Watch the SPOILER review on YouTube Despite shaking up the superhero genre by using a horror-themed setting, “The New Mutants” struggles to overcome mediocre acting and characters that never really connect with the audience. The film doesn’t waste too much time getting to the paranormal elements, and quickly feels different than any X-Men movie we’ve… Read More »
Watch my SPOILER review on YouTube Despite successfully course-correcting the mistakes of “The Last Jedi,” posthumously adding Carrie Fisher back into the fold, and loads of fan service, Episode IX is a fairly lifeless affair. There was a lot of stuff that “The Force Awakens” set up that was either ignored or contradicted by “The… Read More »
An entertaining sequel that doesn’t recapture the magic of the prior film. “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” had a great mixture of action, comedy and heart…not to mention a fresh take on an old franchise. The latest installment keeps what worked, and even makes some improvements. One of my biggest complaints of the last film… Read More »
The follow up the horror classic “The Shining” trades in claustrophobic scares and masterful direction for violence and more traditional storytelling. First off, I’ve seen the original film and the miniseries, but never read either of the novels in the series. As far a sequel goes, and they primarily use the Kubrick film as their… Read More »
A solid action film that tries to mix-up the “Terminator” formula, which is its greatest strength and weakness. First of all, this movie essentially ignores every film in the series after “Terminator 2: Judgement Day.” This allows Linda Hamilton to finally return as Sarah Conner, and bring with her everything great about her bad-ass character,… Read More »
Overall enjoyable, the long-delayed sequel to “Zombieland” doesn’t bring much new to the table. The basic story is nothing special, just an excuse to get our characters from point A to point B. The plot would’ve benefited from more defined threats to give the whole thing a bit of urgency. The humor is much the… Read More »
Despite its great cast and faithfulness to the novel, the overly-long sequel to “It” can’t seem to consistently conjure up the scares. It’s been decades since I read the novel, and I’ve never watched the 1990 miniseries, so going in I only had vague expectations of the plot. (After reading summaries of both, I’d say… Read More »
“Hobbs & Shaw” features the all the impossible action sequences and over-the-top characters you would expect from a “Fast & Furious” film, but the stripped- down cast allows for much more character development…although it takes over two hours to pull it off. Not only is the basic plot extremely predictable, but most of the big… Read More »
Watch my SPOILER review on YouTube An overall fun film that is surprisingly predictable, even with the plot twists. While the film starts off in a bit of an unexpected direction, it eventually hits a point where the major story beats can be deduced from what was shown in the film’s trailers. There’s a fairly… Read More »
An extremely predictable sequel that is saved by strong performances. The first “Creed” suffered from going a predictable route, and the sequel doubles up on that. A half an hour into the film, I already knew all the broad strokes that the plot would deliver. An aside from a few slight deviations, I saw everything… Read More »