was to see games I knew so well get blown up on a big screen, the movie struggles on a story level at every turn.
Read MoreI was a little shocked to be reminded that the first Ready or Not movie came out nearly 7 years ago. That’s an eternity in the horror/thriller world, which often loves to crank out at least a few sequels in that span of time when they hit on something good. The first film made almost 10 times its reported budget, putting it in the same club as plenty of other super-profitable gore-fests. Maybe the directors, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, who have spent that time working within the Scream franchise and on a vampire ballerina flick, wanted to wait until they had an idea for a Ready or Not sequel that would live up to the reputation.
Read More“Am I smart?!?” is one of the first things Ryan Gosling’s character in Project Hail Mary yells out when he wakes up from an induced coma. It’s the opening sequence of the movie, and Ryland Grace (Gosling) finds himself, unshaven and amnesiac, aboard a spaceship heading for the star system of Tau Ceti. He’s not quite sure why he’s there but he knows he’s scared, alone, and on a mission of some kind.
Read MoreBautista in particular has spent the last few years of his career looking for opportunities to challenge himself with roles that balance dramatic heft with his undeniable tough-guy image. Momoa, meanwhile, is happy to coast with a version of his Aquaman character, knocking people around and guzzling as much Guinness as his brand ambassador deal can get him.
Read MoreAfter nine years, ballooning lore, and a few too many movie-length episodes, I heard from many fans anecdotally who had lost patience for Netflix’s banner sci-fi/horror show. But there’s a certain catharsis in seeing how a show of this scale chooses to end its story. So how does Stranger Things measure up against other fantastical TV that ended after long runs?
Read MoreIf Bugonia is more of a thriller with a particularly mordant edge, is it satisfying? There are undeniably some images here I’ll never forget, especially from the amazing ending, which I won’t spoil. Everything leading up to that ending, unfortunately, resembled a somewhat low-energy stage play, punctuated by the aforementioned bursts of action.
Read MoreDel Toro’s version is finally here, in time for a Halloween release, and it’s impossible to shake the feeling when watching it that it’s exactly the way you’d expect a Del Toro Frankenstein to look and feel like. Some viewers may yawn and find that boring, but this is a rare case where I’m on board with a filmmaker working in a well-worn groove, pouring his distinctive style into a particular adaptation.
Read MoreThis is a movie that across its 2 hours and 41 minutes features a noxious white supremacist group called the Christmas Adventurers, a snarling Sean Penn character who walks like he has a branding iron permanently stuck up his ass, and an uncomfortably high Leonardo DiCaprio arguing over revolutionary code words with a comrade. And somehow, on top of it all, we get a striking multigenerational story about a family caught up in fighting for what’s right, told with a kind of prescience about the current state of America that will be marveled at for a long time to come.
Read MoreThe film bears a passing resemblance to Lost in Translation, but unlike Bill Murray’s character in Sofia Coppola's movie, Fraser’s Phillip isn’t quite as unmoored. He’s comfortable in Japan as a whole, but he’s still looking for emotional connection and career fulfillment in a country where he has no family of his own and where he’s still viewed as an outsider. Fraser, with his sad eyes and big frame, is superbly cast for this kind of awkward role, and he brings a sweetness to the film that makes Phillip easy to root for.
Read MoreAt a briskly-paced 114 minutes, First Steps delivers on its title in two ways. It focuses on the infant Franklin Richards and his role in the interconnected Marvel stories, and on a meta level, it presents an efficient entry for the characters into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Read MoreAster’s new film is so jam-packed with ideas and observations about 2020 that they spill out of the screenplay, like the blood that eventually soaks the sands of Eddington, New Mexico. It’s not hard to figure out where Aster is going with the movie — the tone is pitch-black satire — but it’s the repetition of the material that becomes its stumbling block. I’ve seen at least one take that this reiteration is intentional, meant to imitate the experience of scrolling through social media and seeing the same faces flood your device with opinions. Even if that’s true, the film would have been better as a tighter, more targeted critique of our preoccupations during a bewildering era.
Read MoreOn a meta level, Gunn’s movie is an announcement of its own. He and his newly reset DC Universe of movies and TV shows need a standard-bearer, and that role naturally falls to the so-called Big Blue: the most powerful hero in the lineup and the one mainstream audiences know the best. And as certain toxic fans out there will be quick to tell you, Gunn wants everything about this new era of stories to be different. He wants a brighter, more uplifting tone (at least for Superman) and less grungy realism compared to the DC Comics-inspired movies of the last 20-odd years. By wiping the slate clean and starting again, there’s a lot to set up, and much of that falls on the shoulders of this new movie.
Read MoreThe ironic thing about the now four movies in the World sub-series is that by building the movies around these implausible man-made beasts, it robs the stories of the thrills of the original Jurassic Park. We don’t need gimmicks. We can still be awed by creatures that roamed the planet millions of years ago. The filmmakers just need to spend a little more time on the humans we’re meant to care about.
Read MoreAnderson has been refining the visual sensibility seen in The Phoenician Scheme for years, with each successive film feeling like a slightly more concentrated version of what came before. It’s a style that has its detractors, and I doubt Anderson will ever swing back to something resembling a “normal” indie film. But even I, as a long-time fan of Anderson, found myself feeling a little claustrophobic during this latest release. As much as I love the filmmaker’s style, the world of Zsa-zsa Korda felt like it deserved a little more freedom, with more location shooting in the model of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou or Moonrise Kingdom.
Read MoreBy morphing the series from episodic adventures to a cohesive, serialized format, some of the flimsiness of the characters and the story begins to show. Both Dead Reckoning and The Final Reckoning try to retcon Hunt’s backstory, giving him a dead love interest and an oath to the Impossible Mission Force (IMF) that he’s seemingly repaid many times over. The screenplay recontextualizes old plot elements, like the so-called Rabbit’s Foot from M:I 3, into this film, to apparently sweep us up into the feeling that we’ve been on a grand journey with the series for 29 years.
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