Review: “Deadpool 2”

3.5 out of 5 stars. “Deadpool 2” was at risk of being too much of a good thing. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love “Deadpool,” the hilarious and gory R-rated adaptation of a fan favorite Marvel hero. It’s about as meta as it gets, and lampoons superhero movies- even it’s own movie- with hysterical […]

Review: “Avengers: Infinity War”

The following is a non-spoiler review of “Avengers: Infinity War.” 3 out of 5 stars. “Avengers: Infinity War” had a lot it needed to accomplish in the space of two and a half hours. But it also had a lot it needed to prove. That feels like a weird thing to say about the […]

Review: “Rampage”

1.5 out of 5 stars. “Rampage,” a new action movie directed by Brad Peyton and starring Dwayne Johnson, is based on a 1986 arcade game of the same name, a bit of trivia that I actually wasn’t familiar with going into the movie. But it makes sense to me now, as “Rampage” is so simplistic, […]

Review: “A Quiet Place”

4 out of 5 stars. It’s a long, long time into “A Quiet Place” before there’s any spoken dialogue—or any long, prolonged noise, for that matter. The horror film uses sound not just as a gimmick for its monster—which hunts its prey through sound—but to create tension, not just in terms of a family’s survival, […]

Review: “Isle of Dogs”

4 out of 5 stars. “Whatever happened to man’s best friend?” That’s the question posed by Professor Watanabe to Kobayashi—the cat-loving mayor of Megasaki City on the Japanese coast—just before he signs a decree requiring all the city’s dogs to be sent to the neighboring Trash Island in the wake of a dog flu virus […]

Review: “Ready Player One”

2.5 out of 5 stars. It’s one thing for a film to reference or pay homage to pop culture figures; it’s quite another thing for a film to entirely revolve around said references. In some cases, this has worked splendidly: 1988’s “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” is a modern classic in which iconic cartoon characters coexist […]

Review: “Pacific Rim Uprising”

1.5 out of 5 stars. Hey, do like watching giant monsters fight giant robots? Did you love the movie “Pacific Rim”? Then boy, is this not the movie for you. It’s like Godzilla, but it isn’t quite Godzilla. It’s also like Transformers, but it’s not quite Transformers. Its style is derived somewhat from Japanese anime, […]

Review: “Love, Simon”

4 out of 5 stars. “Love, Simon,” has everything you’d expect to find in a teen rom-com: a quirky sense of humor, misunderstandings that complicate friendships, attempts to fit in while navigating the drama of high school, and the search for first love. But the one thing that makes “Love, Simon” not just stand apart […]

Review: “Tomb Raider”

3 out of 5 stars. With “Tomb Raider,” director Roar Uthaug tries to do something that no other film based on a video game has managed to do: imbue the story and characters with some humanity extending beyond the action scenes. By giving the film a more serious and gritty tone—and with an outstanding leading […]

Review: “A Wrinkle in Time”

2.5 out of 5 stars. Minor spoilers ahead for those unfamiliar with the story. I first read Madeleine L’Engle’s classic novel “A Wrinkle in Time” when I was in elementary school. I remember not being especially thrilled by it, but decided last year, in anticipation of Disney and Ava DuVernay’s film adaptation, it was time […]