Review: “Kong: Skull Island”

2.5 out of 5 stars. Warner Brothers has been trying to reboot its classic monster movie franchises over the past several years, with 2014’s “Godzilla” supposedly kicking off a series of new films. That film had mixed results, but “Kong: Skull Island,” the second film in this new “Monsterverse,” does even more so. Directed by […]

Review: “Logan”

4.5 out of 5 stars. Eight years ago, leaving the theater after watching the terrible, clichéd, first stand-alone Wolverine movie, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” I never would have thought the franchise would be here now. And yet, here we are. “Logan” is the third Wolverine standalone (following a middling 2013 effort simply titled “The Wolverine”) and […]

Review: “Get Out”

**Minor spoilers for “Get Out” are in this review, so please go see the film before reading!** 4.5 out of 5 stars. “Get Out” is a master class in horror filmmaking, made all the more impressive by the fact that it is the feature film directing and screenwriting debut of Jordan Peele, formerly one half […]

Review: “John Wick: Chapter 2”

4.5 out of 5 stars. They call him the Boogeyman, and whisper about that time he killed three men in a bar with only a pencil. As much as everyone hypes up the skills of assassin John Wick, it would be very easy to fail to meet audience expectations for the character. But not only […]

Review: “The Lego Batman Movie”

5 out of 5 stars. In 2014, “The Lego Movie” delighted critics and audiences, though not exactly in the way most people expected. It wasn’t just an irreverent, fast-paced adventure that’s enjoyable for both kids and kids-at-heart; at the end it revealed a beautiful, moving message that elevated the material beyond typical family fare. In […]

Review: “Lion”

4 out of 5 stars. It’s appropriately poignant that we don’t learn the significance of the title “Lion” until the end of the movie. For the end of the film marks the end of Saroo’s years long journey to find his birth family, a quest he pursued with the ferocity and determination often associated with […]

Review: “Hidden Figures”

5 out of 5 stars. There are a lot of stories lurking in the shadows of history, just waiting for someone to come along and tell them. We all know about the Space Race, and astronaut John Glenn, who was the first American to circle the Earth. But the film “Hidden Figures” tells a side […]

Review: “Jackie”

4.5 out of 5 stars. “Jackie” concludes with the finale of the musical “Camelot” playing over the action; as Jackie states in the film, the cast album was a favorite of her husband’s, President John F. Kennedy, comparing his brief time in office prior to his assassination to that mystical land. While that comment has […]

Review: “Fences”

4 out of 5 stars. Fences can be built to keep things in; they can also be built to keep things out. While there is a literal fence being constructed by Denzel Washington’s character Troy throughout the movie “Fences,” it is also symbolic of his and Viola Davis’ character Rose’s relationship to each other, and […]

Review: “Passengers” (with spoilers!)

The following review contains spoilers for “Passengers.” 2 out of 5 stars. The ads for “Passengers” bill it as escapist sci-fi entertainment. Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence wake up from early hibernation on a spaceship, and something goes wrong. The thing is, that “something wrong” that the marketing alludes to isn’t what you think, […]