HIM (2025)

Score: 4.5 / 5

A nerve-fraying nightmare of a fever dream, what HIM lacks in narrative or characterization it more than makes up for in production design, sound, editing, and sheer eye-popping spectacle. If you had told me that any of those points would be found in a football horror film -- a Football. Horror. Film. -- I would have laughed at you. And, indeed, I did laugh when I first saw the trailer for this film. What in the Black Swan-meets-Jordan Peele awesome weirdness could this be? Yet a highly stylized story about obsession and sacrifice for your craft from Peele as producer (and Monkey Man was by far my favorite film last year) was already on my must-see-ASAP list.

Cam Cade, a young boy at home, watches the San Antonio Saviours win a championship with the awe of any kid who already knows what he wants to do with the rest of his life. His father supports this, partly evidenced by the altar to the Saviours in their home, but when quarterback Isaiah White violently breaks his leg on television, Dad tells Cam "No guts, no glory," lionizing White's career-ending injury as the cost of greatness. His honorable sacrifice to have been the GOAT. This is the insidious kind of shit, a savvy viewer will note, that will curse the impressionable son's life. The toxic masculinity and the love of performance will coalesce into horror, almost immediately realized when we jump ahead fifteen years into the future, when Cam (Tyriq Withers, playing a role of bravery with an odd but affective shyness I found endearing, of I Know What You Did Last Summer) is a promising young football player entering the draft. He's cracked over the head by a demonic mascot -- literally a goat, highlighting ties to both satanic imagery and so-called "greatest of all time" laurels, though whether it is a man or supernatural being is left to our imagination -- and suffers a traumatic brain injury.

Isaiah White (a hypnotically seductive Marlon Wayans), now a many-time champion, adopts Cam, possibly as a PR stunt, to specially train him for the league combine. It should be said that I know very, very little about football as a sport, much less as a business, so my notes on the details of all this are likely simplistic, very possibly wrong. But the film doesn't talk much about the nitty gritty either, which tells me that either a) it doesn't really know either, which seems unlikely, or b) it isn't really about that aspect of things. Much like Black Swan refusing to detail the specifics of NYCB inner workings, this is meant to be a suggestive, surreal experience for psychological effect rather than a rationally sound treatise on athletic business.

So when Cam arrives at his destination, we know things are going from bad to worse quickly. Remote in the desert, White lives in a guarded compound a la Ex Machina or even this year's Opus, in a mostly underground bunker of sorts, lavishly decorated with memorabilia amidst its stark, cavernous hollows. Outside, there appears to be a cult of fans, worshipping White in all white; in case it isn't clear by now, this film is excruciatingly obvious yet no less brilliant in its application of literal symbolism in almost every aspect, from its ghastly dream sequences to its quite pointed character names. That is to say that it has a lot on its mind, and it doesn't want to bog us down with unnecessarily ambiguous artistry: the film wants us to feel our way through its nightmare, without getting distracted by obscure symbolic meaning.

There are some key points of the simplistic plot worthy of discussion, but this is a rare case when I think knowing the plot in advance would diminish your appreciation of how it unfolds. Like steps to the guillotine, we plod toward a fateful climax never as shocking but always as awful as we imagine. The screenplay is divided into each day of the week, chapters indicated by onscreen text, which also help buttress the almost biblical mythos at work. Brief and notably scant of much dialogue, these scenes demonstrate excellent direction-as-management, making sure all design and production elements are on the same page, sharing the same vision, and pulling equal weight. Even glaring holes in the cerebral logic of the film -- which, perhaps most notably, never identifies or clarifies or justifies any of White's unconventional, abusive, and even criminal methods while training Cam -- can be excused, in my mind, because there are several possible answers, and the film seems to be begging us to talk about it after a screening.

That will bother some audiences, especially these days, but I respect the hell out of a film that isn't so obscure that we need Reddit threads and YouTube videos to explain all their convoluted interpretations yet is bravely figurative enough to offer multiple possible interpretations that in fact build on one another in thematic significance. That's what I come to the movies to see, y'all! Take a central conceit as one nugget to run with during your next rewatch: a system of white capitalization brutalizes and discards Black male bodies, and our protagonist is a light-skinned man of color while his boss (literally "White") in the game has much darker skin. And race isn't even an explicit point of interest for the film!

Even as pure spectacle, the film delivers us visions of novel, inventive horror in a stylish, stylized parade of colors and shapes. Cam's dreams become the language of the film, even bleeding into our understanding of reality. Are the large glittering mascots dancing with weapons actually in the bunker? Probably not, but it's hard to say for sure, and Cam's in no headspace to do investigating. Like Jonathan Harker trapped in Dracula's castle, Cam must continue to torture himself by working while his master assaults both mind and body. And, to that point, something must be said for the pure sex appeal of this movie. If you didn't get that from the posters, you will from the viewing experience, which is one of the most sensual things I've seen on screen all year. Probably since Femme or Babygirl, actually. With the notable presence of Julia Fox and Indira G. Wilson as the women attached to these men, there are ovet gender plays at work, but it's the men who bring the heat. This is my speed of erotic art. 

So come for the looks, stay for the weirdness, and enjoy the onslaught of sensations. I suppose I'd put this on a pedestal alongside Concussion as the only other football movie I've cared about, and we haven't even talked about all the things I want to, like who exactly "Him" is and what that means when attributed to different characters here. Those things, the sparks flying from my mind even now as points of crucial interest, make this far more than a great football movie. They make it sublime, and like mother! or The Neon Demon, this is exactly the kind of pop-art-meets-high-art mythic vision that I have trouble separating the material elements of the film from its ideological ones. Literal shots of infrared x-rays showing bones cracking in football collisions are jarringly inserted into sequences meant to get us thinking about the ethics of a culture that encourages and profits from what amounts to violent theatre. That's not a juxtaposition you can simply not talk about!

I loved this movie, and the more I think about it, the more I love it. Everyone has different aesthetic pleasures, and your experience of it will be different than mine. But when you find a piece of art that really speaks to something in you, or feels shaped for the unique satisfaction of your own mind, and you experience a kind of spiritual kinship with the people who obviously put their own love and passion into making it, it would be a sin not to preach about it. And, as a final nail in that salvific point, there is a strong religious (and Faustian) allegory here, too, so those of you with religious trauma will find extra stimulation from HIM. 

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale (2025)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Fan service drips from the Downton Abbey films, and certainly here for its titular grand finale, from its opening dialogue to the necessary and expected helicopter shot that tracks away from a winding pastoral driveway to the view of that magical facade we've loved seeing for fifteen years now. And, at least in my nicely filled little auditorium, the audible cheers and sighs and laughter helped make the movie for me. It's like the obligatory introductory shot of Hogwarts in each movie, or the slow reveal of John Wayne in one of his flicks. Surrounded as I was by groups of white women several decades older than myself, I felt somehow transported through time and space, back to my high school years of turning on PBS to watch the new drama series that quickly became a favorite between me and my mother. That's the magical feeling that legacy sequels are supposed to provide -- but that's a nut to crack another time. 

It's 1930, and the world is still reeling from the stock market crash, and questions resurface that have long plagued the Crawley family: how much longer can we sustainably stay in our home, with our comfortable lifestyle, and care for our tenant community? It's now about eighteen years after the start of the series (and fifteen years since we started watching it in 2010), and not everyone is still part of the group; Dame Maggie Smith is honored well in this entry, along with a beautiful dedication. But the film works best -- admittedly, perhaps only -- as this metafictional meditation on the cost and necessity of moving on from a place of security and comfort. This is our last look, and indeed, many members of the family have already left or are prepared to leave soon, so the bittersweet warmth of Downton's scenic views and richly detailed interior are never less than enthralling to behold.

The series has always been about this issue, which makes this final entry a consummate work of emotional art. The Crawleys have, endlessly, battled themselves and each other to accept change or resist it. Clearly Julian Fellowes hasn't wanted to (or been able to) let go either, as the trilogy of films has evidenced. And of course we, the viewing public, have been clamoring for more for some time now. But all good things must end, and they end better on our determined terms than by the cruel whims of fate. I applaud Fellowes and director Simon Curtis (My Week with Marilyn, Goodbye Christopher Robin, A New Era) on knowing when to stop and creating a calculatedly brilliant -- indeed, grand -- denouement to this saga. 

The presence of some American characters, notably Paul Giamatti's brother of Cora (Elizabeth McGovern) and his rakish associate (a delicious Alessandro Nivola), make up the real guest stars here, much in the mode of the series. We're also blessed with Simon Russell Beale, Joely Richardson, and Arty Froushan in such intoxicatingly rich roles that I found myself wishing they had all joined earlier. This is ensemble casting as it was in the golden age of Hollywood, and Fellowes nails it (Gosford Park told us long ago where his sweet spot always lay). He knows his characters intimately, and so do we by now, giving them endlessly quotable lines that elicit emotional responses from the audience in every single scene. 

For me, the greatest emotional payoff in this film -- virtually cashing in all of its emotionally taxed profits on our behalf at the same brutal, rapturous time -- lies with what might have been its biggest risk. Thomas Barrow was not a likable character in the series at all. Robert James Collier imbued a thankless dredge of a role with tortured insight and a richly dynamic energy that allowed the character to shift and breathe and stress for years in relative obscurity and only occasional redemption. But Fellowes and Collier, in the trilogy of films, have finally given Barrow a chance to really blossom before our eyes, and this film in particular provides the almost incredible final ascent of his character to nirvana, and I thought we'd never see it. That's all I'll say on that front. If you know, you know. Be blessed.

It's also fair to say, and I think this goes beyond my own bias, that Collier delivers some of the film's most humorous and joyful moments, along with his comrades Dominic West (still playing a role so well that I keep forgetting it's West) and Arty Froushan (as the unshakably charming Noel Coward). There's a scene I at first disliked, when Coward is asked to entertain the Crawleys and shown in full measure as he plays the piano and sings to them; it felt odd and lazy and overly shmaltzy from a writerly perspective until the camera began panning across the faces of his audience. In light of the impending end of all this, we're treated to watching people at a precipice fully engaged with and moved by the only art available to them in a given moment. Of course they can't whip out their phones to record his song, but there's something to Curtis choosing to force us to witness the power of pure spectatorship when we don't let distractions take us away from genuine human interaction. How we have to pay attention to the important things in life, and so few of them are on our phone screens. And none are on social media. It feels apt in a story about choosing what is ultimately best for us and moving on, especially given the past year of news about AI art and the arts being co-opted by rising autocrats. 

I will note, as a middling criticism, that though Fellowes and Curtis in no way skimp on us, there were several other moments in this film I wanted to linger upon. It's not like their budget or studio would have begrudged them an extra minute or two on delicate matters. Nevertheless, it's invigorating to experience Fellowes's extraordinary gift for pacing in ensemble drama, and he is one of the most efficient screenwriters working today when he's in his groove. Like an Aaron Sorkin piece, his characters will pop in and out of a single brief scene and completely change the plot in a matter of minutes. And after the somewhat fanciful rabbit trail of A New Era, here things feel focused and tight, like Fellowes wound it up with a vigor intended for it to outlast us all. 

The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025)

Score: 4 / 5

It's difficult to know how to approach this film, critically, as its marketing has been obsessed with this status of finality. Though we already know the franchise is far from over -- indeed, since this release, New Line and Warner Bros. have confirmed at least one more film and an entire television series -- this will apparently be the last time we see Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga star as Ed and Lorraine Warren. Before we can really talk about this movie in particular, I want to acknowledge that I am very biased regarding this series. I'm aware that the Warrens are controversial figures, and that their ethics of work do not always stand up to scrutiny. But these films only tangentially resemble reality, so I don't think getting caught up in the real stories is either the point nor the power behind what this series is meant to do. These are scary stories with heart, meant as profoundly ideologically conservative exercises in funhouse spectacle, and exegeses beyond that should always first recognize both the aesthetic and commercial purpose inherent in this particular franchise. 

As a fan, then, I can't help but feel melancholic about the franchise in general. When it started, I expected Wan & co. to churn out movies quickly, with more regularity and with a planned flow. After all, these were sold to the studio as "case files" from the Warren backlog, dramatizing key hauntings the couple investigated during their career. But the films quickly skirted the confines of reality and burst into Grand Guignol-style, mega-budgeted affairs of jump scares and emotionally fraught melodrama. And I was even digging that! But when the series started looping back on itself, I worried that there was no actual plan to this processional. Much as Wan started franchises like Saw and Insidious before training and letting others take over -- a choice that makes me respect him a ton as a working artist and businessman, if not so much as a storyteller -- the Conjuring titles quickly deteriorated when he stepped aside as main creator. I very much enjoyed the Annabelle and Nun series, as they shaped and reshaped their own generic conventions. But Michael Chaves, handpicked by Wan for reasons I will never understand nor agree with, has now helmed no fewer than four of these films, and they're simply not to my liking.

And, under Chaves's guidance, the franchise has given up on its internal logic and nightmarish structure, its delightful mastery of scare tactics and visual differentiation, and its propulsive momentum. The series deserved a better trajectory and a better finale: more cases based on the Warrens' extraordinary careers and a fictional mythology that actually went somewhere with its fabulous and creepy ideas. And that simply has not (yet) happened. But that's not this film's fault. As an emotional end to the Warrens' story, Last Rites actually succeeds brilliantly. As a standalone film about a spooky haunting handled dramatically by the Warrens as one of their case files, it succeeds significantly better than Chaves's previous titles in this franchise. So let's dive in.

The film opens with a flashback to 1964, only four years before the first film, as Ed and a very pregnant Lorraine investigate a haunted mirror. It's a clever and nicely framed sequence that ends with no small amount of blood and horror as their baby, Judy, is stillborn; seemingly, Lorraine's prayerful begging revives her daughter. While I was at first annoyed by yet another chronological misdirection, the narrative choice is pretty great if we're meant to see this "final" film as an end for the Warrens and a possible start for Judy. Judy, played by various actresses, has weaved in and out of this franchise, but when we are launched twenty-two years forward into the "present day" (1986), she takes a central role as a young woman eager to start her own life with boyfriend Tony (Ben Hardy). Mia Tomlinson brings a complex character to life with a keen understanding of her own dualism: she carries a repressed ability to communicate with the dead, much like her mother's, but she has been taught to bury it and avoid her visions. There will be a reckoning, the genre fan knows, and Lorraine and Judy are going to have to deal with the implications of their gifts.

Fans of -- or, generally, people who know about -- the Warrens will recognize some really well-constructed personal elements to their story in this film. Tony of course does end up sort of taking over the family business after Ed's passing in real life, so his presence here has a ring of predestination to it, even as he literally fumbles his way through his proposal to Judy and becomes part of their climactic investigation into the resurfaced haunted mirror. Ed's heart problems -- caused, you may recall, by a previous encounter with evil -- will indeed kill him, hence his and Lorraine's attempts at retiring from jobs that indeed cause undue cardiac stress. And while the haunted mirror itself, like Malthus and Valak, seems determined to link larger aspects of the Warrens' lives, I can't help but feel disappointed and cheated by this film's refusal to engage with the other primary antagonists of this series.

Oh well. At least we have a new haunting, right? The Smurl haunting is the vehicle for our heroes' final outing, much-fictionalized as it is here, in rustbelt Pennsylvania. The family here is quite large and reinforces, naturally, the common tropes involved in such cases: an overlarge, multigenerational family living uncomfortably near the poverty line, misunderstood children in danger causing rifts in family interdependence, and manipulation of public opinion to spur socioeconomic improvement. Unfortunately, and unlike Wan's successes with the Perrons and Hodgsons, here the family is so thinly written and the house so undetailed that we aren't nearly as engaged with the victims of the haunting as we should be. The whole time, we're preoccupied with the much more fun and sentimental Warrens; it's telling, then, that the notably sexual dynamics of the haunting are so underplayed that my viewing friend didn't even register that it was an element of the horror at play.

But as a Warren story, this movie rocks. Wilson imbues Ed with a spirit-shaken determination to still guide and protect his family, residual of the masculine ethos he has espoused his whole life (caricatured by a painting of John Wayne featured prominently in the set of his house). He wants to still be the crucifix-touting hero even as the needs of his family are changing and needing his gentleness and kindness foremost. Meanwhile, Farmiga's Lorraine has never been less than entrancing onscreen, with her faraway pale eyes and ethereal hands, but here her scene-chewing feels more lived-in and welcome, as an older woman eager to understand and help the large personalities around her in ways only she can. They've always been the main reason for these films, and here they are as good as they've ever been together, clearly respecting and loving each other's formidable talents as characters and as actors. And while their time in the actual investigation takes a delay here (they don't even go to the Smurl residence until over halfway through the film), the screenplay makes the wise decision to showcase elements of their life that don't revolve around screaming and running through cramped houses with Bibles and holy water.

What else can we say? If you love these movies, or even simply enjoy them, this marks a high point in the latter half of the franchise. I wept as the film ended, mostly out of a sense of relief and sentiment, as the film plucked my heartstrings like a familiar fiddle. Though Chaves has woefully misunderstood his assignment in previous entries, here he kind of fucking nails it. Long gone are his grainy, too-shadowed wide shots without substance; though he still does over-rely on CGI, it's less obvious and obnoxious in this than, for example, in the overwrought, almost Dutch Golden Age visual style of the climax in The Devil Made Me Do It. Cinematographer Eli Born (The Boogeyman, Companion, Hellraiser, No One Will Save You) does nice work here, often using period low-res video to help hide the secret terrors he's shooting; his shallow focus and sometimes shaky handheld camera nicely situate us in the period and its limitations. I did not expect to enjoy this feature, formally or generically, nearly as much as I did, though now my concern is really with what the studio is going to continue to do with this material.

Weapons (2025)

Score: 5 / 5

I wasn't ready for Weapons. And neither are you.

Suggesting more than it shows, letting its audience connect its dots, and enjoying its own peripatetic dynamism perhaps too much, Weapons respects itself and its audience and encourages associative cognition. Zach Cregger, perhaps the latest auteur (though we might be using that word a bit liberally these days) in our new wave of horror, has established himself as a writer/director who capitalizes on a thrilling premise and then runs hog-wild with it. With this much larger, in scope, title, Cregger establishes himself as a committed storyteller, one whose final product is considerably more than the sum of its parts.

If you're at all interested in seeing this film and haven't yet, please do yourself a favor and watch it without reading anything about it. To discuss Weapons is to reveal its manifold secrets. You've been warned.

Its central conceit, widely publicized in the film's marketing campaign to the point of being obnoxiously written out on its posters, is that, in a small Pennsylvania town one night, seventeen children from the same third-grade class vanished. The upsetting premise feels all the more poignant as school shootings continue to occur with increased frequency and deadliness; the parallels are pretty clear here, though it's only directly referenced once in a dream that hits it quite bizarrely on the nose. But there's more to this than simple allegory. The film's lackadaisical, almost whimsical tone is struck early, as we watch the children running out their front doors at 2:17am, arms spread as if they're pretending to be airplanes, seemingly blissfully in step with a '70s soft rock song (George Harrison's "Beware of Darkness," the internet tells me). Wistful, even sentimental, this opening sequence feels comfortably chilling, perhaps the very definition of uncanny.

This sweet, slow, subtly sickly aspect of the film -- which lasts for most of its runtime -- draws from a deep well of rural and suburban legends. Evoking the likes of The Virgin Suicides, Magnolia, Picnic at Hanging Rock, and even perhaps We Need to Talk About Kevin, we shift from perspective to perspective of various townsfolk in the wake of their shared tragedy as they attempt to ask (or avoid) questions, point fingers, and make sense of the unthinkable. Films made these days in such rigid episodic structures and nonlinear patterns do raise the question, for me, of whether they were written to be a miniseries, but in this case, I'm glad it was reduced to its two-hour runtime for the sake of cohesion and coherency. The chapters unfold in emotional chunks, sometimes overlapping narratively with an even we've already seen from a different angle; these particular overlaps are often of extremely frightening and violent moments, which serve as jarring ends-of-chapter jolts that, in my screening, had more people saying "wait, what?" than gasping, screaming, or laughing. And that seemed intentional.

To that point, I would like to add that each chapter is presented from the perspective of a particular character, and so Weapons works as an ensemble piece. Arguably the most important character to each part is Justine Gandy, the teacher of the missing students, who becomes a primary suspect of the inciting incident. Julia Garner plays her with profound depth, attempting to navigate her own grief through a gauntlet of weaponized hatred from her neighbors. But Gandy is a distinctly opaque character, one about as far from a Mary Sue as you can get while still being, if not wholly likable, at least sympathetic. She doesn't explain herself, and often holds others to an unspoken standard of judgment they invariably receive. She has a drinking problem, one she's clearly grown with before the inciting incident, and she has a weird vibe with her ex, local cop Paul (Alden Ehrenreich, doing his usual excellent work here with a character who could easily have been really gross). So it makes sense that she becomes the subject of a literal witch-hunt in her town: she's a single young professional who sins, makes no apologies, and doesn't bend over backwards to play nice with anyone but her students.

It's not long into the film that its tone shifts from the vibe of the films I've already mentioned; Cregger clearly knows and loves his cinema with all the references and nods he proudly waves while guiding us through his nightmares. Visually, the film looks like early Denis Villeneuve (Enemy, Prisoners) in its cold, clammy color palette and its vaguely gritty and damp set dressing; this is the decay of small town Americana, the film seems to be saying, and it's only going to get worse. The competing narratives and air of paranoia that pervade the film might be best described as a cold pressure-cooker, getting ready to freeze your marrow as people's frigid cruelties steadily mount. Secrets hidden behind white picket fence facades will out, and so will the lurking evil, older and more sinister than you would have imagined.

I had no idea where this film was going, though in retrospect, what I thought were red herrings were actually pretty solid hints as to the ultimate reveal. There is indeed a witch in town, but it's not Miss Gandy. Alex, the lone boy remaining in her class, has been helping a witch masquerading as his elderly Aunt Gladys. Gladys (played by an astonishingly delicious Amy Madigan) has tricked her way into Alex's house, bewitching and torturing his parents to convince the boy to help her abduct the town children. So the film, for all its thematic suggestiveness, is really just a sophisticated monster movie, featuring what may be the most maligned and inconsistently deployed monster in the genre, the witch. Presumably, she consumes their life force to sustain herself, much like the Sanderson sisters in Hocus Pocus, and please don't think me sacrilegious for the reference, but it is pretty squarely part of both the conversation and the convention at this point. And, while and I don't love the ageism and misogyny in his elaboration and grotesque exaggeration of this choice (especially after Barbarian featured a singularly monstrous "Mother" character, one has to wonder why Cregger is so hell-bent on vicious, violent older women as his vehicles of horror), there is something wickedly satisfying about the rhetoric of witch-hunts and public paranoia leading to increased socioreligious conservatism and inaction and violence being so literalized here. Weaponized, even.

Much as the townspeople fear, things will indeed pop out and scare them, probably even hurt them, in their vulnerable state. And so we, the audience, are similarly targeted by the film's firm grip on our anxieties. What could jump out of that shadowy door in the dark haunted house? Well, if your deepest fear said "your bloodied, wild-eyed neighbor/principal/officer/parent," you'd be right. I've always said that, in horror, what bothers me the most isn't what I can't see or touch, nor is it those supernatural things I won't encounter in this lifetime, but rather the person, known or not, lying in wait with the crazed sole intention of harming me and without regard for consequences. That's fucking terrifying. And that's what this movie delivers. By the end of its climactic sequence, I was shaking and weeping with sensations I haven't felt in a cinema in years, not the least of which was a bleak sense of relief that it was done.

That won't be everyone's level of engagement or appreciation, and it doesn't have to be. But Weapons is one I'll be eager to revisit soon. Come for the great ensemble cast -- I haven't even mentioned! Josh Brolin, Austin Abrams, and Benedict Wong all get POV chapters --  or come for the batshit crazy scary moments peppered in (there are shots that felt like Romero's The Crazies and others like Carpenter's Halloween) or come for the richly complex mystery linking it all, and stay for the sheer pleasure of original storytelling by a capable and inspired artist.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)

Score: 4 / 5

Like the other big summer superhero blockbuster this year, Superman, it would seem that the MCU has again decided that origin stories are sometimes not the way to introduce a well-known hero. Er, heroic family. As if we didn't already know and love Marvel's so-called "First Family," and been treated to multiple previous iterations of them, the writers here smartly toss us into the thick of the Fantastic Four career. We're expected to keep up, and to learn the lore of this particular version of the team as we go. That's not entirely fair; we are given some exposition in the form of a thickly stylized, televised news bulletin, a sort of miniscule mockumentary about the beloved celebrities and how they came to be. But even this narrative device feels more a product of the film's production design than a straightforward means of dumping necessary background info. Because director Matt Shakman (WandaVision, Cut Bank, and exceptional experience in television) does effective worldbuilding and stylistic amalgamation better than most in this ever-expanding genre.

I won't rehash the plot here, but it's nothing new, either for fans of the Fantastic Four or for anyone who's ever seen a superhero movie. But it works -- and works quite well --  as a result of its production design and its earnest, grounded performances. 

Kasra Farahani's (Loki) production design is rich and tactile, evocative and fanciful, and it's just astonishing to behold. As this film is set on an alternate Earth (828, rather than our familiar 616), he isn't bound to specific time or style. He evokes multiple decades from the mid-twentieth century in colors, shapes, textures, fabrics, and general visual splendor, crafting a truly mid-century modernity that feels ripped from any number of period titles, if nothing more obviously than The Jetsons. The dreams, in those days, of space have been immortalized in our cultural mind (think October Sky or The Vast of Night) as aspirational and perfect. Or fanciful yet, to our mind, distinctly old-fashioned in form (think some of the tech in the original Star Wars or Alien, right?). I mean, here we have a cute-as-heck robotic butler named HERBIE yet also large, chunky computers and impractical restrictions on navigating a city when not flying. And there are just enough actual things from our own mid-century brand names and products present in this film that the details are never less than engrossing: which bits are real, and which were manufactured for this alternate reality?

The lead performances are all solid, and I especially appreciated the actors seemingly toning down what could easily have been hammy roles. Especially given the heavy retro-'60s color scheme and trappings, these guys could have overplayed a lot. Heck, as much as I've enjoyed the 2005/2007 and 2015 films of this team, those were all overplayed with nearly opposite energies. Shakman keeps this one pretty even-keel tonally, giving the team enough time to settle in and make their characters comfortable and lived-in. As we're picking up the threads of their collective dynamic, we're able to sense that these four have long since developed a real family vibe, and we never doubt their mutual affection or respect. It's pretty magical ensemble work. There's also a sort of sub-theme here, which becomes apparent as the plot develops, of what happens to an insular group when public opinion eventually turns on them; that's a bit too timely right now, so I'm not going to attempt fleshing out that observation.

Thus, the interpersonal drama of the team didn't wholly work for me, but I'm well aware that's a "me" problem. Stories that hinge on soon-to-be-parents and obsession over infant health and safety are simply not interesting to me, and while I appreciated this Johnny's comparatively respectable cocksurety and subtle undermining of himbo expectations, the relationships between the teammates all felt predicated on the obnoxiously unassailable specter of The Child. To be fair, one must consider the rest of the plot to appreciate why there is so much ad nauseum focus on The Child: the villain of this story, cosmic god Galactus (and, by extension, his Silver Surfer, much as we saw in the 2007 film), plans to basically devour Earth to temporarily satiate his eternal hunger, until he divines that Reed and Sue's baby is powerful enough to be his next vessel. The specifics remain unclear in how any of this works, of course, but the malicious focus on needing this baby provides thematic closure (or, arguably, purpose) for the screenplay's endless obsession with it.

I do think this story, simple as it is, is remarkably effective in introducing us to these characters and their role in the MCU. Most origin stories are simple for a reason: new names, new personalities, new themes, new locations, it's all a lot to take in. So we need a basic narrative formula to tie all those things together in a more palatable form. There's a reason Moon Knight, for example, needed multiple episodes, rather than a single film, to get us on board with not only its new and unfamiliar characters but also its somewhat unconventional themes and storytelling mode. Same can be said for WandaVision, actually, which is doubtless why Shakman and his team of writers opt to attempt mythmaking here. A cosmic deity knowing only hunger and needing human child sacrifice for consumption and possession is a the root of human existential horror. Think about Kronos and his children, or Jehovah's demand of Abraham, or Palpatine and his plan with Han and Leia's child (or Rey in the films). This is a foundational myth capitalized on by the screenwriters and emphasized in Galactus's (badass) physical design and chilling performance by Ralph Ineson (The Green Knight, The Witch, kind of giving here something akin to Tim Curry's Lord of Darkness in Legend).

I also think that, by launching us into the Fantastic Four's celebrity status, the heart of the film wins us by making its characters more human, rather than less. How many superhero films start by taking your average person and somehow transforming them into a hero at the cost of alienating us from them? Well, by definition, probably most. Then they have to spend a sequel or more navigating issues of being somehow more than human, including celebrity status and increased scrutiny. But in this film, we know immediately that they are globally renowned and beloved; it's only as that status begins to crumble -- and their multiple plans as a team successively fail -- that their chilly facade cracks and lets us, the audience, in. It gets quite unexpectedly emotional, much like Thunderbolts, earlier this year.

The CGI baby was awful to watch. And that's all I have to say about that.

Freakier Friday (2025)

Score: 3.5 / 5

Rarely, anymore, does a leading comedic duo make their cinematic outing truly worth it. Admittedly, I'm the exact target audience for a Freaky Friday legacy sequel, twenty-two years after the smash teen Disney comedy, nobody could contest that watching Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan doing all this again and clearly having the time of their lives is anything less than magical. They could be sitting on a sofa giving interviews and it would be entertaining, but here we're given a story that has enough fun twisting and building off the original to work as a reasonably coherent and cohesive film on its own merit. The nonsense -- and I mean a lot of it -- works for us simply because of Curtis and Lohan.

Being concerned the night before this screening, I rewatched the original and found myself enchanted all over again. Yet I needn't have worried; Freakier Friday is narratively similar to the original, simply scaffolded with a secondary level of freakiness. That is to say that Curtis and Lohan, the now-aged mother and daughter, do indeed switch bodies, but not with each other. Lohan's daughter and soon-to-be stepdaughter are pulled into the mix, adding a new generation to the equation. This isn't the kind of material that needed the unnecessary chaos and double trouble, and I struggled more than once to marry Curtis, especially, to her new personality. 

Director Nisha Ganatra (Late Night, The High Note, Transparent) embraces the chaos and makes a compelling case for both simplicity in comedy and gracious direction that allows its performers to breathe. She wisely lets Curtis and Lohan ham it up, catching their charm with seeming patience and a hesitance to force it. That may not be entirely fair, because it is still a Disney comedy of a particular millennial appeal, and the somewhat sitcom style is by definition forced. But I never felt manipulated out of my comfort zone into sensing joy in this film; maybe some laughs and surprises were spliced in, but my enjoyment was constant.

Well, mostly constant. Scenes revolving around the teenagers (Julia Butters of The Fabelmans and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Sophia Hammons) are mostly obnoxious and strange, and I found their characters woefully underwritten and mostly dull. It doesn't help that the young performers are simply not up to the task of emulating stars with the emotive powers of Curtis and Lohan; they feel and sound flat and annoyed, not a helpful combination, and a big letdown from the rollicking scenes of their counterparts acting fools. Even the mere sight gag of Curtis with lip plumper has been branded to my funny bone.

Narratively straightforward and with few real surprises, there's not much of note apart from the leads and the general production design, which gorgeously evokes the candy-colored vibes of the original. A bizarre and endlessly repeated mantra from a psychic (Vanessa Bayer of SNL, who really deserved a better-written character) sets off the mania this time around, though the Chinese mother and daughter from the first one return for some cute screentime. Manny Jacinto as Lohan's fiancee does his best with the role, but he's a suspiciously perfect man, even to a fault, which also makes him rather boring. Chad Michael Murray returns in arrestingly glorious fashion, and his flirtation with Curtis is a highlight.

Think about the film too much, and its magic dissipates. Like the accent issue between Curtis and her body-swapping partner. Or like the casting choice for a teenager who plays older very well and an adult woman who miraculously still exudes the twentysomething energy that made her famous; swapped, they're really not far off from what we have already seen of each of themselves. But in its surface pleasures, Freakier Friday is a touching homage to nostalgia and enthusiasm in family films. Perhaps more importantly, it shows a remarkable return to form from a very classy Lohan, whose aura in this film feels so healing and genuine that it's hard to separate the real woman from the character. I look forward to the day when she gets some really meaty material to claim as the bona fide actor I suspect she's waiting to reveal. In the meantime, this might be my favorite of the Disney late-sequels of live action films yet, and it's all because of Curtis and Lohan.

Superman (2025)

Score: 3.5 / 5

It was only a matter of time before DC films changed course, and James Gunn's new vision for the shared universe arrives with jovial flair in Superman. The brightly-hued film feels ripped from a comic book, with energy to boot, as it energetically races into refreshing new territory for its IP. As an unapologetic apologist for the previous, much darker DC franchise (the DCEU, if I'm correct?), I was hesitant about this film. Not because of its recasting of the character or a new direction for him, not by a long shot; I felt sorrow for some really cool plot threads and characters that will now never reach completion. Though, since the franchise has been handling multiverses pretty darn well now for over a decade now, maybe our already-formed Justice League will get some payoff someday.

As writer and director, Gunn wastes no time in getting to his main course in this energetic and fast-paced, if peripatetic, superhero vehicle. Do we really need yet another iteration of Clark Kent's origin story? Of course not, so Gunn smartly eases on down to the good stuff. Superman is already beloved around the world when he oversteps the rule of law while stopping an international crisis; shortly after, he is humiliated and defeated badly for the first time. This launches the plot, in which Superman has to navigate suddenly cloudy waters about his identity and purpose while battling scientist and tech genius Lex Luthor along with public opinion. Actually, he also has to fight himself, in more than one manner of speaking.

This is a very silly movie in a lot of ways, and I found its good humor and charm a warm and fuzzy throwback to the Christopher Reeve films. Which is saying a lot, because David Corenswet's (Pearl, Hollywood, The Politician) Superman also reminded me a lot of Reeve's, both in appearance and in aura. He just feels like the character you imagine. When he takes off into the skies and our camera is shakily wobbling in front of his face, I was fully on board for the ride. And as emotionally intense as the film gets -- well, tries to get -- it never feels weighed down by too much sentiment or nostalgia. Fairly early on, a cartoonishly CGI-made Krypto the Superdog helps save Superman, and it was then I knew Gunn did not want us to take this movie seriously. When "the Justice Gang" convenes, I laughed and clapped along with everyone, though by that point I was getting lightheaded from everything going on and all the new characters. We may not have needed an origin story, but that doesn't mean we should already be in medias res, you know?

The heavier parts mostly come from the villain and the girl. Nicholas Hoult has some fun playing Lex Luthor (and letting a hilarious Sara Sampaio frothily float around him as Eve Teschmacher), who takes a character written rather obviously to evoke Elon Musk and makes him chic and bitter. He's delicious, but rather shockingly, to me, quite human and accessible; it's a wise choice not to make him raving or monstrous. I do think he's a bit flat and pathetic, which might be the point; greed is such a banal motivator in films of this caliber. And then there's Lois Lane, who in this film is pretty convincing as a hard-hitting journalist determined to speak truth to power. One scene in particular stands out in my memory, when Clark offers Lois an exclusive interview and their discussion about his ethics nearly derails their relationship. It's damn good writing. So I'm not sure if it was partly the writing or not, but Rachel Brosnahan's (I'm Your Woman, The Courier, The Amateur) performance didn't really work for me; I found her savvy and direct but also pretty shallow and rigid. We aren't given reason, in the film, to see why Clark loves her, and indeed, at one point Lois says something to the effect of, "I knew this relationship wouldn't work out." Doesn't sound like a committed partner to me, and she's talking about Superman for crying out loud!

Additionally meaningful in this jaunt, Gunn's choice to emphasize the narrative of Superman being an alien cannot be overstated. The geopolitical conflict of fictional countries is a clear allusion on Gunn's part to reality, and so is his choice to open his renovated DCU with the story of an immigrant saving the world. At one point, Superman gets taken by masked thugs who assault him and lock him into a special, secret detention cell crowded with other prisoners, mostly political opponents, reporters, and even a family that was split up. This is the kind of immediate, direct, impassioned social commentary more superhero movies should have, and it feels like Gunn is saying, "Come, enjoy the movie, and learn to see the world around you." But before it gets too deep, Superman takes a split second to save a squirrel in the middle of a battle, which is one of those delightfully illogical and impossible things that happens in comics, and it feels effervescent here.

Everybody is going to rate their favorite Supermen, but I don't think I can. Nothing will beat Henry Cavill's version of the character, who gave me some uncanny valley in his tortured focus, and it makes me very sad that we likely won't be getting that again. Yet, much like with the other leading men who came before, Corenswet rises to the occasion with aplomb, helping us to renew our belief in integrity, duty, and the power of action.

Sketch (2025)

Score: 4.5 / 5

I haven't been this blissfully surprised by a film in a long time, perhaps not since The Wild Robot. Writer/director Seth Worley taps deep into emotional reserves and imaginative creativity in Sketch, a family film that pushes aesthetic boundaries even as it doubles down on tasteful, mature themes. In concept and scope, it feels like Jumanji or Bridge to Terabithia, and in aesthetic style, it feels like a mixture of Detective Pikachu and Velvet Buzzsaw. I was reminded of A Monster Calls multiple times during this viewing experience, and I eagerly intend another such screening.

Taylor, a middle-aged widower (an exceptional Tony Hale), prepares to sell his family's house yet is having trouble with his children. Jack (Kue Lawrence), eager to please and step up to the challenge of a suddenly smaller family, wants to help and fix everything while repressing his own grief and needs. Amber (Bianca Belle), younger, is mostly quiet, preferring to channel her brainpower and idle hands into drawing -- hence the title -- various creatures and monsters of increasingly frightening nature -- again, hence the title -- and crafting elaborate mythologies around her imagined enemies. Perhaps it's easier to draw our monsters and cover them in glitter than it is to, say, meditate on the death of your mother or confront your bullies at school. Art is a therapeutic tool, and this film is one determined to help you work through some things.

Jack, one day, discovers a pond that can fix broken things and becomes obsessed with putting his mother's ashes into the water, hoping she will return to life and fix their broken family. One thing leads to another, Amber appears, and her notebook ends up quite soaked in the water. Soon enough, the brightly colored and bloodthirsty monsters of her soul pour out of the forest, stalking around town and causing mayhem. Eventually, the family -- including Taylor's sister Liz (D'Arcy Carden, in a thankless role she absolutely slays), who can more clearly see the psychological dynamics at play and verbalizes the theme of lamentation and grieving -- must band together to fight the monsters and restore normalcy.

The deeply sentimental and heartrending story had me in tears more than once, and it's a beautiful accomplishment in both design and execution here. Yet I'd be lying if I said that's the best part of this film; indeed, this is a rare case of me appreciating the "action" and effects even more than the story or writing. Amber's creatures, when brought to life, are so brilliantly conceived and rendered that I repeatedly had to pinch myself from shouting out "Yes!" in the screening when a new one appeared. There's a giant round blue one with googly eyes that rains glitter, reddish-orange multi-legged "eyeders" made out of powdery chalk, and a dark, hooded silent creature with Amber's creativity and a bitter axe to grind. 

As silly as these creations could have been, the film designers make them feel tactile and consequential. Not unlike the cartoonish creatures in Detective Pikachu, these are clearly designed appropriately to the initial drawings by Amber, yet palpably rendered to feel believable and dangerous. We are right there with the kids in our awe and shock when the monsters strike, and it's just as funny as it is alarming. Much like kids playing pretend and getting too "into it," this film literalizes the experience of seeing your imagination manifesting before you. Notably, the film feels shot, more often than not, as if it were a horror film, underscored with music filled with dread and slowly roving cinematography that, had this been rated R, would have had me gripping my armrests in fear. The authenticity and bravery on display hold true for the screenplay and the acting, which coalesce into a rollicking adventure through an emotional gauntlet course with plenty of absurdist insight, slapstick comedy, and even innocent potty humor, so that nobody in the audience feels left out of the fun.

G20 (2025)

Score: 2 / 5

Released on Amazon's Prime Video the same week as The Amateur, G20 is a less gritty and more fun political action-thriller. In the vein of big-budget terrorism movies centered around a sitting US president -- think White House Down, Air Force One, and Olympus has Fallen -- this outing features one of the most compelling and exciting leading stars yet in the form of a formidable Viola Davis. Her character, former Iraq war veteran who was immortalized on a TIME magazine cover, is now President Danielle Sutton, and she's eager to make a splash at the G20 summit in Cape Town. She's also eager to be a good mother to her two teen kids, though her daughter is causing no small amount of havoc, domestically. When mercenaries led by a special forces officer hijack the summit and take the world leaders hostage, Sutton escapes but returns to save her colleagues and her family.

There's not a moment of this film that doesn't feel familiar or predictable, which is disappointing in a film with four writing credits. It's also really disappointing that the film looks so cheap: its clear use of greenscreen in many scenes and endless transition shots makes it look like a network television show's CGI from twenty years ago. But director Patricia Riggen handles the film's propulsive action with diverting thrills and no small amount of tension, even with a frustrating number of bait-and-switches that start at the end of the opening sequence itself. Perhaps that's a problem of the writers, the editors, or the director, but regardless, this is one of those films to not think too critically about. Just go along for the ride. Davis will get you where you need to go. 

The rest of the cast is unremarkable. Anthony Anderson does what he can with a mostly inept First Gentleman, Antony Starr's villain is boorishly blasé, and Douglas Hodge is utterly wasted as the UK Prime Minister. Elizabeth Marvel has a few nice moments, but she's shoehorned in by a screenplay that needs a final twist, and Ramon Rodriguez is memorable as a sweet and plucky sidekick to the prez. But this is Davis's movie through and through, and she delivers with a knowing sense of grit and determination. Her scenes are highly satisfying not necessarily because of her particular physical prowess (this isn't John Wick, after all) but because of her emotional dedication to whoop ass; Davis is never less than authentic, and we feel every punch and kick along with her (remember The Woman King?). It's also highly satisfying to see her pushing back against her white colleagues who explicitly question her leadership as a Black woman, and that her best help comes from other people of color. 

What's the film really about, though? Other than a hammy thematic concern about family and keeping one's house in order, not much. The entire terrorist plot is about money, unfortunately. Cryptocurrency, in fact, and deepfakes, AI, and trade wars all take significant time to discuss. And discuss these characters do, though after multiple detailed conversations and rather obtuse dialogue, I'm still unable to paraphrase much of what the actual plan was, or how various characters schemed to bypass the villainous demands. Perhaps because I simply don't know anything about digital currency, but also perhaps because it doesn't really matter for the story, either.

Arguably too little too late, G20 ends up little more than a ramshackle vehicle for a fun but uncomfortably wobbly ride. It fits with this year's Captain America: Brave New World in that it attempts to address real-world chaos and inflamed racial politics by merely using them rather than offering insight or illumination. It feels "nice," yet I'm not convinced a story like this should ever feel "nice." Eager to impress on us how simple and ultimately helpful it is to find common ground and play nice with diverse people, the film saves itself from total obscurity by enshrining a Black woman as a badass president in the style of Harrison Ford. I just wish our world reflected even an ounce of that in practice right now.

Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025)

Score: 4 / 5

In an age when everyone wants to shove their opinions down your throat -- most of them negative -- find your joy. Jurassic World: Rebirth had me in jubilation most of the summer, and its simple pleasures I hold dear to my heart. Anyone who loves dinosaurs, adventure, and this franchise will find boons here. Skipping the self-explanatory narrative, then, let's just hit on the major points of interest.

With Gareth Edwards (Godzilla, Rogue One, The Creator) at the helm, and boasting a return to the series by master screenwriter David Koepp, the latest installment in the long-running series strips us of characters and locations we already know. Apart from general "vibes" and the adventure-gone-awry loose narrative structure, Rebirth feels less like one of the original Park films and more like a love letter to both Steven Spielberg and Michael Crichton. That might be appropriate, as its science fiction trappings are taken to an extreme here only previously hinted at: many of the dinosaurs in this film are the result of genetic experimentation, underscoring the ungodly methods used by wealthy men playing God.

Its setting is worthy of note: this film relocates the action to a new island, Ile Saint-Hubert, in the Atlantic. While I don't mind the globetrotting in principle or in practice -- look at Dominion for proof that it can work, though this film skips right ahead to a time when many of Earth's dinosaurs have died or migrated to remote, protected tropical regions -- it's bothersome here that the island houses an abandoned InGen factory. Why, I've asked before and apparently must again, why doesn't this franchise simply capitalize on the other islands in the archipelago Las Cinco Muertes, established in The Lost World seemingly for just this purpose? Why must we illogically move now to an island in the Atlantic that looks suspiciously like Thailand (where it was actually filmed)?

Edwards seems more constrained by studio dictates here, and eager to play it safe with the thrills and violence in this story. Few and far between are real scares here, as Edwards and Koepp work hard to instead increase character depth and development. We're encouraged to better identify with these characters than most in the series, and we sit with them through highly dramatic dialogue for lengthy bits of time. While this works to emotionally invest us in their experience, it does so by limiting our exposure to rampant death (contrasted with Jurassic World, for instance). There's also something lost, viscerally, by a complete (or, perhaps, near-complete) lack of animatronics and an overreliance on computer-generated creatures, and you can absolutely sense it this time around.

Thus it felt somewhat ironic that the film's central theme is the corrupting influence of capitalism; arguably, indeed, that capitalism is itself the real monster at work in this franchise. It's been part of the Jurassic cosmology since its inception, of course, but this film beats us over the head with the message. To that end, while the characters build up and riff off this central conceit -- and, admittedly, in believable and compelling ways -- there are so very many characters, and all new, that the theme begins to feel a bit overwrought. Thankfully, the characters are played off each other well enough that we never feel bogged down, as we know that soon enough they'll stumble into another dinosaur to cause some action.

The adult cast is uniformly excellent, as I don't think anyone would have doubted. The three leads -- Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, and Mahershala Ali -- are exceptionally convincing together, and you can feel their joie de vivre at being part of this romp. There is a curious and, to me, often unwelcome subplot involving a young family who unwittingly get caught up in monster mayhem and need to be saved. It feels tacked-on and unnecessary, inexplicably stupid, and distractingly under-baked; the father, his two daughters, and the elder daughter's boyfriend are obnoxious and melodramatic, scraping for laughs and mostly unable to get them. I can't even say the actors perform well in these terribly misconceived roles. Thankfully, we get to experience Rupert Friend's villainous side, and that's always welcome.

Where the film skimps in its worldbuilding -- and I do mean that, because the prologue is profoundly, shockingly stupid, and ripped from the prologue to Edwards's Godzilla -- it makes up in sheer beauty and awe. Alexandre Desplat's score pays homage to John Williams while crafting moments of stirring sentiment and rousing aural spectacle. Accomplished cinematographer John Mathieson captures the towering monoliths of the island jungle with sweeping pans, gorgeous helicopter views, and some golden hour photography now seared into my brains. The film relishes in its daylight, and though it features its share of nighttime sequences, the best are bravely and wisely in clear illumination. And several sequences rank firmly among the best of the franchise, including an extended boat chase and a later sequence in an inflatable raft on river rapids. Melodrama is more palatable when it's interrupted by such masterfully suspenseful set pieces.

Your mileage on this film -- and on this series -- may vary, but do the rest of us a favor and bellyache about it to yourself. We know the CGI, the monstrous dinos, and the child actors are subpar (although I detest the "Distortus Rex," I love the "Mutadons," and there ain't no way to convince me otherwise on that count). We know the illogical jump in time after Dominion wasn't wise and sparks more questions, and we know there are plenty of other ways entries could (and should) be made for this franchise. But some of us are just here for beautiful people running from beautiful dinosaurs that eat them, and that's our joy. Let us have that.

How to Train Your Dragon (2025)

Score: 1.5 / 5

This film is just not for me. I saw the 2010 animated film back in undergrad and didn't care for it much back then; it just seemed a bit too simplistic and oriented for much younger audiences than myself. It also pulled far too much from similar -- better -- fantasy ideas and imagery for me to take seriously. Apparently based on a 2003 children's novel (itself part of a series), the franchise blossomed with Gen Z and has evidently reached such success that we already are being treated to live action remakes.

That's plural, because the studio is already working on a sequel, which will reportedly be a similar remake of the 2014 animated sequel. Surely they intend to complete the trilogy. When will enough be enough? How soon is too soon? This blatant and artistically bankrupt money-devouring scheme should make everyone as angry at DreamWorks as they tend to be at Disney, if not more.

Worse -- and I admit I may not be the best judge of this -- this mostly live-action remake felt so like the original that I didn't even notice any significant change or departure. Written and directed by Dean DeBlois, who wrote and directed the originals, the material feels rinsed and recycled rather than scrubbed and redefined. It's just a cyclical exercise in content creation. It's barely filmmaking, and it certainly can't be called art. 

I'll concede that, as someone who generally prefers live action to animation, I'd rather watch this film than the original. There's some nice set design and dressing, nice costumes, and some passably entertaining performances in this that I didn't appreciate in the animated original. There are also some indulgences in scenes like a flight sequence and some unnecessary backstory exposition that tend to slow the film's pace, making it feel just a bit more geared toward a slightly older audience, which I similarly appreciate (though I'm not sure any of it was necessary, and I'd have preferred a shortened viewing experience). And yet, despite this seeming-impetus for more developed storytelling, much of the action in the film requires extensive (and, surely, expensive) use of CGI to populate the screen with dragons and flight, yet these scenes provide CGI that would fit better visually in an animated movie rather than a live action one. Where is the logic here?! People criticized The Lion King (2019) for attempting live action yet feeling grossly animated (an accusation I find unfounded, as photorealism is a valid filmmaking goal in and of itself), yet this animation is more cartoonish and opaque than that. This is the kind of animation that we saw in Detective Pikachu, and nobody would say that hewed toward "realism."

And if you think I'm being too critical of the business side of this, take a look at what they're doing in Epic Universe in Orlando and how it aligned with the release of this film. The film is no artistic achievement in live-action remakes, in storytelling, in culture. It's a costly advertisement for a theme park, leeching money off fans who would rather cosplay and watch cosplay than engage in critically aware entertainment, art, and imagination. Disney has done this, too, but never have I seen such a blatant disregard for an IP's own fanbase in favor of grotesque desperation for money.

Final Destination Bloodlines (2025)

Score: 4 / 5

It's been a very long time since I last watched a Final Destination movie, and I'm not sure I've seen all of them. But Bloodlines has me thinkin' it's time to revisit this series.

A quick brush-up on IMDb tells me the previous entry in the franchise, the fifth, was released all the way back in 2011. In our era of reboots and legacy sequels, we should always be prepared for a familiar title like this, but few manage to handle it as compellingly or with as much artistic integrity as Bloodlines, and that's what I want to chitty chat about today. Because anyone familiar with any of these films -- or even the ideas they present, which have pervaded our culture -- knows that they hinge on an understanding of Death as a sort of disembodied god who, like a trickster, utilizes Rube Goldbergian setups to slaughter people who try to thwart or flee their demise. As such, these films provide excessively, gloriously slapstick violence that always please gorehounds and more physically-minded horror fans. 

Yet the series also provides horror and terror of unusual depth for anyone interested in more existential and philosophic concerns. These may not always be manifest in the sometimes rote screenplays and obnoxious dialogue, but the ideas are inescapable, much like Death himself, and these movies are great fodder for post-screening conversations about fate, agency, nihilism, free will, and the purpose of both life and the ending thereof. More importantly, these films have an uncanny knack for preying on and exacerbating our anxieties about fairly common occurrences: trucks with lumber, tanning beds, and LASIK surgery stick out as prime examples (and if you know, you know).

As a standalone story, Bloodlines handles itself with aplomb, framing its concept with the effect of death (read: trauma, family curses, etc.) as it stretches through generations. Opening with the much-publicized sequence in which a 1960s young couple goes to a newly opened restaurant tower that rather resembles the Space Needle in Seattle, the screenplay keeps going back to this massive disaster as a touchpoint. We eventually learn that the disaster was averted due to a well-timed premonition, and that, ever since, Death has claimed all survivors of that day. They were never supposed to continue living, you see, and so their offspring and families and careers have been, from Death's perspective, ill-gotten. We learn about all this through our present-day protagonist, the granddaughter of the premonitory woman who is now a paranoid recluse, and Tony Todd as William Bludworth.

The latter is a poignant and charming addition to this revitalization of the franchise, as Bludworth has appeared in some previous entries, and Todd's considerable gravitas and humor as a performer has made the role iconic. Todd's inclusion here -- significant due to his passing last November -- and the film's dedication to him wrung moisture from my eyes, and his single scene ends with an affirming farewell (that he reportedly improvised) that will haunt you. More pointedly, his role underscores the legacy element of this legacyquel, as he was also a survivor that day in 1969, a revelation that provides more nuance and purpose to his role in the series.

The main plot, in the present day, offers no less thematic concern, as it centers around an extended family who are apparently the last intended to be claimed by Death. As the grandmother eventually shares, all others who were supposed to have died in the tower disaster have, by now, died in extreme and weird circumstances. Her descendants band together, despite their longtime estrangement, to pore over her notes and concoct a plan to escape their respective dooms. It's a riveting, fun ride, and all the more so when it's littered with bizarre, funny, grisly, shocking deaths. 

Directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein (who directed Freaks in 2018 but nothing else I've seen) pull no punches in their highly stylized approach to this material, and it's clear they have both a deep understanding of this franchise and what fans want from it as well as a rich sense of humor and joy in bringing the sometimes unwieldy material to life. And that's no diss on the writers, including Lori Evans Taylor, Guy Busick (who often works with Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett), and Jon Watts (Clown, Wolfs, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, and the MCU's Spider-Man trilogy). This writing committee here crafted an admittedly detailed and weighty story that, in the wrong hands, could have lost a lot by way of tone, style, and metaphysics. There's a joie de vivre on display here that frankly we don't see a ton of in contemporary horror; stylistically, it feels not unlike some of Sam Raimi's work, a la Evil Dead. And the soundtrack is... well, it's a delight, and I won't spoil it.

You can always tell when a death is coming because the astonishing editing (Sabrina Pitre) and cinematography (Christian Sebaldt) draw relentless attention to potentially dangerous items or events in the immediate vicinity of the characters in a given scene. A tree trimmer leaning against a trunk, a man blowing leaves nearby, kids kicking a soccer ball, and a trash truck rumbling up the street: you've got yourself a new disaster in the making, and the film is begging you to fantasize about the order of operations for yourself. Which of these Chekhovian guns are going to "go off" first? Extreme closeups and amplified sound effects feed into our expectation of fulfillment: like the reverse of a murder mystery, we know someone will die, we just don't know how yet. Instead of too many suspects, as in a whodunnit, here we have too many potential killers, and they're almost all mundane objects and simple mechanical processes. Just remember that a penny is never lucky in a film like this, and a train isn't just a vehicle to get you from place to place.

I won't spoil anything else, but I don't pick pennies and trains obliquely. These feature in repeated motifs in this film, and I think those are pointed at cultural critique of common conveniences. Make a cloud of associations with pennies, for example, and you'll note "pennies from heaven" and luck along with pennies killing people when dropped from the Empire State Building or the pennies placed on the eyes of the dead before they are ferried to eternal rest. Am I digging too much into this film? I think not, and with all these ideas in mind -- and with, frankly, the metafictional yet also very literal affirmation from Tony Todd -- I don't think it's a stretch to say that this is the best film in the franchise, and a damn good film in its own right. I never expected to genuinely enjoy all of a Final Destination film, yet this one handles both comedy and existential horror with a mastery and sense of artistic vigor we rarely see. It's a consummate meditation on life's purpose and how we can go so terribly awry in the face of metaphysical dread.

The Gorge (2025)

Score: 3 / 5

You may find familiar, dear reader, my praise of films that know and demonstrate exactly what they are, regardless of budget, marketing, and online chatter. A B-movie that is, enthusiastically, the kind of simpler, cheaper, wackier thing you expect to see in an encore feature at a drive-in or underground film festival will earn extra points for me purely as a result of this self-awareness (not metafiction, mind you, but pure comfort in its clearly defined subgenre or intended audience) and resulting conviction. Think genre films. Think zany action. Think excuses for flair. These are films you don't have to take notes during -- heck, you probably don't even need subtitles, because the dialogue isn't that important -- and can sit back and fully enjoy. Or not, and you can snack and chitchat with your friends while it plays before you. 

This is what Scott Derrickson, notably religious creator of thoughtful and haunting horrors The Exorcism of Emily Rose and Sinister, has released to us this year. I'm a big fan of Derrickson's work and the way he has articulated his faith in relation to his preferred genre, and I've been glad for his continued rise in prominence and studio structures. Though nothing he's directed has felt as poignant or personally affecting as those two titles already mentioned -- the former remaining the single best meditation on the intersection of faith and horror I've ever seen and the latter being the single scariest viewing experience I've ever had in a cinema -- the director of Deliver Us from Evil, Doctor Strange, and The Black Phone seems to enjoy playing with big budgets and effects-laden visuals in recent years. The admittedly diminishing returns show no sign of running out with The Gorge.

Sadly, though, this film was not released in cinemas, and I simply cannot understand why. Unless you're at home with a sizable tv screen and at least decent surround sound, The Gorge cannot glean from you the awe it was clearly intended to harvest. 

In brief, the plot concerns two mercenary snipers stationed in isolation at two towers opposite a gorge, which they must maintain lest the dangerous creatures below emerge. That's it, and I tell you that because as such, this is a fabulously high-concept film. Compare it to '70s disaster films or major summer blockbusters: you can get a lot of mileage out of Kevin Bacon fighting carnivorous giant worms in the desert. And regardless of the quality of its special effects, there is something charming about simply watching the compelling conceit unfurl; it helps the film's legacy when major stars populate the screen and special effects are convincing and/or funny. 

And while Derrickson and his screenwriter Zach Dean clearly have fun plumbing the depths of their titular gorge and its secrets, one does grow a little suspicious of their own investment in the film. Because for all its wacky energy and bizarre plot turns -- and trust and believe, these are aplenty -- the film takes itself just -- just -- too seriously. Needless details are one thing, but when their sole purpose is to elicit sympathy from the viewer and intensify emotional attachment, we trespass into sentimentality. We don't need to know that Miles Teller has PTSD from the military or that Anya Taylor-Joy's terminally ill father is soon to commit suicide; these are masterful performers with enough charisma to lead larger projects than this, so let them just do it. Edit out the sentimental crap and turn this movie into what it should be: a mostly silent, curious and introspective, white-knuckled ride through hell and back.

That's not to say the romance aspect of this thriller/adventure/sci-fi/horror film is unwelcome. Despite its truncated length, the budding relationship between the two characters feels both blissful and earned, thanks to a montage sequence for the ages. By the time he hatches a plan to visit her, we're fully on board with this, though frankly she was so rude to him at first I was yelling at the screen for him to go back. The problem is rather that the film leans too heavily into this at times, and too heavily into the action and mystery and horror at others, with no clear tonal through line or even recognizable pattern. Worse, and this is perhaps a little mean, but Dean's dialogue needed some serious workshopping to sound believable and to save my poor eyes from rolling.

After you see the film, I dare to just think about the exact same story but shot entirely from Miles's perspective. Or Anya's. Think about us, stuck there silently with one character as they have to learn their job, settle into place, discover each other, try to communicate and build a relationship, and decide to make the dangerous and disobedient visit. That approach would ratchet up the tension and mystery even more by obscuring certainty about the beguiling other person, shed the artificial sentimentality of being force-fed their backstories, add opportunities for creative cinematography, editing, and sound mixing around one person's isolated existence, and provide space for unexpected and earned comedy as we would understand the awkwardness of being alone and needing to connect with another character even from afar, if only to learn what the heck the movie was about! We'd discover things along with the characters in a much more compelling and authentic way, without too many details from the screenplay being lost along the way.

And I think that's where we'll leave this review. Several things yet I wanted to mention -- including the amazing score from Reznor and Ross that electrifies this film's energy, Sigourney Weaver's delicious appearance from head to toe, effective and scary monster design (a mix of Annihilation and The Mist), Sope Dirisu's considerable skill in enlivening a miserable exposition-dumper minor part before being totally wasted by the film, the absolute nonsense that these lovers need binoculars to even see each other yet often smile and wave without so much as a squint, the insane color grading of the fog scenes (gray to yellow to blue to red, for no apparent reason) that had me in a panic attack because I hadn't taken anything so why was I tripping -- but describing too many details of a movie like this can really take the joy away from your raw viewing of it. So if any of this sounds remotely interesting to you, or you want to just have a fun time with a fine flick, check out The Gorge. It's a solid date night choice.