Review: “Prey”

This weekend, I was really jonesing to watch “Prey,” director Dan Trachtenberg’s prequel to/reboot of the “Predator” franchise featuring a female Comanche warrior as the main protagonist that was released on Hulu last Friday. And then I realized something: I actually hadn’t seen a “Predator” movie before. Not any of the sequels or Alien team-ups, […]

Review: “Bullet Train”

The Shinkansen, or bullet train, is a network of railway lines in Japan that connect areas across the country to Tokyo, and can reach operating speeds of up to 200 miles per hour. The pacing of the movie “Bullet Train,” set on one of these commuter trains, is about as fast, but far less focused. […]

Review: “Top Gun: Maverick”

I have to admit, I initially wasn’t all that excited for “Top Gun: Maverick,” long-awaited (both in terms of the 36 year distance between it and its predecessor, and multiple delays, first to shoot more complex action scenes, and later due to the COVID-19 pandemic, repeatedly pushing it from its initial summer 2019 release date) […]

Review: “Ambulance”

In a world where most action movies are associated with an existing franchise and thrive on computer-generated effects and characters, “Ambulance”— with its confined setting and small cast and mostly practical effects, a film that is constantly going so fast and so hard it feels like everyone involved must have been snorting coke behind the […]

Review: “The Batman”

The disillusioned hero. The femme fatale. The corrupt officials and the ruthless gang leaders who circle each other in a never-ending game of give and take. The city, with its grimy alleys and dark shadows where anything or anybody could be hiding just around the corner. These are all hallmarks of the not-so-easily defined film […]

Review: “Uncharted”

The conversation surrounding the translation of video games to film has been had many a time; they frequently sacrifice story in favor of action scenes that don’t play as well when you’re watching them as opposed to, well, actually playing through them. The thing with the “Uncharted” series, though, is that you can see the […]

Review: “Moonfall”

There’s a sense of old-fashioned, corny blockbuster fun inherent in most Hollywood disaster movies. Gather up a vast ensemble cast of B-list actors sprinkled with a couple A’s here and there for good measure and throw them in a ridiculous narrative that places them—and the world—in mortal danger, and it’s hard to go wrong, even […]

Review: “The Matrix Resurrections”

“The Matrix Resurrections” opens with a moment of déjà vu: familiar music cues accompany rows of green code scrolling across the screen, followed by a phone call, and then a confrontation. If these scenes feel overly familiar, it’s because they are almost an exact recreation of the opening of Lana and Lilly Wachowski’s visionary 1999 […]

Review: “Spider-Man: No Way Home”

I wasn’t sure, especially in light of a pandemic that it seems we’ll never pull out of, if I’d ever have another theatrical experience quite on the level of “Avengers: Endgame.” I’m not a particular fan of that movie, or even the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole, but there’s no denying that the conversion […]

Review: “Eternals”

“Eternals” opens in a manner that isn’t typical of any previous film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Instead of jumping straight into the action, an opening scroll details the mythos behind the story we are about to watch unfold. In 5000 B.C., ten super-powered beings known as the Eternals were sent to Earth by the […]