All Reviews

Paul Feig’s thriller goes wildly, watchably off the rails Despite having cut his teeth making some of the best comedy of the last few decades with The Office (2005-2013), Parks and Recreation (2009-2015), Bridesmaids (2011), and Spy (2015), director Paul Feig is insisting on a career change. Since 2018 he’s been trying to break into the thriller genre with A Simple Favor (2018) and its sequel Another Simple Favor (2025). He now has delivered his biggest hit in the genre with

A glossy tribute that mistakes affection for insight Tribute bands are affectionate nostalgia-bait for music fans, wishing to experience an older group in person. One of the most famous tribute bands known at Lightning & Thunder focused on Neil Simon and performed from the late 1980s to the mid 2000s. The group got a documentary Song Sung Blue (2008) and now have a biopic with the same title.   Song Sung Blue (2025) follows musical impersonators Mike (Hugh Jackman) and Claire

Nia DaCosta Brings Moral Weight and Visual Restraint to the Zombie Franchise Many unplanned trilogies fizzle out by their third entry, as the unexpected success of a first film forces sequels into existence, often resulting in an incongruous and artificial trilogy arc. We’ve seen this occur with  Star Wars ,  Creed , and  Unbreakable , but that doesn’t seem to be the case with the recently rebooted  28 Days  franchise. Just last summer,  28 Years Later  (2025) revitalized the

A visually staggering saga running out of fire James Cameron has now devoted close to two decades to his  Avatar  films, which have revolutionized blockbuster cinema: the first  Avatar  (2009) through its groundbreaking visual effects and use of 3D, and the second,  Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), through its pioneering work with notoriously difficult water effects. Both films proved such enormous successes that they now rank as the first and third highest-grossing films of

A harrowing portrait of innocence, bureaucracy, and the human cost of war The recent war in Gaza was bound to spark art attempting to grapple with the horrors and devastating loss it has caused. One of the most potent stories to emerge from the unimaginable civilian death toll was that of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old girl whose call to first responders after an Israeli military attack was heard around the world. Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania has chosen to dramatize this

A somber Knives Out trades clever twists for faith and fatigue After creating a new charismatic detective to join the ranks of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes with the Southern-drawling Benoit Blanc, the unlikely franchise of  Knives Out  has now reached its third film. After the electric first film,  Knives Out (2019), the follow-up  Glass Onion  (2022) proved more convoluted and satirical; this is somewhat overcorrected in the latest installment,  Wake Up Dead Man: A Kni

A compelling yet cautious portrait of the men behind recent history’s atrocities The Nuremberg trials of Nazis were a monumental moment in the collective digestion of the horrors perpetrated in World War II, and set the stage for a new international world order, which, while shaky, remains to this day. The events of those trials have been dramatized in the past as courtroom dramas, most famously in the Spencer Tracy and Burt Lancaster film  Judgment at Nuremberg  (1961), or m

A haunting study of how homes remember—and how families try to forget The poetic question of whether spaces have memory is an intriguing one, and one that spiritually accrues many added layers regarding the trauma or unsettled nature that certain objects or locations retain. Yet from an emotional standpoint, spaces—especially a home—can become symbols of the tangled web of relationships, families, and inner demons that one fights within them. These spaces can also carry liter

Bigger and busier, this sequel can’t recapture the original’s spark After the return of Bob Iger as Disney CEO, a pivot was made to make less quantity of content for the streamer Disney +,  which had partially doomed his chosen successor Bob Chapek, and instead play it safe with sequels to beloved franchises. Thus, a greenlight was given for Moana 2 (2024), Toy Story 5 (2026), and Frozen 3 (2027). Among the anointed sequels to previous hits is Zootopia 2 (2025), which just hi

A bold new cyberpunk vision held back by tonal whiplash and a muted leading man Edgar Wright is a beloved director for many film nerds, known for a winking style and frenetic editing, the Brit has delivered some modern classics such as Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Scott Pilgrim vs. World (2010). Yet Wright has hit a ceiling, remaining within fun yet immature movies, instead of branching out. This constraint is put to the test with his largest budget ever in the remake: The Ru

A return to Oz that exposes fascism with clarity but stumbles in storytelling The phenomenon of Wicked (2024) seemed to work on multiple fronts, launching Jon M. Chu’s musical career as it deserved (after the box office disappointment of In the Heights (2021)), reviving the musical genre, launching Ariana Grande as a legitimate actress, and bringing a needed warning of fascist regimes. As such the follow up Wicked: For Good (2025) which completes the Broadway adaptation, coul

A heist without sparkle, the Horsemen return for a trick no one asked to see It would be hard to imagine, of all the franchises that studios have sought to prop up, that the one about magicians who pull off heists would be the one with best longevity. Yet, the Now You See Me films are now officially a decade-spanning trilogy, with the latest installment, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t (2025) arriving in theaters.   Now You See Me: Now You Don’t utilizes the gap in time from th