Review: “Expend4bles”

Generally poorly executed in story, dialogue, and action, the one pure pleasure the Expendables series had to offer was the joy of watching aging 80s action legends like Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chuck Norris, and Bruce Willis appearing together on screen, quoting their iconic lines back-and-forth to one another in bouts of fan service banter […]

Review: “Blue Beetle”

A bright young man unexpectedly binds with a mutant insect that grants him superhuman abilities and makes him a target of some bad people who would rather weaponize his powers. That sounds like I’m recounting the origins of the seemingly never-ending series of Spider-man movies, but it’s actually the premise of Blue Beetle, the newest […]

Review: “Mission: Impossible- Dead Reckoning Part One”

Tom Cruise is the 21st century’s Buster Keaton. That Cruise is one of the last true movie stars is certain: his name— and his outspoken devotion to cinema— alone drives audiences to movie theaters in droves, despite his often unsavory personal life that typically draws more fascination than ridicule. That first statement might provoke more […]

Review: “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”

Indiana Jones has always been about the past. He is an archaeologist, after all, and his exploits, from the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark to the titular artifact of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, have always married the past with his present day, typically with a supernatural twist. But the […]

Review: “Fast X”

Nine movies and a trilogy? That’s the direction the Fast and Furious franchise is turning toward, as it begins heading down the long road to wrapping up the series that began 22 years ago as a thriller about street racing. We’ve heard this before; the series’ supposed tenth and final film was soon announced to […]

Review: “Shazam: Fury of the Gods”

I’m in an optimistic mood, so let’s begin with something good: Shazam: Fury of the Gods improves on a major hang-up I had with its 2019 series-starter, Shazam! The film, a superhero origin story based on the DC comic, starred Asher Angel as Billy Batson, a troubled teen in the foster care system who is […]

Review: “65”

Tales that bridge the many-million-years time span between when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and when human technology became advanced enough to allow for exploration beyond the boundaries of the planet to occur have been staples of the science fiction genre for decades. Think of the adventure novels by the likes of Jules Verne (Journey to […]

Review: “John Wick: Chapter 4”

In the opening minutes of John Wick: Chapter 4, the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) and assassin John Wick (Keanu Reeves) are seen in an underground lair, preparing their revenge against the High Table, the powerful league of hit men that screwed them both over. And as the final shot of 2019’s John Wick: Chapter 3—Parabellum […]

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. […]