Like either of the two previous movies, the more you think about the details of the time travel, the less sense it makes. This is, after all, the series where characters randomly exclaim “Station!” as a catchphrase, an incredibly dense in-joke from a deleted chunk of the second movie’s screenplay. Somehow, the movie doesn’t need a trim, rules-bound universe - it gets by on sight gags and performances alone.
Read MoreEnvisioned as a haunted house psychological thriller-horror — and those elements are certainly quite good, there just isn’t enough of it — no character embodies the main antagonist. The idea that mutants are a danger to themselves and society is interpreted literally in this film. X-Men is supposed to be a reflection of what it’s to be like an outsider, but when the film traps all five mutants in one location without outside contact, they aren’t given a chance to show why they’re ostracized.
Read MoreWith Tenet, Nolan presents his most brain-liquifying examination of time yet, “inversion”. In his earlier movies, Nolan’s playing around with time was wild but still largely comprehensible on first viewing. In the nested dream worlds of Inception, it’s easy to grasp how time slows down the deeper in the dream you travel. But in Tenet, the physics are so surreal we might as well be sipping coffee in the Black Lodge on Twin Peaks.
Read MoreGiven the huge range of results, it gets harder to believe that anyone would actually take the stuff. The extent of the movie’s commentary about drug epidemics is “they exist.”
Read MoreIt is easy to root for Angie, whose characterization departs drastically from the usual East Asian trope of the meek daughter of a domineering father who needs a Romeo to save her. In Triad Princess, Angie is Romeo and Xu Yi Hang the more passive and obedient Juliet.
Read MoreIn the library of action films, The Old Guard doesn’t really excite and it’s definitely not memorable, but consider it a good-enough entry into Netflix’s ever-expanding library of films you can simply put on the background, or skip to the parts that interest you.
Read MoreThe multiple timelines make it difficult to follow, and each episode feels different; at times, it’s a family drama moving at a snail’s pace, and during others it’s an action epic or a sadistic crime thriller. Chen’s vision is expansive, but its weak storytelling and confusing editing muddies the final product.
Read MoreShot in Ontario and Newfoundland, Canada, the precise setting is left vague, though we intuit it could be on either side of the American/Canadian border. Other details about the premise are just as sparse: Chris Davis (Mark O’Brien) is smuggling bags of cash across the border.
Read MoreNora fares a bit better. She’s the heart of the show, as someone who both loves and hates the idea of digital afterlife; she believes in the ideals that the tech is based on, but hates how corporate culture has infected it with predatory policies. Nora is someone who struggles to connect with people in the real world, and when she finally finds someone she truly cares about, he’s tragically both already dead and a professional client.
Read MoreTrue North Streaming is a semi-regular column highlighting some of the best new additions to Netflix’s Canadian service. Like many of you, every so often I get a pleasant surprise when I discover a cool movie or TV show that’s just popped up on Netflix’s often-maligned sister platform. These posts will help you filter through the often quirky mix of Netflix Canada’s offerings and find the most valuable ways to waste some time.
Read MoreDespite a starry cast and a ripped-from-the-headlines story - which is only now receiving its first big-budget adaptation - the movie never coheres into anything beyond a string of loose sequences. Some of these beats work on their own, but Wasp Network never escapes the feeling that it’s missing huge chunks of material, or choking its main performances.
Read MoreBut it’s not the presence of middle-aged actors in the period combat scenes that smothers the tension in Da 5 Bloods. It’s a list of smaller choices, subtle details that might be chalked up to style but took me out of the experience. Several characters’ deaths seem to share Tropic Thunder’s taste for comedic violence, applied to moments that are pitched as drama. The soundtrack alternates between patriotic orchestral anthems and R&B, though the tracks often don’t match the expected tone of the scene.
Read MoreIt feels oddly disjointed; unlike The Office or Community in which any episode could take place on any weekday, Space Force has to follow a linear timeline of events, but at times it’s difficult to make heads or tails of what is actually going on and it never really focuses on one conflict long enough before moving on.
Read MoreI can live with all of these things, if only to watch Kendrick charismatically tumble through her love life, but meaningful relationships condensed into 30-minute episodes feel like a disservice to such supposedly seminal points in Darby’s life.
Read MoreFirst introduced to audiences as a graphic novel in 1982 as Le Transperceneige, it was adapted into a feature film in 2013 as Snowpiercer to near-universal acclaim. Fast forward to 2020, and we now have a TV iteration that, so far, struggles to answer the unenviable question of… why?
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