Risk-Averse “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” is Still a Home Run (Review)

The most recent three films in the Indiana Jones franchise have had perfect endings that could (and should) act as the closing moment of the series. But when there’s money to be made, there is sequel potential, no matter how many years pass in between.

I think, even though the film itself has been divisive, they could have done a lot worse than Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the franchise’s fifth entry, which has finally been released after years spent languishing in development hell (fifteen years after the last Indy adventure, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull). Dial of Destiny largely plays it safe, without explicit willingness to take risks, which does remove some of its efficacy — you might expect a legacy sequel in one of the more consistent long-running franchises to diversify itself in some unique ways, but Dial of Destiny sticks relatively closely to the script that has made the series successful for decades. I can’t fault it; after all, why mess with a winning formula?

“Nimona” is a Thrilling New Standard for Family Entertainment (Review)

As a queer, gender-fluid person with big thighs and a tendency to talk more than I should, I’ve always identified with cartoonist ND Stevenson’s work. Netflix’s futuristic fantasy Nimona, an animated adaptation of Stevenson’s 2015 graphic novel by the same name, is no exception.

Image courtesy of Netflix

Nimona follows the journey of Ballister Blackheart (voiced by Riz Ahmed of Rogue One and The Sound of Metal), a former knight misbranded as a villain, as he joins forces with a spunky shape-shifter named Nimona (Hugo’s Chloë Grace Moretz) to clear his name.

I was impressed with how the animators translated the 2D drawings from the graphic novel into 3D animation for the film. The art is unique and the animation feels very fluid. It’s a different spin on Stevenson’s characters in a new style, while preserving important parts of the character design. I loved seeing Nimona as a punky delinquent covered in piercings, but I also love that she retained her big thighs and partially shaved head from the comic. It feels fresh and new, while still true to the source material in the ways that matter.

“The Witcher” is Running Low on Bloodlust (Season 3 Vol. 1 Review)

Netflix’s adaptation of The Witcher has, in the last year, been through the promotional ringer. For a variety of reasons, it was announced that star Henry Cavill (a self-admitted fan of the show’s source material, and one of the series’ initial draws) would leave the show after its third season, to be replaced by Liam Hemsworth. That news, and the fact that it was announced so early, casts a long shadow over Cavill’s last season, which has been split into two parts by Netflix, undoubtedly (among other reasons) to milk his remaining time as Geralt of Rivia. I speak for many other Witcher fans that he is usually one of the best parts of the show, and his exit has the potential to strip it of what made it great in the first place.

Image courtesy of Netflix

Alas, we won’t know for sure how Cavill’s tenure ends until the second half of the season drops in July, but until then, we have a definite jumping-off point for his final arc. And it pains me to say it — I liked Season One, and adored Season Two — but The Witcher is rapidly losing a lot of the steam it gained in the first two seasons.

Go “Across the Spider-Verse” in an Astounding Multiversal Sequel (Review)

In 2018, Into the Spider-Verse blew away any preconceived notions of how a Spider-Man movie, and even a superhero film in general, should operate. It introduced Miles Morales, the first Black Spider-Man, to mainstream filmgoing audiences. It completely flipped the expectations of how animation can behave on the big screen.

Unsurprisingly, it also cleaned up at the box office. A sequel was inevitable, and after a hefty half-decade wait, Across the Spider-Verse is now upon us. Nearly half an hour longer than its predecessor with a monumental weight on its shoulders, this may be the most pressure a superhero sequel has ever been under (excepting, perhaps, Avengers: Endgame). It had to deliver in ways that were previously unprecedented.

“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” is an Emotionally Devastating Final Ride (Review)

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is perhaps Marvel Studios’ most exciting project since Avengers: Endgame. It’s been long-delayed, and more newsworthy than most Marvel projects (especially considering writer/director James Gunn’s firing and subsequent rehiring), and as many consider the Guardians series to be among Marvel’s best sub-franchises, expectations are high.

Image courtesy of Marvel

I am one of those people who was absurdly excited for Guardians Vol. 3. It’s been my most anticipated Marvel movie since 2021’s No Way Home, and I (along with many others) were eagerly, and somewhat nervously, anticipating how Gunn would end his trilogy of wackos and weirdness. This is one of those rare Marvel films where anything can happen, and the stakes are exponentially higher than normal (after all, are they going to make any massive story swings in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, or save the big moves for the next Avengers movie?). With unpredictability at an all-time high, it’s time to return to a cosmic corner of the universe for a grounded space adventure with the capability to absolutely destroy me emotionally.

“Peter Pan & Wendy” Fails to Recapture the Magic (Review)

Most mornings in the shower, since I hate being alone with my own thoughts for too long, I listen to a podcast. One podcast I listen to frequently is a Glee rewatch show, And That’s What You REALLY Missed, and for a few weeks, the same ad played during every episode, advertising for Disney+’s newest live action remake, Peter Pan & Wendy. “If you think you know the story, think again,” the ad claimed. It called the movie an “all new adventure.” My hopes were high. My interest in poorly-lit live action remakes of movies that were always intended to be animated has never been high, especially in the last few years.

Still, the Glee podcast had given me hope. Would this take the Cruella route of taking beloved characters and completely reimagining the story surrounding them? I thought perhaps. I was, sadly, disappointed. Instead of a creative new take on Neverland, I got yet another poorly-lit live action remake of a movie that was always intended to be animated.

“Sisu” is a Wickian Action Story of Epic Proportions (Review)

I always respect when a film is willing to commit to a bare bones narrative. Not only does that instantly set it apart from most complex blockbusters of the modern era, but it allows the filmmaking team to focus on making the final product as aesthetically appealing and narratively satisfying as possible. This isn’t to discount complex stories (that umbrella comprises most of my favorite movies), but there’s something special about keeping things simple.

That is exactly what Sisu does. At risk of calling it “the Finnish John Wick” (especially because the studio is very content to promote it that way), I will say that Sisu shares only the broad strokes with its counterpart, and that is the arc — the mostly silent protagonist has a personal mission, and that mission involves killing several bad guys along the way. These two movies are proof that you can have a brilliant, incredibly simple story to work with, but you must have the filmmaking prowess to back it up and ensure that it gets told in a visually interesting way.

“Renfield” is a Fun, Tonally Uneven Gore-Fest (Review)

Universal hasn’t been doing well with their monster-related cinematic universes since the 1950s, when the overlapping and screen-sharing came primarily in Abbott and Costello crossover movies. The “Dark Universe,” which was supposed to kick off with 2017’s The Mummy (a favorite of both critics and fans), was a catastrophic failure. It’s astounding when you think about it — you’d think that a studio that owns the rights to such iconic characters and stories would know how to handle them, and give them the films they deserve.

The solution? Begin again, of course — but not overtly. Start off with a film that establishes the world in a unique and exciting way, but could function as a one-off if it all goes south. Throw in Chris McKay, director of The LEGO Batman Movie, and Rick and Morty writer Ryan Ridley and you have a certifiably bonkers movie on your hands.

Spy Comedy “Operation Fortune” Entertains Despite No Surprises (Review)

I have a special relationship with Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre. It was originally slated for release in January 2022, before a standard push-back two months to March. Then, for seemingly no reason whatsoever, it was “indefinitely delayed”…a sentencing with the potential to kill a film’s release entirely. I was assigned the review for SiftPop in December 2021, and I have been eagerly awaiting the film ever since.

It would eventually come out that Operation Fortune was locked back in the vault for a bit due to the presence of some notably Ukrainian bad guys, and its release may have seemed in poor taste (or, at the very least, badly-timed) due to the inception of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began to dominate headlines on nearly every major news site.

But now, a year later, Operation Fortune, the latest from action director Guy Ritchie, is finally in theaters. Comparatively, a year’s delay isn’t too much (The King’s Daughter, the last film to feature William Hurt, was finally released in 2022, a full eight years after it was filmed), but I didn’t let the delays hinder my excitement. I like Guy Ritchie, and the cast seemed like nothing to scoff at. I kept my faith, and I was rewarded for it.

“Plane” is Not a Good Movie to Watch Right Before a Long-Distance Flight (Review)

I really didn’t know what to think of Plane when I first stumbled upon the trailer. It didn’t look much like a blockbuster, and its dreaded mid-January release date didn’t bode well for its overall quality. But at the same time, it seemed to harken back to the thrill-seeking action movies of the 80s and 90s, which learned to embrace the camp once their producers realized what their audiences were looking for. One-word titles were a bizarre mainstay on this odd sub-genre, so it’s fun to see a resurgence of that trend — so I hoped Plane might end up being a “greatest hits” showcase of everything great about those off-beat action classics.

The casting of seasoned action star Gerard Butler as a grizzled, well-intentioned commercial airline pilot with the capacity for badassery is definitely a step in the right direction. He plays Brodie Torrance, who makes an emergency landing in the Philippines after his plane sustains critical damage from a storm. The island he’s landed on is controlled by a dangerous armed militia who end up taking the passengers hostage, leaving Captain Torrance and convicted murderer Louis Gaspare (Luke Cage’s Mike Colter), who was being extradited on the doomed flight, to rescue them while also figuring out a way off the island.

“Avatar: The Way of Water” Returns to Pandora in Spectacular, But Still Underwhelming Fashion (Review)

13 years ago, James Cameron revolutionized visual effects and 3D imaging technology with the release of Avatar, which quickly became the highest-grossing film in history. A sequel was inevitable, but few could have predicted that it would take a Disney acquisition and almost $500 million to make that dream a reality.

Even longer in runtime than its predecessor (and twice as filled with character and supplementary storylines), Avatar: The Way of the Water picks up after a real-time jump on the alien planet Pandora, where former human Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) has fully adopted the ways of the alien Na’vi after helping them defend their land from imperialistic human invaders. He’s started a family with Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), and their life seems as idyllic as can be. But unfortunately, the depiction of domestic life on an extraterrestrial world is not sustainable for three and a half hours of action sci-fi.

“Wakanda Forever” is a Fitting Tribute to our Black Panther (Review)

Reviewing Marvel movies has always been an exercise in vagueness, but the marketing for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has been so frustratingly obscure that to discuss any story in-depth would be considered delving into the realm of spoilers. And since we know how much people on the internet hate even the slightest bit of unwelcome information about a movie of this scale, I’m going to have to dance around a lot of specifics. For that, I apologize, but if you’re reading this, I’m sure you’re at least slightly interested in seeing this movie. My recommendation is to pull the trigger. What’s the worst that can happen?

Image courtesy of Marvel

It’s an undisputed fact that the untimely death of Chadwick Boseman, the Black Panther himself, irreversibly changed both this movie and more likely than not the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole. It stands to reason that Wakanda Forever would be a tribute to Boseman, honoring his legacy while contextualizing the loss and what it means for the characters we’ve come to know and love.

While the film does serve as a fitting testimonial to Boseman’s impact, the loss feels more like a bookend than it does an anchor for a story that could have been a thoughtful meditation on losing a loved one, and what comes next. But Wakanda Forever glides over that and introduces some compelling factors that end up being nothing more than that, just tools that surface thematically without a satisfying payoff. It feels like Marvel Studios-sponsored therapy, if your therapist put on an action movie in the middle of your three-hour session.

“Titans” Assemble...Again (Review)

You can read my review of the third season of Titans here.

At around the three-season mark, a television series begins to settle into a certain groove. Though it had a rocky start, Titans (which began on the now-defunct service DC Universe, before moving over to HBO Max) found its footing very soon afterward, and has continued in a consistently engaging vein ever since.

In superhero stories, it’s convenient how a new, major threat only makes itself apparent once after the conclusion of another, so the titular superhero (or team) only has one major villain on which to focus their attention at a time. Soon after the wrap-up of the Red Hood/Scarecrow debacle of the previous season, the Titans are able to relax, finally getting a chance to be a real family. Unfortunately, nothing good lasts forever, and it’s not long before they’re pulled into a brand-new conspiracy involving a very Rasputin-looking Lex Luthor (played by Titus Welliver of Lost and Bosch), who seeks to connect with his cloned pseudo-son Superboy (Joshua Orpin). The Titans leave for Metropolis, unwittingly heading towards a life-threatening menace that could tear the team apart.

The Chaotic DC Universe is Epitomized in “Black Adam” (Review)

Eight years ago, Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, former wrester and prospective Hollywood star, was officially cast as comic book antihero Black Adam. A host of production difficulties and failed comic book universes later, and his dream has finally been realized: the Rock now has another larger-than-life persona to dominate the big screen.

With the future of the so-called “DC Extended Universe” still unclear, it seems that we’re settling into a trend of relatively self-contained solo films. Black Adam is the latest of these, but its place in a hazy universe doesn’t stop it from introducing a near-indescribable amount of lore.

I’m Going Off the Rails on a “Bullet Train” (Review)

There are a lot of things that Bullet Train could have been — a straightforward adaptation of Kōtarō Isaka’s 2010 novel, a wildly divergent interpretation, or somewhere in the middle — and I believe it made the right choice and settled with the best of both worlds.

I finished reading Isaka’s novel the morning before seeing the film, and my expectations were admittedly higher than the average moviegoer. After seeing the trailers for months on end during nearly every trip to the theater, I was sufficiently excited, even more so to see the characters I had gotten to know brought to life on the big screen by some of my favorite actors.

The “Predator” Franchise Isn’t Messing Around with its “Prey” (Review)

There were several hurdles facing Prey even before its release. First (and perhaps most glaringly) was that the Predator franchise had infamously tired itself out, with Shane Black’s 2018 entry seemingly ending the series after a poor box office performance. The once-epic and macho-driven franchise seemed to be running out of ideas, despite lots of unresolved promise in recent installments.

So what did Prey do? It does what any effective prequel does and brings everything back to the basics. In fact, it’s so dedicated to being a prequel that it’s set over 250 years before the original Predator, and it works as a decoupled prologue to the series without interfering with any canon or lore — this is in comparison with Shane Black’s film, which tried far to hard to establish the opposite.

Image courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Set in 1719, Prey (the best title this film could have chosen) follows a young Comanche woman, Naru (a perfectly-cast Amber Midthunder), who was trained as a healer but longs to become a hunter like her brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers). Naru is already a capable warrior, but in order to prove her skill to her tribe, she pursues the arrival of a mysterious figure — and we all know where this is going. What Naru believes to be a mystical Thunderbird is actually a spaceship dropping off a Yautja warrior, known colloquially as a Predator of a Hunter. Still, she takes this as a sign, and it ends up being very beneficial for her; she soon finds herself going head-to-head with one of the fiercest beings in the known universe.

“The Boys” Has Become an Intensely Engaging, Reality-Driven Nightmare (Spoiler-Free Season 3 Review)

Rarely does a television series set itself apart so starkly from the rest of its genre, while simultaneously mastering what makes the genre special in the first place. When The Boys arrived on the scene in 2019, it led a resurgence of shows and films that asked “What if superheroes were real, and they were ruthlessly violent?”

And through the influx of sub-genre entries, The Boys is still king. In June, its third season burst onto the scene after a two-year hiatus, and it’s like no time has passed at all. The world still feels lived-in, with the characters fulfilling their respective roles — even though circumstances change faster than usual in Season Three.

Image courtesy of Amazon Prime

A year after the events of the previous season, the titular group has gone straight, working for the Bureau of Superhero Affairs to track down potentially dangerous Supes. The conflict with the major superhero group the Seven, led by the murderous Homelander (Antony Starr), is on hold, until Boys leader Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) decides to hit the “play” button when he begins searching for Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles), one of the first-ever superheroes and a more bigoted version of Captain America. Butcher intends to find a way to kill Homelander for good, a nigh-impossible mission that could yield fruitful results. Meanwhile, Hughie (Jack Quaid) is working for mysteriously homicidal congresswoman Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit), and internal changes at superhero corporation Vought threaten the security of their confident facade.

Netflix Restores Life to “Resident Evil” (Review)

I’ve stated numerous times before that I don’t usually play video games. That’s why I’m definitely not qualified to comment on the accuracy when translating video games to films or television mediums, but I think that’s also a positive — it eliminates any frustration I might have with the lack of faithfulness in the source material, because I’m not anywhere close to familiar with said source material.

The same is true for Resident Evil, which Netflix has adapted for long-form television. This is the story about a pandemic that ravages the world and drastically reduces the sane and living population — and that makes it feel a little too real. The dystopian setting naturally lends itself to the horror genre, but it’s less traditional jump scare-focused horror and more along the lines of something you could genuinely see happening; perhaps not to this extreme, but it’s all become much more tangible after the events of the last two years. It’s more relatable, and therefore scarier.

Travel the Galaxy with Space Vikings in Refreshingly Unique “Thor: Love and Thunder” (Spoiler-Free Review)

2022 is the year of divisive Marvel Cinematic Universe projects. Doctor Strange split audiences down the middle, with some praising its campiness while others reject it. Moon Knight dazzled audiences when it premiered, but the internet fan presence quickly turned on the series as soon as it was over. Ms. Marvel is perhaps the best MCU entry this year so far, but nobody seems to be watching it or preventing its review bombing.

Image courtesy of Disney

And now Thor: Love and Thunder has arrived on the scene, proving that the Marvel universe is heading in an inescapable new direction that some will hate, and some will adore. With no new multi-film saga to anchor it (for now), the MCU has settled into depicting self-contained adventures, tangentially connected to the rest of the universe but mostly concerned with telling their own stories. Characters will occasionally cross over — for example, the Guardians of the Galaxy are front and center in the beginning of Thor, only to depart very quickly for their solo adventures — and the rest of the film is very focused on the characters established in the mini-franchise’s previous three installments.

Pixar’s “Lightyear” Fails to Launch (Review)

If you need proof of the over-saturation of content in modern media, look no further than Lightyear. The latest offering from Pixar, Lightyear is a movie that exists within the Toy Story universe as the film that inspired the Buzz Lightyear toy. While the argument about which movies are “necessary” could be had all day long, I think it’s safe to say that not many people were begging for Lightyear to be made — especially when a series held in high regard by many (Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, which aired from 2000-2001) accomplishes the same goal. Maybe it’s about time for an upgrade.

Image courtesy of Disney

But as far as redundant features go, Lightyear is far from the worst. I think its biggest flaw is that it’s technically related to the Toy Story movies, because that automatically measures it up against some of the best animated movies ever made. On the other hand, without the Toy Story connections, Lightyear is just another formulaic space-bound action movie that covers little unexplored ground. There’s just no way to win.