Category Archives: 2025

Superman

Superman                           4 ½ stars

I finally joined the rest of the world by viewing the new James Gunn take on America’s oldest superhero Superman. This movie takes the very familiar story of the man from planet Krypton who came to Earth and fights criminals and super beings using his super abilities while wearing his familiar red cape and S sign on his chest while updating it for the twenty-first century. The first indication of differences comes at the very start with text on the screen revealing that “metahumans” first appeared on Earth three centuries ago. Then we learn that Superman (David Corenswet of Twisters) has just been defeated by an armored being called the Hammer of Boravia. The broken Superman is left badly beaten in the Antarctic where fortunately he is rescued by his cute companion Krypto, a misbehaving dog with superpowers who also wears a red cape. He is quite an amusing addition and undoubtedly a favorite with the audience. Superman is quickly rejuvenated thanks to his robots and facilities at the Fortress of Solitude. We soon learn that Superman’s troubles are due to his arch-nemesis, Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult of Mad Max: Fury Road and The Current War), the CEO of a mega corporation that has been selling billions of dollars in arms to the country of Boravia (clearly a stand in for Russia). We can see clearly that this is a case of the good guy, Superman against the bad guy, though that is not apparent to the public yet. Earlier, Superman became embroiled in world politics when he prevented Boravia from invading their next-door neighbor, Jarhanpur, an act which seems to have set public opinion against him. Luthor adds to Supermen’s distress when he is able to portray Superman as a power-hungry alien with strategically placed propaganda. We get to meet many familiar characters in Metropolis including Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), the Daily Planet reporter who already knows Superman’s alias identity as Clark Kent and is romantically involved with him. She even interviews Superman in a lengthy scene that reveals just how complex the political situation has become and that Supermen may not have considered all the implications of his actions. Also present are reporter Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo) and Perry White (Wendell Pierce), the newspaper editor. Unlike earlier Superman movies, this version goes much more into the sci-fi aspects of the story, resembling the old comic books of the fifties and sixties. Luthor has a whole team of tech geniuses working for him and advanced weapons including a female “engineer” (Maria Gabriela de Faria) who has buzzsaws for hands and can act as a human computer server. And he has constructed access to a pocket universe where he can hide from the world’s governments and maintain his own prison where he holds anyone that he thinks has wronged him (even old girlfriends). All is not gloomy for Superman though as he has some allies on his side. There is a comical team of superheroes called “The Justice Gang” as that is the best name they have come up with so far. This unruly crew includes the Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion having a blast), alias Guy Gardner, Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi of The Harder They Fall) who has an assortment of high-tech gadgets, and Hawkgirl (Isabella Merced). Another superhero, Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan) who can transform into any element, later comes to Superman’s aid and he needs it when the threats become too much for Superman to handle alone. Gunn, the creator of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, has given us a complex and entertaining take on a very familiar subject. The cast especially is first rate making some interesting characters, most notably Corenswet as an emotional Superman dedicated to doing the right thing, Brosnahan as a smart Lois Lane and Hoult who makes an especially menacing villain with his bald head. While most movie fans have been enjoying the film, there is a set of those on the far-right that are criticizing the film for emphasizing Superman’s status as an alien refugee who is in America illegally. For them, the commonly known elements of the story are too woke to be included. Fortunately, this view is limited to a small group of the anti-immigrant set. The rest of us can enjoy a traditional story of the good guys triumphing over the bad guys.

Eddington

Eddington                           4 stars

Do you remember what life was like back in 2020, in the time of COVID, the mask mandates, the social distancing and the countless demonstrations for Black Lives Matter? Would you like to revisit that time? Well, in Ari Aster’s new comedy western, Eddington, we get to do just that from the point of view of rural America where there was deep resentment over government mandates and where conspiracy theories proliferated like weeds. Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix (Joker and Beau is Afraid)) is the sheriff of Eddington, New Mexico in May of 2020 when the reaction to COVID is in full swing. He must deal with the anger of the locals along with the normal disturbances. Besides this, he has trouble at home with his depressed wife, Louise (Emma Stone (Poor Things)) who makes creepy-looking dolls and his mother-in-law, Dawn (Deirdre O’Connell (Diane)), who is fascinated by conspiracy theories. There are protests going on in the streets shortly after the George Floyd incident, led by some of the local activists resulting in confrontations with the police. The mayor of the town is Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal (Materialists and Gladiator II)) who is very full of himself. He is trying to get a high-tech company to build a factory in Eddington as that will make him look good. Garcia believes in the mask mandates, but Sheriff Joe wants nothing to do with them. Joe has arguments with Garcia as well as with the employees at the local supermarket. There are rumors that Joe’s wife, Louise, had some sexual history with Garcia and now she is spending time with a self-help guru crackpot (Austin Butler), who has her under his spell. All this is enough to make a person snap and for Sheriff Joe it’s enough to make him want to run against Garcia in the upcoming mayoral election. You may have seen Ari Aster’s earlier movies, Midsommar, about an American couple visiting a violent cult in Sweden, or Hereditary, about a family investigating the terrifying past of their family. If so, then you might have an idea of what you are in for. The movie progresses into a murder thriller expanding into utter mayhem. The characters face some harrowing and confusing experiences that they may or may not have been responsible for. It is all very exciting for the audience but probably goes on for too long. Aster’s movie is ultimately about America’s cry for help in a very troubling time and what a mess we have made of things. You can choose for yourself whether this appeals to you. I find that I am a fan of Aster, so I was thrilled to see it.

28 Years Later

28 Years Later                    5 stars

It has been a long time since Great Britain was overrun by hordes of infected rampaging humans hungry for flesh in Danny Boyle’s (127 Hours and Slumdog Millionaire) 28 Days Later. That movie was a survivalist story of a few remaining sane humans trying to survive against the angry zombie like creatures that inhabit the island kingdom. Fortunately, humanity was able to limit the disease from spreading to the rest of the world, leaving Britain in a state of quarantine. In the just out sequel, 28 Years Later, Boyle and his collaborator Alex Garland bring us back to this hellscape to see what has transpired in the intervening years. But first we must be brought up to date with scenes of what happened in the first place when the rampage started. We visit a house where the infected overrun a family and one young boy named Jimmy escapes only to see the village priest torn apart by the horde. Scenes of battling and destruction are accompanied by a horrifying 1915 reading of a Rudyard Kipling poem with a steady escalating beat. (You should look up the trailer on YouTube.) Finally, we come to the present on a small island off the coast of Britain where the inhabitants carry on isolated from the rest of the world, constantly on guard against the threat on the mainland. In this community we meet 12-year-old Spike (newcomer Alfie Williams), his father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson of Nosferatu and Bullet Train) and mother Isla (Jodie Comer of The Bikeriders). It is time for Spike to go on his first hunt on the mainland, with his father to hunt down and kill the infected. They are told that once they leave the island there are no rescue parties. On the mission, we find out that there are now varieties of infected people. There are the sprinting dead who rush madly at their target. There are the starving dead who look like skin covered skeletons. There are the crawlers, who are extremely overweight and can only crawl on the ground and eat worms, but still attack people. Then there are the Alpha’s who are like a new superior species of humans who only flinch when they are hit square with an arrow. After this brief adventure when father and son return to their island having killed a few of the loonies, Spike is very concerned about his sick mother and learns of a legendary old doctor who stayed on the mainland. Since there is no such thing as a doctor on the island, Spike believes that finding this doctor could save his mother from dying, so off to the mainland go Spike and Mom, unknown to poor Dad. Eventually after surviving more attacks, they do find the old doctor whose name is Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes of Schindler’s List) who brings a sense of wisdom, morality and politeness to the movie. Even his monuments to the dead, built out of human bones, bring us a reassuring feeling. Up to this point it was all paranoia as the characters had to endure one frenzied attack after another from the crazed infected beings who are always naked. (After 28 years nobody wants to deal with putting on clothes anymore.) The doctor’s outlook brings a sense of hope and optimism to the crazy world we see in the movie. Before 28 Days Later, zombie movies were something of a rarity being restricted to the George Romero variety. Since then, they have become quite commonplace. But 28 Years Later applies a real sense of art to the subject even if the choices made by the characters often make little sense. I have read that 28 Years Later is to be followed up with two sequels starting with The Bone Temple next year. So, let’s see what Danny Boyle and company have planned for us. I’ll be watching for it!

F1

F1                           3 ½ stars

Summer is here and with it comes the time of the summer blockbuster. Leading the way is F1, the very loud and action-filled movie about life on a Formula 1 racing team, the most prestigious motor sport in the world. And of course, a blockbuster must have an A list actor for the lead. Filling that role is Brad Pitt, looking his usual rugged and laid-back self as Sonny Hayes, a veteran driver who gave up the Formula 1 circuit long ago after being injured in a horrifying accident. (Pitt was last seen in last year’s Wolfs which I have not seen.) A blockbuster racing movie also requires plenty of camera shots of fast cars maneuvering around one another and shots from inside the cars showing the intensity of the drivers, all with the roar of the engines filling the room and an announcer describing the action. F1 has all this plus a story of two drivers on the same team often at odds with one another. Hayes is the sixty something veteran who has all the experience and confidence needed to win, while young Joshua Pierce (Damson Idris) is the rookie who has the right stuff but needs the experience. It is the owner, Rueben (Javier Bardem of Dune and Being the Ricardos) who convinces Sonny to come back to the race circuit and save his losing and nearly bankrupt team, APX. Thus, the drama revolves around these two drivers and the team as Sonny has to learn that it takes a team to win and it can’t be up to just one man. F1 deviates from the formula of most racing movies such as Ford v. Ferrari as there is no character portraying the opposition. The other cars and drivers are for the most part nameless faces that furnish the background without being a part of the story. And since APX is one of the worst teams on the track, their objective is not really to win a race, but just to be in the top 10 finishers. So, the premise is not what I am used to in a movie about race car drivers. Some of Sonny’s moves on the track would seem questionable. It’s hard to imagine him not being disqualified for them in a real race. Pitt is naturally at home in the role of the handsome, solemn veteran who can handle whatever is thrown at him, except perhaps for the lasting effects of the injuries he suffered years before. The movie does include a couple of subplots to give it some depth beyond the racing. The team’s technical director is Kate (Academy Award nominee Kerry Condon of The Banshees of Inisherin), an Irish woman who is an expert in her field of designing race car components. She has a few run ins with Sonny, not necessarily confined to race cars. And there is a member of the team’s board who may not share the interests of the team’s owner and seems to have his own agenda. The race scenes are exciting, but viewers who are not familiar with the jargon or the significance of changing the tires for varying conditions may find these scenes confusing. F1 is not my favorite racing movie, but for the action, it is worth seeing. It is of course a good one for Brad Pitt fans to check out too.

The Phoenician Scheme

The Phoenician Scheme                 4 stars

If you’ve seen a Wes Anderson movie before you already have an idea of what to expect. His best includes The Royal Tenenbaums, Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Asteroid City. (Also, remember The Fantastic Mr. Fox). Anderson has a unique style identified by faded colors, stationary cameras, and characters with stilted and rapid fire speaking that is instantly recognizable. His new film, The Phoenician Scheme, is no different and shares themes as well as actors from previous films. Common devices he uses are espionage and parental challenges, both of which are present in this one. There are two main characters that cover the entire film. There is the shady industrialist, Zsa Zsa Korda (Benicio Del Toro of Sicario and The French Dispatch) who has an uncanny ability to survive multiple plane crashes and his estranged daughter, Liesl (Mia Threapleton who is a newcomer) who he wants to leave his empire to and who happens to be a nun. Korda is in the process of setting up a vast infrastructure project to secure his legacy, but he needs the cooperation of a series of odd characters to “cover the gap”; that is, to help fund his project. Thus, his travels to various parts of the globe to try to secure their cooperation by doing odd things like having a basketball shooting contest in a railroad tunnel. It’s also clear that these various businessmen have not been treated all that well by Korda. There is also an assembly of rival industrialists who are trying to thwart Korda’s plans, thus the assassination attempts. The all-star supporting cast includes Jeffrey Wright, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Riz Ahmed and Scarlett Johansson. Bill Murray, a Wes Anderson regular even makes an appearance as God in what appears to be scenes of the afterlife. Throughout the movie it’s the great pairing of Del Toro and Threapleton with a little help from Michael Cera as Bjorn, a Norwegian tutor that really makes the movie. They have a good sense of comic timing while applying Anderson’s trademark style of deadpan delivery. Amid all the zany happenings lies a message of the care of a parent for their child even if it’s not delivered well. Considering all the movies that have been made by Wes Anderson over the past thirty years, The Phoenician Scheme is one of the better ones even if the style is very familiar.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning                            4 ½ stars

It has been two years since we last saw Ethan Hunt in multiple struggles against the bad guys and performing death defying acts of bravery as he once again fights to save mankind from extinction. That was in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, starring Tom Cruise in the seventh film of the long running franchise. Now in the eighth and presumably final film, the 62-year-old super action star steps up one more time to rescue the world. But not before we get multiple montages from the previous films showing endless fight scenes, spectacular stunts, previous cast members of his team, villains and love interests and all those disguises. You may recall that there was an AI being called “The Entity” that escaped from a Russian submarine and found residence in the servers throughout the world, and in the process sank the submarine. On the submarine is a hard drive containing the source code of The Entity that would allow the owner to control it, but only if they have the physical key that will allow access. The Entity has also earned a following of thousands of fanatics that will do its bidding. Plus, it seeks to sow discord and keep us divided making it a possible future Republican political candidate. Among them is Gabriel (Esai Morales) who wants to control The Entity for himself but needs Hunt to get the hard drive for him. In the earlier movie Ethan Hunt managed to obtain the key from Gabriel but now needs the cooperation of the US government to get to the sunken submarine so he can recover the hard drive and disable The Entity. Oh, and I should mention that The Entity is in the process of taking control of all the nuclear arsenals in the world so that it can launch the weapons and annihilate mankind because people are the main problem of the world in the mind of the AI being. Complicating things further is the aim of the government to control The Entity itself, while Hunt believes no one should control it as that would be too much power for anyone to hold. It is a race against time as the US president (Angela Bassett) may order a nuclear strike against all the nuclear control centers of the world before The Entity can get control of the US weapons, but that would kill millions of people. The hope is that Ethan Hunt’s impossible mission against The Entity will succeed in time, (because Hunt always disobeys orders, but he always gets the job done). There are many familiar faces that you will recognize from previous films that I won’t list here. Now, if you don’t understand all of that, that’s OK. Just enjoy all the prolonged fight scenes and improbable stunts in hostile environments that should kill Hunt but don’t just like all the previous Mission: Impossible movies. It’s a great way to spend nearly three hours of your time in a movie theater, especially since after nearly thirty years this is reputedly the final film of the Mission: Impossible series.

Sinners

Sinners                 5 stars

Ryan Coogler’s new movie, Sinners, about vampires invading a small rural Black town in 1930’s Mississippi, defies genre. While it certainly is a horror movie, it is also a gangster movie and a musical featuring an assortment of Blues numbers with varying styles. It’s hard to believe that this is only Coogler’s fifth time directing, previously directing Creed, two Black Panther movies from the Avengers universe and Fruitvale Station. This time it is in a setting he truly makes his own and is something that could only be made by Coogler. And it is also the fifth time he has featured Michael B. Jordan in a prominent role; this time actually making it two roles with Jordan playing twin brothers, Smoke and Stack. The pair were gangsters in Chicago having acquired a fortune during prohibition, and before that were soldiers in World War I, but now they have returned to their hometown and plan to open a juke joint and make more money. The pair are unsavory, certainly and won’t hesitate to hurt someone who crosses them. Smoke is the serious one of the two, while Stack is more flamboyant. The twins buy an old sawmill from a white man, paying cash, being assured that the Ku Klux Klan is a thing of the past, words that will haunt them later in the film. They link up with Sammie (Miles Caton), a young preacher’s kid who is a master Blues player on the guitar and will play a major part in the events to follow. The brothers reunite with a number of the townsfolk they knew from before and it is clear there is a long history at play here, especially with the women that includes Mary (Hailee Steinfeld) and Annie (Wunmi Wosaku). The recruiting of musicians, cooks and patrons for the evening’s entertainment takes a good hour of the movie during which we get a taste of the music of the time. It’s apparent to me that the Blues figures highly in Ryan Coogler’s background. It is only after the party starts that we get a hint at the bloodbath that is to come. But first we get a massive display of the music and dancing created here where we see figures from beyond the present dating back to old African culture and future entertainment with musicians on electric guitars and DJs. After the first of the vampires arrives at the venue, it occurred to me that this resembled Quentin Tarantino’s and Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn, the vampire movie from the nineties. As the action filled killing progresses, the characters are not sure who they can trust and suspicions fall on those who were previously close. This was a familiar element that I remember from John Carpenter’s The Thing, when a blood test was used to clear the suspects. Here the act is the forced eating of garlic, a plant fatal to vampires. Everything leads to a final confrontation that leaves few survivors. Not only is Sinners easily the best horror film of the year so far, it gives us an impressive collection of cultures that were a part of the South in the 1930’s including Black, Chinese, native American’s and Irish. I don’t know how long Coogler worked on this soon to be classic, but he certainly had a lot to say. Be sure that you stay all of the way through the credits and don’t miss the multiple endings.

The Accountant 2

The Accountant 2             2 stars

After eight years, accountant and deadly killer Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) is back in director Gavin O’Connor’s The Accountant 2, the sequel to the 2016 generically named The Accountant, also by O’Connor. This time around the autistic genius and weapons expert has been recruited by a US Treasury agent (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) to help her investigate a human trafficking ring in Mexico that has extended its reach into the United States. She soon finds out that some of his methods aren’t exactly legal. (But first we get an amusing taste of what it’s like for the socially awkward Christian to try a dating service where his literal way of speaking puts off every woman he talks to.) When it becomes clear just how violent and far reaching this criminal gang is that he is facing, Christian must reach out to his estranged brother, Braxton (Jon Berthal) who is a professional killer in Europe, and persuade him to come back to the US to help him in the case. Only now things are complicated by the appearance of a trained female assassin (Daniella Pineda) whose motives are unclear. But, on Christian’s side is a special group of computer savvy teenagers from a special school for autistic children whose hacking skills go beyond that of the specialists working for the US government. There are many moments of comedic banter between the two brothers that the writer must have thought was important to include, but given the serious nature of the crimes involved, it sometimes seems out of place. Like the first movie, the action and violence go to extreme levels with an absurdly high body count. The risks they take and the kill ratio they achieve go well beyond anything approaching credibility. Some people who are familiar with those who are autistic may find it offensive to portray an autistic character in a movie this way. It certainly doesn’t do much for the cause of those with this disorder. Many movie goers may like this type of comedic action movie, but I am not among them. I found last year’s The Fall Guy, also a popular violent action movie, preferable given its lighter premise. There may be another sequel to The Accountant coming. It won’t bother me if it takes another eight years for it to come out.

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy            4 ½ stars

It’s 2025 and Bridget Jones, the confused and lovesick English woman is back for a fourth installment of the series that audiences love. It was back in 2001 when we first met Bridget starring Renee Zellweger in the title role, when she was trying to manage relationships with two different men: Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) and Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant). Now in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, only available by streaming, Bridget finds herself single with two children after husband Mark died four years earlier. Bridget, the widow, has gotten back into TV production work and is successful and has surrounded herself with supportive friends. Some of them are encouraging her to get back on the market, as she should not be alone at this point in her life. Her charming and bumbling behavior is still there as she is constantly second guessing her own decisions (such as hiring a new nanny who looks like he could be a fashion model). Then she meets Roxster (Leo Woodall), a young man of 29 who is some sort of tree trimmer, under very amusing circumstances. Bridget decides to pursue the relationship, claiming she is 35 when it is obvious to all that she is over 50. She meets him for a date that immediately leads to sex, (of course) with all the amusing scenes and sexual references that are familiar to audiences of the earlier movies. The comedy necessarily sets a more serious tone than the previous editions since this is a woman dealing with the grief of losing a husband as well as being a single mother. So, there is a lot of emotion on display including an appearance by Daniel due to a scary health issue, who we have not seen since 2004. Nevertheless, there are still plenty genuine rom-com moments such as when Bridget has to be rescued from trying to climb a tree by the tree man. The movie manages to keep its comedic energy that we remember from the previous films while reminding us that Bridget is moving on and learning to deal with the things that life throws at her. Be sure to stick around through the credits as a few film clips from the earlier Bridget Jones movies are shown, including that memorable fight between Mark and Daniel.

Death of a Unicorn

Death of a Unicorn          3 stars

Death of a Unicorn by first time director Alex Scharfman combines two genres of movies that I really like to see: the skewering of the rich and the comedy horror creature feature. So, if you think you might enjoy seeing some greedy ultra-rich bastards get what they deserve thanks to a murderous monster, this one could be for you. As is the case with most monster horror movies, there are some bad choices made by the characters that lead to unfortunate results for them. It features a few well-known stars and despite some unconvincing special effects, it is entertaining to watch. We meet lawyer Elliot (Paul Rudd of Ant-Man, Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Knocked Up) and his teenage daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega of Wednesday) who are on their way to meet with his client, Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant of Salt Burn) at their isolated mansion in the mountains, so that he can get him to sign a new contract. (Remember one of my first rules from the movies: If a billionaire invites you to their isolated mansion/compound, DO NOT accept!) Leopold and his family are major players in the Pharma industry and even have a live in security force and access to some top pharmaceutical researchers. On the drive to the mansion Elliot collides with an animal on the road that looks like a young horse like creature with a long horn on its forehead, injuring the animal. Not wanting to get caught by local authorities, Elliott bashes its head with a tire iron, spraying the animal’s blood all over poor Ridley and loads the dead animal into the back of the car. Later, during the meeting with Leopold (who is dying of cancer), his privileged wife (Tea Leoni of Tower Heist and Fun with Dick and Jane) and screw up son (Will Poulter of Midsommar and The Revenant) the unicorn in the car is discovered since it’s not really dead, so it is killed again. The group is fascinated by the fact that Ridley’s acne has cleared up after coming in contact with the creature’s blood. Naturally, the thing to do is to have the creature’s blood analyzed by Leopold’s scientists. They soon discover that it has mysterious healing powers so Leopold volunteers to consume some of the samples (as you do) and of course, his cancer is instantly cured! So, the greedy family must find a way to capitalize on this amazing discovery and make a ton of money. Ridley does some online research of her own and discovers some dangerous aspects of the legend of unicorns dating from the Middle Ages and tries to warn Leopold and family, but they aren’t willing to listen, since that would interfere with their plans to make more money. Things go predictably bad when Mama and Papa, two very large unicorns come looking for junior and aren’t at all pleased that these humans have killed him. What follows is a prolonged killing spree as the creatures hunt down their prey in quite violent and bloody fashion. Of course, most of the characters make one bad decision after another resulting in their being skewered and ripped apart by the pair of hooved parents. The animals are even smart enough to cut communication and power to the mansion. The writing for these ultra-rich idiots wasn’t the most convincing and the special effects creating the unicorns had a cheesy look to it. Better movies attacking the ultra-rich would be The Glass Onion and The Triangle of Sadness. For more entertaining comedy monster movies look for Werewolves Within, Shadow in the Cloud, The Dead Don’t Die and of course, the ever-popular Cocaine Bear. The movie is far from perfect but does provide a fun time for comedy horror fans. We will have to wait for a later attempt at combining attacks on the ultra-rich with a killer monster for something even better.