The star that burns twice as bright burns half as long. And oh boy, the Sega Dreamcast burned brightly. Sega’s final entry into the console market may have been a sales disaster eclipsed by the all-consuming might of the PlayStation 2, but its small library contains an astonishingly high ratio of classic titles. x6y3m

Many of those were fighting games. Sega’s NAOMI board was effectively Dreamcast tech in arcade cabinets, enabling perfect home ports. Capcom’s push to bring its classic fighters onto modern hardware has already seen collections featuring Dreamcast classics like Marvel vs Capcom 2 and Street Fighter III: Third Strike. Now, with Capcom Fighting Collection 2, practically every notable Capcom Dreamcast/NAOMI game has returned from the dead.

For fighting game enthusiasts, the marquee title here is Capcom vs. SNK 2: Millionaire Fighting 2001, a bewilderingly comprehensive showdown between the two companies’ characters with a ludicrous amount of mechanical options.

But the rest of the package is no slouch. The unjustly forgotten Power Stone games are back for the first time in decades, the first Capcom vs SNK is here, as is ultra-rare Rival Schools sequel Project Justice. Rounding out the pack are the bizarre curio of Plasma Sword, an arguably unnecessary Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper, and the faintly depressing Capcom Fighting Evolution.

Each is presented in the manner we’ve come to expect from the previous Capcom retro collections: you get a multitude of display and gameplay options for each title, a museum and soundtrack gallery showing off some surprisingly comprehensive development art, and impeccable rollback netcode. Sadly, despite trying, I was unable to find another online player during the review period, but after hours battling other people in last year’s Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection (which runs on the same tech), I’m assuming it’s flawless.

I played each of these games extensively on their original release, so I was expecting few surprises. Even so, there were a few things here I didn’t expect. For example, when I imported Capcom vs SNK 2 for Dreamcast my copy of Capcom vs SNK immediately began gathering dust. On revisiting the two games, it’s clear the sequel is an objectively better fighting game, but the original has better backgrounds, better music, and a more cohesive aesthetic.

Similarly, in conversations about the Power Stone franchise, it’s the sequel that unfairly gobbles up the attention. Sure, Power Stone 2 expands the player count to four and has more dynamic stages, but I had more fun with the original. There’s a purity of focus to Power Stone with its arena-based one-on-one fighting and even so many years later there’s not much else out there like it.

The Capcom vs SNK and Power Stone games in this collection alone make it a must-purchase for fighting fans, but the retro gamer in me is stunned that Plasma Sword and Project Justice have been dredged up from the Capcom back catalogue. Neither of these are landmark titles, though each is brimming with a specifically late 90s/early 00s bravado and creativity that feels like cracking open a time capsule.

You’ve probably sensed by now that I’ve had an amazing time with this collection. However, if the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection was an easy five-star release, this is a minor step down. Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper is a great game, but the arcade original was already released in the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary collection and the two aren’t hugely different. Capcom Fighting Evolution also still feels like what it is: a low-budget asset flip thrown together at the last minute. In addition, these are the arcade versions of these games so don’t include any extra content added for the home releases.

But those are small flies in a generous jar of very high-quality ointment. The Capcom Fighting Collection 2 made me smile from ear to ear, and I’ll be playing it online for months to come. Here’s hoping we get a Capcom Fighting Collection 3 featuring the Street Fighter EX titles and the likes of Rival Schools and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. After all, if Plasma Sword can make a comeback, anything can!

I’m not proud of the fact that I’ve beaten all 13 mainline Assassin’s Creed games (and all their DLCs). At their best, Ubisoft’s flagship series delivers tense stealth-action exploration while teaching you historical trivia. At their worst, they’re a hamster wheel of repetitive tasks, pointless busywork, and incomprehensible sci-fi nonsense.

As the credits rolled on the interminable Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, I vowed that this would be the last time I’d get suckered by the franchise. Last year, I was gifted a copy of the refreshingly concise Mirage, which made me recall the many things I’d once enjoyed about this series. Now, with Assassin’s Creed Shadows, it’s clear Ubisoft has given the series a serious style transfusion.

Since the early days of Assassin’s Creed, fans demanded a game set in feudal Japan. After all, with hooded, stealth-focused, assassin heroes, doesn’t a game where you just play as a straight-up actual ninja make logical sense? And yet, possibly because this setting was low-hanging fruit, Ubisoft waited… and waited.

Having now sunk a ridiculous number of hours into Shadows, I’m glad they waited. This is the best the franchise has been in at least a decade, leaving the stodgy Valhalla in the dust and improving on the great bits of Origins and Odyssey. At least on paper, not much has changed: you have a list of targets to stab, an open world to explore, and characters and bases to upgrade. But there’s a streamlined sleekness to this iteration, feeling like everything from character control to combat to the design of the world has been tuned up.

Let’s take lead character Naoe as an example. She moves much faster than previous assassins, can lie prone (a feature I’ve been craving for years), has a nifty grappling hook, and a fine line in flips and rolls. Controlling previous assassins occasionally felt like driving a station wagon: you point them in the right direction, hold down the parkour button, and hope for the best. But Naoe is more like a sports car, capable of quick, precise maneuvers and sudden exhilarating bursts of acceleration.

That’s counterbalanced by secondary lead Yasuke, whose design philosophy appears to be based around him being the biggest guy in all of Japan. He’s a true powerhouse in battle, can charge right through the scenery, but is frankly bordering on comedic when he tries to sneak. If Yasuke were the only lead in Shadows it wouldn’t feel like an Assassin’s Creed game, but his presence is like being able to swap between Naoe’s sports car and an armored Humvee.

The overall narrative is also vastly improved. The best Assassin’s Creed games have all been revenge stories, which may be repetitive but at least gave the characters clear motivations. In the (somewhat cutscene-heavy) introduction, when the game introduces you to Naoe’s peaceful village and her kind and ive middle-aged father, most people will be able to see precisely where the story is going.

Though the overall arc might be familiar, it’s at least well-executed. Care has clearly been taken to improve the cutscene direction, which is a huge improvement over Valhalla‘s parade of static dialogue and talking heads. The story also smartly zeroes in on Naoe and Yasuke’s social status at this period: Naoe bristling under an implacable patriarchy and Yasuke finding himself thrust into a high-status role after years as a slave.

Given the samurai-packed setting, it’s perhaps inevitable there’s a lot of Kurosawa influence on show, though there’s also a neat leaning towards more pop-inflected fare like 1971’s Lady Snowblood. This dovetails into a loose Tarantino feel when the action cranks up, with the best bits accompanied by a killer needle drop. Samurai movie purists will probably be demanding their shamisens and hyōshigi, but if watching ninjas battle samurai while a 60s-sounding psych rock track blares out is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

All that’s buoyed up by some truly incredible graphics. Ubisoft’s evolution of the Anvil engine is a sight to behold, particularly when running on 4K on a beefy PC or PS5 Pro. For once, ray-tracing doesn’t feel like a resource-hungry marketing gimmick, with the game so consistently pretty that I’m really putting the photo mode through its paces. Appropriately given the title, it also feels like there’s an aesthetic shift towards high-contrast visuals, where daytime feels sunkissed and night is an inky blackness that (unlike practically every other game) actually feels dark.

And the weather! Not since Metal Gear Solid 2 has rain felt so wet and oppressive. When a proper storm kicks up, the game excels, particularly if you’re playing with surround sound/headphones and can hear every drop splatter on the roof above your head and the wind whip through the trees.

As an aside, I’ve also been playing the game on my Steam Deck, knocking out a few side quests or exploring a waypoint during my daily commute. Frankly, Shadows has no business running this well on the Deck and, while it’s severely visually cut back and only ever lands in the rough territory of 30FPS, it’s very much playable.

Focused design, a firm directorial style, and those killer graphics combine into a polished package. This franchise has had a reputation for visual bugs and glitches at launch, but I suspect the last-minute delay from Nov. 2024 to Mar. 2025 gave the developers time to iron out any rough edges.

And, finally, it’s deeply satisfying to see this game succeed, as its victory is infuriating the worst people on the internet. From the moment the first trailer launched, there’s been a constant social media screeching from – let’s not mince words – racists annoyed that there’s a black samurai in the game.

That dovetailed into a full-on hate campaign spearheaded by the most pathetic people imaginable, all of whom have been slavering over the prospect of Shadows‘ failure and frantically trying to generate puffed-up ‘controversies’. All indications are that Shadows is not just a critical hit but a sales success too. That crunching noise you can faintly hear? That’s the sweet sound of racists grinding their teeth in frustration.

All of which means Shadows has me firmly back aboard the Assassin’s Creed franchise for the foreseeable future. All indications are that this will kick off a new trilogy of games based around the same incredible graphics tech, and I’ll be shoving a wristblade into unfortunate mooks’ necks in all of them.

If I were a lesser critic than I wish to be, I would use the title of this film as an opportunity to sardonically riff on how it’s anything but. There is, sadly, truth to such a sentiment; Opus, the feature directorial debut of one Mark Anthony Green, is safely one of the creakiest films in the entirety of A24‘s library, and especially far from what it ostensibly styles itself as — not an opus, per se, but a revelatory finger on what I would call a crucial pulse.

But if Opus isn’t exactly worthy of praise, it certainly doesn’t deserve to be lacerated. Simply put, Green needs to continue to make movies — the subject matter that he’s shown an interest in here is requisite to a widespread, necessary form of healing, and the sooner he becomes a more confident filmmaker, the sooner we can well and truly benefit from his contributions to that conversation. But at this current juncture, his filmography (meaning Opus) fatally locks itself in its own sauce, all while insisting a handful of poisonous ingredients be part of the recipe, so to speak.

The film stars Ayo Edebiri as Ariel Ecton — a small-time journalist with big dreams and a bigger obstacle in the form of a boss (Murray Bartlett) who won’t give her writing the time of day. She gets her big break when she’s invited to a listening party hosted by Alfred Moretti (John Malkovich), a legendary 90s pop icon who has come out of retirement to release a brand new album. The announcement takes over public conversation, newscasts, and every other corner of the cultural zeitgeist, and there are many Moretti fans around the world who wish they could be in Ariel’s shoes. Ariel, however, arrives at the listening party on Moretti’s private, sprawling property — teeming with blue-robed Moretti devotees — and very quickly wishes that she was not in her own shoes.

As alluded to earlier, Opus is packed with big ideas — some of which will be touched on in a moment — but the lack of writerly and directorial discipline on Green’s part (he’s here as writer, director, and producer) undermines them quite severely. With a deliciously shrewd Malkovich as his primary vehicle, Green offers monologues upon monologues of philosophy pertaining to not only our obsession with celebrities, but where that obsession comes from, and what we can learn about ourselves and each other by examining that origin. This subsequently spins out into such topics as who is capable of making an impact on the world, and who has the courage and lucidity to even try.

The ideas are undeniably rich, and some of them are even actionable, but by rendering them as several long, cumbersome, verbal maxims, it becomes very difficult for us to get a grip on what Opus believes is its primary emotional and cerebral core. Without that grip, the plot beats cannot thematically unfurl with any sort of coherence — a plot beat might have thematic significance, but there’s no way of knowing which of Opus‘ many ontological monologues it might pertain to.

Indeed, the great irony of Opus is that it ostensibly champions our individual ability to create something, no matter how insignificant our name or brand might be or feel to ourselves. And yet, it’s so fixated on verbally prescribing us its dizzying manifesto, that it denies viewers the opportunity to bring themselves to the viewing experience and subsequently create an emotional interpretation of the film. Opus‘ screen is not a shared space, but a soapbox; usually valid grounds for mudslinging, nullified in this case by the nutrition of the film’s subject matter.

In all likelihood, this is a casualty of Green’s inexperience as a filmmaker. It’s clear as day how ionate he is about getting these ideas across — as he should be — but he’s too precious about the purity of his ideas, and thereby too dismissive of the role that the audience plays in bringing those ideas to emotional life. A more disciplined version of Opus would have focused on one of these maxims and allowed it the space to breathe, flirt, and be discovered/interpreted by the audience.

Succeeding that, Green could have explored more branches of his overarching ideology with another film a la Ti West’s X trilogy (also from A24). Instead, in his eagerness to relay these ideas, Green forgot to pace himself, and also forgot to let the ideas take on a more cinematic life outside of himself.

But even then, the mechanical storytelling instincts here are highly questionable in their own right. It’s no spoiler to say that Opus takes a turn into horror territory, the specifics of which I’ll leave you to discover on your own. But — and perhaps this is a secondary symptom of Opus‘ incongruent identity — the horror elements flatten whatever sparks of digestible insight do make it through. Why platform a tangible, antagonistic evil in your narrative when the most compelling indictment you make is towards the role we play in building our own mental prisons of worship?

That, dear readers, is far more terrifying and pertinent; it’s one thing to face an enemy, it’s another to face yourself, but both are incomparable to facing yourself by detaching from what you think gives you life. What is gained by cheering for your favorite pop star at a concert? What, if anything, are you actually cheering for by doing so?

This fallible narrative unfortunately compromises both Edebiri and Malkovich, albeit not totally. Edebiri, ever the specialist of casual awkwardness, pilots the envious Ariel superbly, and contrasts with Malkovich’s alien-like guru in a way that, in a different cut of Opus, would have been the film’s greatest weapon. Ariel speaks and stumbles like an everyday person, whereas Moretti sets himself apart from everyone else with language, intonation, and a speaking pace that make him strategically enrapturing and socially unassailable — a celebrity, in other words.

In this way, there is no interaction between these two that would cause them to connect on a human-to-human level — there is no emotional benefit to be had by either party. And I ask again; what, if anything, do we gain from pouring out our energy to a pop star at a concert?

There’s not a doubt in my mind that Green has some sort of answer to that question. Frankly, I have little trouble believing that he has an answer to many questions; pressing, intense questions that can and should be rendered on the big screen in the form of sincere storytelling.

Communicating via sincere storytelling, however, requires a filmmaking maturity that Green has demonstrated a current lack of with Opus. To evoke cliché, it’s a film whose reach far exceeds its grasp, but it’s also a prime example of a film whose reach needs to be encouraged, and which should be applauded for identifying that reach in the first place. Keep going, Mark Anthony Green — your opus will come yet.

There are relatively few works that deserve to bear the title of “masterpiece,” but The Electric State is certainly one of them — the quiet, heavy, contemplative atmosphere; a young girl’s colorful-yet-fraught past that gave way to a devastating future; the chilling ruminations on consciousness paired with the darkly evocative drawings. Indeed, Simon Stålenhag’s acclaimed graphic novel is every bit a masterpiece as the Russo brothers’ film adaptation of it is a hodgepodge of creative nadirs.

It may be the case that the Avengers: Infinity War/Endgame brain trust of Anthony and Joe Russo and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely were entitled to take Stålenhag’s canon in whichever direction they wanted, but if you’re going to take the square peg of graphic literature and shove it into the round hole of a blockbuster film, it should at least be a good blockbuster. Alas, there’s nary a single spark in The Electric State‘s star-studded but uninspired cast, indecisive tonal identity, or even the grossly stilted action sequences that — in all likelihood — are the reason that the Russos decided to make this film at all. They don’t come sloppier than this.

The Electric State stars known non-movie watcher Millie Bobby Brown as Michelle, a teenager living in a cyberpunkified, 1990s-era United States that’s been ravaged by a recent war between humans and robots. Life’s rough for Michelle — her parents and brother died in a car crash, everyone around her is addicted to neurocasters (a VR-like headset made to satisfy even the most minor hedonistic impulse), and she lives with a horrible little foster parent named Ted (Jason Alexander, channeling George Costanza to great effect, if by way of parody).

When a robot claiming to be her deceased brother comes knocking at her door, she sets off on a quest to find his actual body. Chris Pratt is also here as ex-solider/current smuggler Keats, presumably to fill the dad cinema quotient that comes with every Russo production.

If you’re like me and have read Stålenhag’s book, you’ll have no trouble identifying all the criminally diluted plot beats and subject matter that now hardly as meaningful in The Electric State. And yet, that transgression is ultimately a footnote, because there’s absolutely nothing that s as meaningful in The Electric State whatsoever.

Indeed, the characters act out bizarrely so as to get to the next scene quicker, and then heelturn just as incoherently to resolve non-existent tension. The dialogue is a d4 dice roll between stunted worldbuilding, painfully uninterested jokes, insulting clichés, and monotonous, unstudied pathos. All the space in between? Brain rotting needle drops and expensive VFX flourishes — the latter of which probably had a budget that could have funded at least five fantastic scripts instead of this gross filmic hemorrhage.

To that last point, this isn’t just an awful film — it’s directly harmful to the health of the medium. It’s bad enough that the Russos bought the rights to the novel and hacked it apart beyond recognition — at that point, why not just make an original film so as to not lock away those rights for a writer who will make good on the source material? But at least, at that point, there remains the possibility for an exciting new vision to come about. It is, after all, a loose adaptation.

But to lock the film rights to this brimmingly thoughtful IP behind their AGBO production company, only to then violently shove it into the content slopification machine after being trusted with a $320 million production budget (which measures out to about 16 May Decembers)? Well, that’s a move that should frankly land the Russos in director’s solitary confinement (which they’d be broken out of by Kevin Feige and his pack of Marvel yes-men anyway, but I digress).

Compare this to something like The Fall Guy, the David Leitch-directed, Drew Pearce-penned action comedy that dropped into cinemas last May, and was also loosely based on a same-name IP that the film hardly resembles. Like The Electric State to Stålenhag’s book, you’d be hard-pressed to spot even a smidge of the 1980s television series within The Fall Guy, but one of these films is utterly fantastic while the other is soulless junk.

That’s because The Fall Guy brings new ideas and emotions to the table to fill whatever missing space was left by the absence of the television show’s identity. It smartly draws a parallel between Hollywood stuntworkers and movie stars, and how they’re both regarded in the film business, despite what kind of talents they both harbor (hint: if you need a real-life action hero, you’re not calling the movie star). It keeps its emotional core sweet and light so as to gel cohesively with its creative, similarly-light comedic spirit, all while its more confrontational scenes are played as cartoonish to maintain that lightness throughout. The dialogue playfully conveys consistent character dynamics, and the gags are treated as proper, polished comedy beats rather than some annoying, obligatory tally. The Fall Guy loves being a movie.

Nothing of the sort could be said about The Electric State. It guts the book of all its original nuances and doesn’t have the first idea about what it has to offer in their place. As a result, it shoves in a swath of seemingly random and twice as generic blockbuster beats for no other reason than to fill an arbitrary runtime. These beats are snarky one minute, filled with insincere sappiness (complete with an orchestral string suite) the next, and are completely joyless/thoughtless throughout. There’s not a single moving part of The Electric State that indicates even an iota of creative ion from anyone involved. The Electric State hates being a movie — at least, this adaptation of The Electric State hates being a movie.

In an alternate universe, all is right in the world of film. Audiences regularly turn up to the movie theater for hearty, mid-budget dramedies, blockbusters consistently value their stories in equal measure that they value their spectacle, streaming services offer a limited, rotating curation of old classics, smart genre work, and hot new cinematic mavericks, and The Electric State‘s film rights were purchased by someone like Charlie Kaufman, Jane Schoenbrun, or David Lowery.

But we don’t live in that universe. We live in the universe where the Anoras and American Fictions of the world are hardly given the time of day by the public, where the MCU keeps getting away with its brand-driven narrative, where the quantity of streaming titles obliterate the notion of quality, and where the Russos were given $320 million to curl out a cynical hunk of trash that happens to share a name with Simon Stålenhag’s masterpiece. This to say, we’d better get that wormhole open soon — this is getting exhausting.

Steven Soderbergh and David Koepp are two of cinema’s good guys. The former, a journeyman of a director who’s been drawn to a myriad of subjects and styles, all of them bearing the common denominator of inventiveness. The latter, screenwriting royalty who many of us have to thank for recent yet foundational genre and blockbuster work (Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man? Spielberg’s Jurassic Park? That was him).

They’ve collaborated more than once and have embodied cinematic creativity in a studio system that seems to tolerate less and less of that as time goes on. Their latest t venture is Black Bag, a spy thriller that contains one (1) explosion throughout its 93 minute runtime, and is all the better for it — better than most every spy thriller we’ve seen in the last five years, and probably those we’ll see in the next five as well.

Rightly demanding the viewers’ full attention, Black Bag is armed to the gums with a peak-power cast led by Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett — two tips of a dangerously witty script, full of ionate venom and a head-spinning surplus of agency jargon. It’s an energetic puzzle box of a ride, and at the center is a stoic emotional core that keeps things ticking along.

Black Bag stars Fassbender as George, an intelligence agent who gets tipped off about five suspects in a treasonous plot that could claim countless civilian lives. One of these five suspects — all of them colleagues of George’s — is the guilty party, and one of them also happens to be his wife Kathryn (Blanchett). Torn between his devotion to his country and his uncompromising love for his wife, George begins a dangerous game of chess wherein he just might be one of the pieces.

Now, for those of you familiar with the standards that Soderbergh and Koepp tend to set for themselves, you already know that the above synopsis isn’t even close to the truth of Black Bag‘s plot. Just as well, because the plot’s ins and outs aren’t hoops that the audience is expected to jump through, as the remarks, retorts, hard logistical info, and subtextual probes rattled off by the characters are delivered with a cold (and even alienating) efficiency.

Half the battle of watching Black Bag is keeping up with all the charismatic syllables in play (made more challenging with the varying thickness of the accents here), and in the film’s general refusal to slow down, viewers may worry that they’re missing too much of the plot to be well and truly dialed in. But don’t worry — as long as you can keep track of who’s hostile towards who (and who isn’t), you can drink in the sharp dialogue like a frothy milkshake with rainbow sprinkles instead of a wine that needs its notes acknowledged. You’re there as an observer, not an equal, of these characters.

Soderbergh — director and cinematographer here — calls further attention to this with his framing. Whenever the characters are firing off verbal entertainment, our view is positioned like a hidden camera, wide enough to capture all the subjects involved in the exchange, and high enough to reinforce the viewer as a privileged observer. You feel sneaky watching all of this play out, but also confident, as though you’re not supposed to be there, but aren’t terribly intimidated by the thought of getting found out.

It’s when the characters enter truly dangerous territory within their conversations that Soderbergh’s camera begins to close in. The higher the emotions — hidden and otherwise — the more isolated these characters become in the frame, and the more intimate we become with their faces and bodies. In this way, the viewer gets caught in the middle of the danger, either having no escape from the interrogator or being forced to scrutinize whoever’s being interrogated.

The subjects, of course, need to be worth capturing, and I already told you that they’re played by Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender, so that takes care of that.

But seriously, the duo’s emotional subtleties are quietly tremendous. Filling the shoes of the other four main characters are Naomie Harris, Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, and Regé-Jean Page (who seemed to go missing for a bit, but is back here in as fine a form as ever). This quartet consistently hit their demanding marks, but Fassbender and Blanchett stand out when they combine their cold exteriors with their very full, beating hearts.

When Fassbender’s George shows fear, he doesn’t get overwhelmed but instead thinks lucidly at a new twin-turbine pace. When he’s disappointed, the other men in the room seem miniscule. When Blanchett’s Kathryn is angry, she ascends titanically instead of exploding erratically. When she turns to George and says “I love you,” she means it, and she means it with a disarming sincerity that somehow doesn’t betray any vulnerability. Her love for him — like his love for her — is not a weakness, but a superpower.

And really, is that not the most refreshing inversion of any spy thriller genre trope at any point ever? In any given spy thriller or adjacent genre, how often are a character’s loved ones used by their enemies to force them into action, if not by direct kidnapping, then putting them unavoidably in harm’s way? Indeed, love tends to be leveraged as a weakness in these movies, and if there’s anything the world doesn’t need right now (or ever), it’s the notion that love is a weakness.

Black Bag challenges this notion — in this film, love is enabling, powerful, and is precisely why George and Kathryn can operate as diligently, proficiently, and dangerously as they do. Love is the great choice that we all have the privilege of making in this life, and these two — enabled further by Koepp’s script and Soderbergh’s camera —make it with style to spare.

For the sake of brevity and secrecy, I’ll leave the emotional core for you to discover. All I’ll say is to pay extra-close attention to what George utters to his conversation partner before walking away from him in the opening scene. Then, sit back and bear witness to 2025’s current film to beat.

Jack Quaid is doing a great job at playing the same “regular” character, to varying degrees. While several of his roles are indeed similar, it’s perhaps his awkward charm that sells it each time. Gone are the days when the outgoing, punk-rock girl sees something more in the timid, yet lovable nerd. Moreover, the 2000’s trope that made the world fall in love with Justin Long, or a geeked out Johnny Galecki, has long faded. Today, most leading men are sporting some version of a “perfect” look, leaving little to the imagination, or failing to take your breath away over time. 

On Novocaine, Quaid lets you grow to love his character, Nathan Caine, with each scene. And while the plot of a man who can’t feel pain might seem one-dimensional, the actor’s emotions are the key to the film’s great heights. To put it plainly, throughout Novocaine, all Quaid’s Nathan does is feel pain. And that’s what makes this bonkers storyline worth the watch. At just under two hours, it’s a wild ride, with enough adrenaline shots to keep you from losing consciousness.

Novocaine introduces a new kind of hero 5c5a71

Novocaine follows the introverted Nathan Caine, who spends his days in an endless cycle: smoothies for breakfast, wasting away as the assistant manager of a bank, and video games with his friend Roscoe, whom he’s never met in-person. Evidently, from the first scene, the character is on autopilot. But perhaps the best moment of his days, is gazing longingly at bank teller Sherry Margrave (played by Amber Midthunder). 

Right off the bat, the dynamic is made clear. Sherry’s the cool girl, while Nathan’s the guy who stares from a distance. But as she invites him out to lunch, and gets him to try cherry pie for the first time (it’s the best thing he’s ever tasted, obviously), a few secrets are revealed. Nathan has congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis (CIPA). This genetic disorder has impacted his nervous system, so he does not feel pain or temperature. He can get hurt, as we come to find out throughout the course of the movie, but he just won’t feel it. And that’s a different kind of problem.

That’s why he blends his meals, because he might accidentally bite off his tongue if he eats solid foods. He also has to set a three-hour timer to pee, so his bladder does not explode. With all these inconveniences, Nathan’s not exactly a social butterfly. But as Sherry gets him to taste pie (again, absolutely delicious), this mild-mannered bank manager is ready to take on the world. So, when a bank heist goes wrong, and Sherry is taken hostage, Nathan wears his genetic disorder on his sleeve. Embracing his childhood nickname “Novocaine,” he uses his inability to feel pain to his advantage, and sets off on a vigilante course to retrieve Sherry.

Introducing the everyman, with a touch of avenger 1s5h5d

As the current poster boy for charming everyman, Quaid’s almost too perfect as Nathan Caine. While on a mission to retrieve Sherry, he’s still bumbling in uncertainty, which continues his endearing streak of characters you can’t help but root for. While he is still afraid of getting hurt, he slowly becomes one with his “power.” As such, that helps to solidify Novocaine’s impressive fight scenes. Better yet, it provides action sequences that wouldn’t make much sense if his CIPA wasn’t in play.

It’s due to his disorder that Nathan can (unwillingly) dip his hand into hot oil to retrieve a gun. Or take out a bullet from his arm without flinching. Even as he puts his body through heinous damage, it’s all for a purpose. With Sherry in the picture, Nathan’s finally felt something, other than, well, nothing. The action scenes are nonsensically elevated, and it becomes impossible not to anticipate another gag-inducing accident on Nathan’s part.

Crossbow through his thigh? No problem. Using shards of glass as makeshift brass knuckles? A walk in the park! Dislocating his thumb to get out of handcuffs? Just another Tuesday. Regular action movies wouldn’t work this way, because the protagonist’s response to these situations would all be the same– pain. But for Nathan Caine, getting your fingernails yanked off is just a mild inconvenience.

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Novocaine’s ing cast manages to hold their own, alongside each other, that is. Because for the most part, it’s Jack Quaid’s world the audience is living in. Amber Midthunder is enjoyable as the troubled Sherry. Ray Nicholson is believably infuriating as Simon, the bank robber. Betty Gabriel brings some balancing heart as Officer Mincy Langston, an SPDP detective, and Matt Walsh revives his Veep-esque lovable tomfoolery as Officer Coltraine. However, what each ing role does in Novocaine is to amplify Quaid’s charm.

Perhaps the greatest amplifier though, is Jacob Batalon’s Roscoe Dixon. On the surface, it’s a performance that any Spider-Man buff will be familiar with. In Novocaine however, there’s a heightened emotional component to his character. At first, it’s unclear if the audience will ever meet him. After all, even Quaid’s Nathan is yet to physically meet his online gamer pal. And while the trailer does give his role away, it’s not certain if he is integral to the plot’s advancement. Nonetheless, when he does appear, Roscoe and Nathan bounce lines off one another seamlessly.

Secondly, his entrance comes at a moment when Nathan’s chips are truly down. However, what secures his character as a favorite, are his constant reappearances. When you think Roscoe’s finally fulfilled his screen time requirements, he shows up again with more humor. All in all, in under an hour, Novocaine‘s Batalon and Quaid are a dream team that could very well put Ned Leeds and Peter Parker to shame.

Novocaine is worth every broken bone 5a1454

It may seem twisted to cheer on as a lovable protagonist gets beaten to a pulp on numerous occasions. But Novocaine helps numb the pain. Director-duo Dan Berk and Robert Olsen, in conjuction with cinematographer Jacques Jouffret, delivered a stunning picture that’s not too serious, and equally not too silly. Audiences are served with a fast-paced movie that keeps Nathan Caine simultaneously regretting his deadly actions, and diving in headfirst to even more chaos. The light at the end of the tunnel, after all, is a woman that changed the course of his life after just one lunch date. Who knows what could happen after more dates? And even if it doesn’t work out between Nathan and Sherry, Nathan embraced his unique gift. And at the very least, he got to try some delicious cherry pie. That makes Novocaine worth every broken bone.

After six years and multiple delays, Oscar winning director and Korean film trailblazer Bong Joon-ho is finally back to big screens globally with his Mickey 17, a dystopian sci-fi adaptation of Edward Ashton’s 2022 novel, Mickey 7. Bong changed the title because he wanted to see his protagonist die ten more times.

The film is led by Robert Pattinson as Mickey Barnes, a naïve, down-on-his-luck orphan who, in an effort to escape a loan shark and a decrepit Earth, signs up to board a spaceship colony headed towards a new planet, Niflheim. Not entirely aware of what he was g up for, he chooses “Expendable” as his job, making him the science team’s lab rat for all things deadly. You see, they had developed a human printing machine which, upon ing Mickey’s genetic makeup and memories, could create as many specimens as their hearts desired.

The protagonist’s job is, then, essentially, to die for the cause, over and over and over — whether that’s in service of spacecraft maintenance, vaccine development, or planet reconnaissance.

Leading the charge is Mark Ruffalo in a Trump-infused performance as the colony’s populist leader, Commander Kenneth Marshall, a failed Earthly politician who turns to the space race to fulfill his megalomaniac ambitions, instead — the latter part more akin to the real life U.S. president’s right-hand man or, as some would argue, puppeteer, billionaire businessman and famed SpaceX founder, Elon Musk.

More interestingly, Marshall is less a charismatic leader than a well-oiled mouthpiece for his wife’s even more eccentric illusions of grandeur. Toni Collette is fabulous as the devious, ethnically ambiguous Ylfa, sharing an oddly captivating chemistry with Ruffalo as the ship’s sociopathic leaders.

Meanwhile, Mickey also finds love. Granted, one that’s much less unhinged than Marshall and Ylfa’s. He meets security agent Nasha (Naomi Ackie) early on, and though you wonder at first what she sees in him, you quickly bite into their tender, and slightly freaky, romance as the emotional core of the film. Nasha stands by Mickey’s every version, comforting him as Cameron Britton’s twisted science team boss, Arkady, puts him through the wringer. Later, there’s a particularly striking scene where she holds his body as he rots away from a deadly airborne Niflheim virus. It becomes clear that Bong has found the key to survival and the answer to offsetting the soul-rotting vices of modern society: love.

Though many of his characters are, there’s nothing cynical or nihilistic about Bong’s work. Quite the opposite, actually. The director seems invested in preserving hope and love amidst our ever-putrescent reality. And Mickey 17 is perhaps his most romantic film.

The exposition-heavy first half hour of the film and, especially, the sequence showing Mickey’s multiple deaths oscillates between humorously cruel and cruelly humorous, while you’re left oscillating between nausea and amusement. That carefully crafted balance between the barbarism of common, repeated violence and the hilarity of its outrageousness create the film’s very distinctive brand of comedy, one which has Bong Joon-ho written all over it.

For the audiences who only know the South Korean director from his exquisite, genre bending thriller Parasite, Mickey 17‘s sci-fi eccentricity will feel like a bizarre leap. However, it’s actually the third film in an unofficial trilogy that makes up an entire subsection of Bong’s filmography, and, more specifically, his ventures into the English language.

It’s curious to note how Bong tends to go darker and more serious in his Korean films, albeit maintaining the satirical bite that has come to define his filmmaking. But in 2013’s Snowpiercer, 2017’s Okja, and now Mickey 17 — all three dystopian sci-fi-esque critiques of capitalism and materialism — he’s so much more whimsical. It’s like the distance that the English language provides allows him to be completely unabashed and unafraid of the maximalism that he also surely must recognize in American society — itself so wildly distant from Korean’s much humbler, but also much more repressed, culture.

In fact, neither of these three films is very interested in subtlety — at least not in the way Parasite or Memories of Murder are. When making American films, for all intents and purposes, Bong is loud and on-the-nose with his metaphors. In Snowpiercer, the social hierarchy is laid out linearly into a train’s different classes; in Okja, a little girl tries to save her pet pig from slaughter and mad scientists; and in Mickey 17, a human being’s life is literally made “expendable” in service of his job.

Similarly, Ruffalo’s autocrat may feel heavy-handed. His devout followers also wear embroidered hats, albeit blue, with his slogan. His speech and mannerisms are exaggerated, his tan foundation noticeable, and, together with Ylfa, they flaunt their riches (primarily abundant food) while attempting to convince their calorie-controlled subjects that their deprivation is a brave, patriotic sacrifice for the colony’s greater good. There’s little about this story that’s left to claw its way out of the realm of subtext, and maybe that’s for the best, given the current media illiteracy epidemic.

There’s one exception, though. Bong intentionally leaves the film’s meditations on death to be read between the lines, possibly as a way to allow the viewer to imprint their own personal feelings on life’s most enigmatic aspect. Mickey often complains about how many times people ask him what it feels like to die. He never really provides an answer — but when given the space to, he does occasionally reflect on how it terrifies him every time, and how much he dislikes it. And it’s like no one really listens (and you wonder “Why ask, then?”) — except for Nasha, of course.

The most poignant aspect of Mickey 17, which certainly sets it apart from other mega productions of its kind, is, again, its audacious sincerity. Mickey, Nasha, and other stand-out minor characters, like Anamaria Vartolomei’s Kai or Patsy Ferran’s Dorothy, love loudly and are steadfast in their principles, or, in the latter’s case, they learn to become that way. It’s a genuinely sweet movie despite all the gruesome deaths, creepy crawling insects (which, by the way, teach the humans a thing or two about community), bleak grayish photography, and literal icy setting.

The crux of the film’s pathos, of course, lies in the character of Mickey, who’s trusting and empathetic to a fault. Because of these traits, he becomes the film’s hero, ultimately saving the day in more ways than one (all of which we’ll leave unspoiled to somewhat preserve the experience of first time viewers). Pattinson is dizzying in the role, tapping into so many facets of human existence through the most unassuming of mono/dialogues, but especially through his boundlessly expressive stares and little facial twists. Bong recognized his genius from films like the Safdies’ Good Time and Robert Eggers’s The Lighthouse, and gifted him with a role that enabled him to showcase the true breadth of his range. And what a match made in weird, earnest heaven that was.

Those who enjoyed the Bong of Okja and Snowpiercer will definitely get a kick out of Mickey 17, but don’t expect the elegant nuance of Parasite. Ultimately, this director sticks to his guns and, whatever he makes, he makes it wholeheartedly. And that’s always a triumph.

Few might be aware of The Unbreakable Boy‘s journey from pre-production to release, and just as well, because it’s one that defies any immediate explanation. After being announced, starting filming, and wrapping it all in late 2020, the film was due to release on March 18, 2022. Then, a week before its then-scheduled theatrical bow, it was pulled from the release calendar and went dark for nearly three years.

It’s out in theaters now, but the question remains; why did The Unbreakable Boy — a faith-relevant biographical drama about a young boy with autism and brittle bone disease, so thematically platitudinal and pathologically inoffensive that it slots into the Kingdom Story Company pantheon without an ounce of fuss — suddenly disappear without explanation? What about this specific story could have possibly spooked the Lionsgate brass to bench its most inconsequential player?

In case you haven’t caught on, these questions are more interesting than The Unbreakable Boy itself, though that’s less the fault of the film and more a result of films like it being so meticulously skewed for a specific demographic, that making it the subject of critique is about as moot as one can get. Even so, a landing was far from stuck here.

Based on Scott Michael LeRette’s and Susy Flory’s memoir of the same name, The Unbreakable Boy stars Zachary Levi as the very same Scott, the father of sons Logan and the energetic Austin (Jacob Laval, an excellent young performer), the latter of whom was born with brittle bone disease and is on the autism spectrum. The film chronicles the trials and tribulations faced by the family, from hospital visits to life at school to Scott’s and his wife Teresa’s (Meghann Fahy) marriage, and, of course, Scott’s and Austin’s father-son bond.

Now, I’m not going to sit here and insinuate that the intentions behind The Unbreakable Boy‘s approach were deliberately insincere. There is, for instance, a life behind its eyes that’s absent from the streaming-original, TikTok-friendly slop currently populating Netflix, and it possesses a visual comelyness that isn’t quite cinematic, but not decidedly incompetent either. By all appearances, this film is interested in existing.

However, for a film called The Unbreakable Boy, it certainly seems determined to spend more time with Austin’s struggling parents than with him. Indeed, we become intimate with Scott’s alcoholism, insecurities about fatherhood, and his imaginary friend Joe (Drew Powell), while Teresa finds herself overwhelmed in her role as a stay-at-home mom and from resurfaced family trauma. What the film makes most apparent, though, is that these two love Austin very much, unique parental challenges and all.

But it’s 2025. Surely to God, we’re past the point where it’s considered profound or inspiring to love and accept your child for who they are, or where it’s considered reasonable for on-screen portrayals of autism to primarily serve as vehicles of self-actualization for neurotypical adults. Austin breaks the fourth wall via voiceover and narrates a bit of his life to us in the film’s first half, but with so much focus put on Scott and Teresa, one really can’t help but read that as the film trying to hide behind him. What monster, after all, would dare critique a film about this sweet little boy?

So why not actually make it about Austin, then? What’s his story? What are his fears and aspirations? What does he want? What does he need? What, from his perspective, is significant about moving through the world with autism and osteogenesis imperfecta? What’s the thematic core of his journey, and how will that best be captured in the medium of cinema?

Could it be that the brain trust of The Unbreakable Boy are simply not talented enough storytellers or empaths to examine these questions and perspectives with the nuance they deserve, and had no intention to even do that in the first place? The film’s elementary, milquetoast handling of topics like marriage, bullying, and guilt certainly suggests the former, and its patronizing narrative angle suggests the latter. Indeed, it’s easy to point a camera at an innocent child and widely relatable vulnerabilities so as to reap the benefits of that innocence and vulnerability, but it’s much harder to make a good movie built upon truly insightful emotional resonance and ideas.

And yet, I’m genuinely not sure if writer-director Jon Gunn and the Kingdom Story Company producing heads know this or not. The Unbreakable Boy does not exist for movie theaters — if it exists for anyone, it’s the real-life LeRette family. A filmic rendition of their experiences together — experiences that I’ve no doubt are every bit as richly and complexly humanistic as The Unbreakable Boy is not.

But if you’re going to display something like this to wider audiences — many of whom do not traffic in the bubble (and let’s face it; it absolutely is a bubble) of faith movies — you can’t be so naive as to think that innocuous sentimentality is going to do the trick. Film and other such media inform cultural discussions — people talk about movies, and audiences are far smarter than most give them credit for. They’re not going to leave the theater feeling inspired by The Unbreakable Boy. They may find it unobjectionable, even fleetingly charming, but without a true creative leg to stand on, what was really the goal of shuffling this one into cinemas? Money? Impact? Artistic hubris? None of these seem likely. An easy vehicle for advertising traditional family values and a gratuitous bible shoutout, together with an honest but fundamentally misguided belief in the script? Certainly more likely than the other three.

In summary, The Unbreakable Boy is not a very good movie in any sense of the word, but that’s also like saying that I, a Canadian, am not a very good citizen of Japan. The circles that The Unbreakable Boy is supposed to be walking in are deeply unconcerned with the end goal of making strong movies — it’s almost as if this film got lost and unwittingly wandered into the cinema while it was in transit to a $20 church group screening. I have little trouble believing that The Unbreakable Boy was made specifically for that church group setting, and to subsequently affirm viewers’ good citizenship while perhaps prompting them to pat themselves on the back for empathizing with Austin.

Instead, The Unbreakable Boy has found itself competing with the thoroughly un-Christian The Monkey for box office supremacy. It will probably lose, and then promptly fade from the zeitgeist, after which we will forever be none the wiser as to why this movie was axed from its original 2022 release date without warning, and why it has resurfaced now. Then, one day, that mystery will be solved, and someone will make a movie about it, and it will be on par with The Unbreakable Boy.

Osgood Perkins was one of the great cinematic finds of 2024. It’s true that he’s been in the Hollywood game since 1983, and he’s even masterminded his fair share of horror fare over the last decade, but his decidedly singular Longlegs put him on the map like never before. A move of that caliber would turn anyone into the next champion of independent horror cinema; a champion whose next project would no doubt be eagerly awaited.

In Perkins’ case, that project is The Monkey, the Theo James-led comedy horror based on Stephen King’s short story of the same name, and buried within this film is one of the most transgressively intelligent genre exercises this side of Bubba Ho-Tep. That’s not to say that the form that it does take isn’t without merit, nor that Perkins’ trademark sensibilities shouldn’t continue to leave their comfort zones, but The Monkey very blatantly could have done with some extra time in the oven — honestly, it probably wasn’t even cooked for the recommended length of time.

The Monkey follows James as Hal Shelburn, a down-on-his-luck divorcee who had a cartoonishly tragic childhood, courtesy of his horrible brother Bill (also Theo James), and a toy monkey that may or may not have been responsible for the death of his mother and a handful of other folks close to him. Hal and Bill thought they were rid of it forever when they buried it as kids, but when it shows up in Hal’s life again, he’s forced to work overtime to protect his estranged son from this malevolent, key-operated simian.

It will be hard for most people — at this point in time, anyway — to contextualize The Monkey without thinking back to Longlegs. Initially, this may seem to work against The Monkey. The consistent technical power that Perkins packed into each of Longlegs‘ frames was key to establishing it as the instant masterpiece of dread that it’s understood to be, and that power is largely — though not completely — absent here. Indeed, the camera isn’t having nearly as much fun as we know it’s capable of having in Perkins’ hands.

However, The Monkey is a comedy film first and foremost. Laughter and levity are the ends of the film’s obscenely gory means. Perkins’ camera, then, knows not to interfere too much — the film’s thoroughly unserious brand of comedy draws from a challenging place just on its own, and trying to squeeze in serious (and therefore antithetical) visual awe would have been a few ingredients too many for this giggle-first storytelling core. It’s smart, disciplined direction from Perkins.

With that said, the camera still needs to supervise the rest of the film even if it’s not playing too hard itself, and this is where the more unpolished tools in The Monkey‘s kit can be found. No one, for instance, can deny that Perkins’ sense of humor is creative, but neither the script nor the cast can provide enough of a structure for those jokes to take consistent flight.

The world and most of the characters in it are chiefly defined by a distinct lack of pathos. This not only plays directly into The Monkey‘s themes, but importantly allows us to anticipate a subversion of what we often expect of more dramatic films that deal directly with death (that is, lots and lots of pathos).

Nicco Del Rio, for one, nails his lone scene as a priest overseeing a funeral precisely because of what we expect from funeral scenes in horror movies. Adam Scott, in his one scene as a panicky ancestor of Hal’s and Bill’s, sticks a similar landing as that one guy in a horror movie who has witnessed said horror, but no one believes what he has to say. You know exactly the type of character and the scene they would be in from that description, and Scott takes advantage of that to catch us off guard with his performance.

Unfortunately, the core characters don’t have the luxury of only needing to subvert one context. They need to move through the film’s many locales without being given enough new and recognizable contexts to subvert. As a result, the gags can’t land consistently, and the smattering of entertainment value found in the gonzo death scenes can’t make up for it.

This is compounded by the fact that a sizable number of Perkins’ jokes are evidently better read than spoken. There are chunks of presumably witty dialogue that fly by way too quickly for us to reasonably digest and appreciate, and the time spent trying to process the speed of the actors’ straining lips distracts from The Monkey‘s ongoing proceedings. This is all to say that Perkins has a potent comedic spirit, but he doesn’t quite seem to know how to package it effectively here.

Luckily, there’s another element inherent to the comedic tone and many of its beats that — while sorely missing that mechanical backbone — still allows The Monkey to punch in a respectable weight class, even if it’s below where it ought to be.

You see, there’s a wider purpose to Perkins’ purging of pathos that goes beyond mere comedic effect. The reason The Monkey deals in death — and it’s anything but shy about this mission statement — is that it wants to take away the psychological power that death and grief can have over us, and it does that by laughing both at us and with us. Hal willingly estranges himself from his son to avoid ing what he believes to be a curse onto him, as though Hal is powerful enough to unwittingly channel the Grim Reaper through his mortal essence.

Meanwhile, Bill, in the far stronger half of James’ dual performance (and, more broadly, the strongest in the whole film), rattles off some truly ridiculous poetics in hopes of winning the monkey’s favor, as though Death could possibly give a hoot about what this snarky, self-serious lifeform beseeches from it, and why.

Both of these men take death very personally. They, like all of us, pontificate on the solemn sobriety of this inescapable finale of the lifecycle, and find some way to rationalize their own responsibility for it — a responsibility that, one way or another, is taken quite seriously. Meanwhile, the monkey, who actually is the conduit of death, thinks nothing more of it than “Haha drum go bang bang,” and then Uncle Chip gets trampled by a stampede of cattle while in a sleeping bag, reducing him to an insane pile of pink goo that every Cronenberg probably sees during the R.E.M. portion of their sleep.

And yet, there’s nothing misanthropic about it. In fact, The Monkey loves human beings so much, that it’s trying to take the matter of death off of our hands so we can go spend our time dancing instead. We can be sad about our loved ones ing on, absolutely, but buried within those powerful emotions is our capacity to do something productive with them. Despairing over notions of fate and karma are no such “somethings.”

Because the truth is that death is supremely stupid and about as random. So, by mythologizing death’s significance within ourselves and our experiences, we’re actually being about as ridiculous as a creepy-looking toy monkey noodling around on a snare drum in his rather dapper red vest.

One could argue that with a 98-minute runtime comprised of an incomplete comedic machine, too much dead fuel going into that machine, and — most importantly — a mandate of anti-self-seriousness, The Monkey is trying to skim a bit of responsibility off the top, as it were.

I would argue no such thing. The Monkey has plenty of flaws, but insincerity is not one of them, and the fact that it’s trying to tell a story of this persuasion at all is equal parts commendable and refreshing. Still, it’s nowhere near the brutally funny paragon of splatter that it could be, in its best version. Going forward, it will be interesting to see if Perkins finds a greater coalescence between his on-point comedic art and his rough comedic science.

He could, alternatively, just continue honing the bread-and-buttery straight horror chops that gifted us Longlegs, but what would be the fun in that? (Plenty, in truth, but you get what I’m trying to say.)

There are few more baffling modern mysteries than that of Apple TV Plus‘ marketing strategy, which seems to follow a mandate of perpetual chaos and a gleeful disregard for optics. It was one thing, for instance, for Apple TV Plus to hardly market The Gorge, but it was quite another to haphazardly push the film from a Feb. 28 release date to a Feb. 14 release date, forcing it into some unnecessary, last-minute media contention with Captain America: Brave New World, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, and Paddington in Peru.

The first conclusion one might reach here is that Apple TV Plus knew they had a stinker on their hands and hatched a plan to bury it. The only snag in that plan? Well, The Gorge is actually quite good, and owes most all of its merits to director Scott Derrickson, who takes Zach Dean’s unkempt-but-compelling script and orchestrates it with an impressively subversive prowess. The sincerity with which Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller approach the material can’t be counted out either, despite the considerable asterisk hanging above their heads.

The Gorge stars Teller and Taylor-Joy as Levi and Drasa, two snipers who are assigned to keep watch over a mysterious gorge (!) that appears to house none too few beasts from hell. Stationed in two separate towers on opposite sides of the chasm, the pair are forbidden to have any , so, of course, they promptly break that protocol and get to know each other, all while secrets most hideous linger just a few feet away.

It’s difficult to tell where Dean’s screenplay ends and Derrickson’s direction begins, but from within that jumble of collaboration emerges a certain storytelling know-how that elevates The Gorge above the line at which it otherwise would have stopped. It begins to take shape about 20 minutes into the film, when Levi and Drasa have finished settling in to their respective stations and are officially on the job. As they sweetly make each other’s acquaintance with whiteboard messages and high-powered binoculars, Levi reckons with his PTSD and noodles in his poetry book while Drasa plays her piano, celebrates her birthday, and mourns her father.

These quiet, wordless moments are infinitely more effective than the 20 minutes of pre-mission exposition that we’re greeted with at the outset. Levi’s credentials and Drasa’s father telling her he’s probably going to kill himself do not help to meaningfully establish these characters, whereas watching them simply exist in a space on their own — replete with a lack of recognizable social pressures — conveys these characters quite nutritiously (especially in the specific context of The Gorge; more on that in a minute).

The camera knows this, as it seems severely disinterested in the film whenever it’s subjecting us to infodumps or in-world, logistical connective tissue (the drop in, the walk through the forest to the tower, those aforementioned 20 minutes, what have you). The camera jumps, cuts, and meanders lethargically, as though it knows that none of this is what actually matters.

What matters, of course, is the connection that Levi and Drasa share. Pleasantries turn into expressions of vulnerability, which eventually turn into a face-to-face meeting that carries a considerable amount of risk to pull off. Within that meeting, the pair nerd out over sniper rifles in a way that only they could with each other, and offer up more vulnerabilities in a way they simply couldn’t over text (text, in this case, meaning whiteboard).

This all makes for a genuinely beautiful portrait of two human beings making a concerted effort to really know one another, all while the literal gate to hell hangs just inches away from them. They make art, they play, they wonder about what’s really in the gorge, and then brush that off to rightfully focus on their shared humanity once again. Then their idyll is shattered when the monsters manage their deadliest attack yet, and they’re forced to reckon with what’s really going on with the gorge.

And like that, we’re back to the very same infodumps that the camera hurried us through earlier — this time involving lore behind the world, the monsters, and the conspiracy afoot (because of course there’s a conspiracy afoot). But, just as before, the camera does not care about these things. It chops through the action set pieces and zombie-walks around the exposition, because it — like us audiences and these two characters — wants to get back to what really matters; the human element and love that comes alive between Levi and Drasa.

To Dean’s credit, the genre elements aren’t complete empty calories. The monster designs quite obviously aim to highlight the significance of being human, and there’s something similarly compelling about Levi and Drasa now needing to rely on one another to literally survive. Still, everyone on set knew that the meat of The Gorge comes from the pair’s connection, whether it’s the camera’s muted urgency to get back to these two, or Teller’s and Taylor-Joy’s honest commitment to the whole two hours.

Indeed, even when the camera clues us in to how little this massive government conspiracy matters in the wake of two people choosing to love each other, Teller and Taylor-Joy dial in without any such breaks. The playfulness of Drasa and anxiety of Levi are worn expertly by the pair, and they both make the most of their strategically sparse bursts of pathos.

And yet, the best version of The Gorge is likely lost to us on of the presence of these two actors, because no studio in the world would allow anyone to put these two together on screen without a dollop of romance. Indeed, human connection emerges as the key motivator for these two either way, but one can’t help but wonder, for instance, if Levi’s willingness to connect wasn’t significantly motivated by the fact that he is a young man, and Drasa looks a lot like Anya Taylor-Joy. Or that Drasa is a young woman, and Levi looks a lot like Miles Teller.

Would it not be more compelling if that element of sexual attraction was taken out of the equation? What if the snipers were two straight men? Two straight women? Levi and his new lesbian BFF? What if these two only stood to benefit from sharing each other’s minds and souls, while the bodily benefit stopped at a hug? How would that impact the nuances of connecting with each other in a world where we seemingly have to work overtime to do so? If you’re at the gates of hell, how far do you go to love someone solely for the fact of their humanity? How far do you go to emotionally (so, in essence, literally) survive?

Regrettably, these questions are undermined by the happenstance sex appeal, but we must also recognize that those questions exist in the first place because The Gorge — just as it is — sets up such an excellent emotional snapshot. The pronounced shallowness of its blockbuster zhuzh brilliantly indicts any and all disregard for human stories and experience, all while its own human story builds itself quite lovingly and poignantly upon the ever-reliable duo of Mister Fantastic and Princess Peach.

Indeed, it may have been the stealthiest of stealth releases this side of Donnie Darko, but The Gorge quite firmly lands on the stronger side of Apple TV Plus’ expanding film library, where it will hopefully garner the attention it deserves.

He may have been capturing hearts on the page since 1958, but Paddington Bear’s turn on the big screen has quickly evolved into his bread and butter (er, marmalade), and his importance simply can’t be downplayed. Far too often is the wholesome sheen of a family-friendly movie used to hide a lack of sincerity, storytelling talent, or what’s usually some combination of the two. In the hands of Paul King, however, the Paddington films have served up some of the sweetest, most creatively-realized G-rated romps of the last decade.

With Paddington in Peru, we’ve now gotten a glimpse of what these movies can do outside of the hands of Paul King, which is to say, not much. There exist echoes of the gag beats and attitudes that made Paddington’s first two outings so rightfully beloved, but a business-as-usual standout turn from Olivia Colman ultimately emerges as the only thing worth writing home about. It’s not quite a case of Paddington in Peru replacing its tried-and-true merits with cheap and lazy substitutes, but rather one of replacing them with nothing at all.

Once again starring Ben Whishaw as the voice of Paddington, Paddington in Peru follows the titular, mannerly ursine on a trip to his native Peru, where he believes his Aunt Lucy is in some sort of trouble. Tagging along are his adoptive London family, the Browns (Hugh Bonneville, Madeleine Harris, Samuel Joslin, Julie Walters, and Emily Mortimer, the later of whom takes over the role of Mary from Sally Hawkins), and it’s not long before trouble begins rearing its head in both silly and perilous ways.

Anyone familiar with Paddington’s films or character knows that taking him out of London sets up a particularly daunting storytelling task, but not necessarily an insurmountable one. After all, only so many times can you reuse the previous films’ DNA of xenophobia parable and the exponential spread of kindness before running out of steam, and there’s no reason that Paddington’s inspiring values can’t be given brand new storytelling avenues in a jungle setting.

And yet, they aren’t given those avenues. There exist notes of the importance in valuing love over fortune, which mainly come about by contrasting Paddington with series newcomer Hunter Cabot (a ably hammy Antonio Banderas), but the film seems to treat their dynamic as an afterthought. Instead, it spends a fair chunk of time delving into character backstories and legends about El Dorado, presumably because screenwriters Mark Burton, Jon Foster, and James Lamont missed the memo on the importance of lore in Paddington films (the memo in question: “it’s stupendously unimportant”).

Speaking of which, one of the most important aspects of Paddington films has always been their meticulously crafted gags and set pieces, and central to those operations was Paddington’s unique involvement in them. In Paddington‘s past, many of the laughs were driven by his characteristic misunderstanding of signs and social cues (such as balancing on his left foot when he spots the “Stay on Left” sign on an escalator), and/or the fact that he’s a small bear that doesn’t weigh very much (meaning he can get held hostage by an electrical cable and a ceiling fan in a way that fully grown humans can’t).

On top of that, King always went the extra mile to excavate the most mundane settings — be it a barbershop or laundry room — for their potential for gradual chaos, all while rendering the results in a far more cinematic manner than they had any right to be. Paddington in Peru, however, seems to treat this gag choreography as a chore rather than an expression of creative joy, often letting the perils of the jungle fill the chaos quota with hardly an iota of the recognizable effort that usually goes into setting up Paddington’s predicaments. The Brown family — largely reduced to individual vessels for one quirky character trait — are mostly left in the dust in this regard as well.

That being said, Paddington in Peru‘s character-specific sensibilities are its strongest asset, and that entirely has to do with the genius of casting Olivia Colman as the Reverend Mother at the Home for Retired Bears, who may or may not be hiding a dark (albeit entirely inconsequential) secret. Colman’s character isn’t used very well plot-wise, but the way she’s played is far and away the film’s brightest asset.

For one thing, Colman is one of the most sincere actors on this planet. In no performance of hers will you ever get a sense that she isn’t enjoying every second of it, and that pays dividends in a film series like Paddington. In this film specifically, she effortlessly channels a maternal energy that gives way to a far more suspicious aura, and back again, in the blink of an eye. Colman trusts the audience to know when her character’s game is afoot, and subsequently lets herself really play up both sides of her character, maximizing her screen presence in a way that the script doesn’t actively call for, and maybe even (wrongly) suggests against. It’s smart work from one of the leading dames of British film and television, who unsurprisingly thrives in the world of Paddington.

It would have been nice if the rest of Paddington in Peru trusted its audience the way she did, or if it full-sent the musical aspect that Colman’s character teases at the beginning. It might not have been particularly good, but it would have been something, which is sadly more than Paddington’s latest adventure can say for itself.

It’s key to acknowledge that a considerable portion of this review consists of unfavorable comparisons to its predecessors, which would normally be an unfair route to take here. Paddington films are allowed to be different from the ones that have worked, and at a certain point, these films will need to be different if Paddington’s big-screen odysseys continue from here.

But whatever parameters Paddington in Peru sets for itself, they aren’t given enough TLC to be worthy of a spot in a Paddington plot. They’re treated so meekly, in fact, that they’re overshadowed by the xerox of tried-and-true Paddington tools that the film does manage to drum up. And despite watered-down notes of classic Paddington still being ultimately welcome, it’s easy to spot the gap in quality between them and their much more richly rendered counterparts in Paddington and Paddington 2.

Nevertheless, Paddington — even at his worst — can do no wrong when it comes to keeping families company at the cinema, and there’s considerable joy to be found in seeing Olivia Colman enter this fray. But, if you have even quasi-convenient access to Paddington or Paddington 2, there are only upsides to watching those instead.

Captain America: Brave New World might take its name from a work of classic literature (the seminal dystopian novel by Aldous Huxley — give it a read!), but maybe the book it should really be named after is Frankenstein, as the MCU’s 35th film is the latest in the grand tradition of stitched-together superhero movies that faced troubled production periods. While it doesn’t bear the Boris Karloff scars of, say, DC’s Justice League or Sony’s Madame Web — Marvel’s too smart for that — it’s still a largely lifeless affair that could’ve done with another bolt of electricity.

The Disney Plus-ification of the MCU is a debate that rages on Reddit daily, but Brave New World may just represent the most egregious example to date. Despite having Anthony Mackie in the stars and stripes for the first time on the big screen, what could’ve been an all-inclusive Captain America relaunch intent on winning back wider audiences makes the curious decision to directly tie into 2008’s The Incredible Hulk and 2021’s Eternals, two of the least memorable MCU movies of the lot. The reason why is presumably so you’ll feel compelled to watch them when you get home and keep that subscription going. By reaching back to the beginnings of both Phase 4 and its entire lifespan, the MCU is coming full circle… but also eating its own tail.

In the long run-up to its release, Brave New World received a lot of heat online for appearing to be the most politically contentious MCU film yet seen, thanks to the presence of Marvel’s first Israeli superhero and its White House-centric storyline. As it happens, Shira Haas’ Ruth Bat-Seraph won’t enrage anyone, as she’s simply a walking (or butt-kicking) exposition machine in the mold of Maria Hill (RIP!). Far more interesting, though, is how the film approaches its intriguing reflection of our own current cultural climate. Which is to say, it ignores it wholesale.

Although it stars a controversial president who survives a near-miss assassination attempt, bungles international relations, and can turn into a monster with brightly colored skin, don’t expect any Trump commentary here. The studio clearly saw the writing on the wall when this one was reshot in early 2024 and made sure the movie never strayed onto either side of the political divide. If there is a central theme buried under that mandate it’s that togetherness is more powerful than division, which is certainly apposite and aspirational, even if it feels more Care Bears than Captain America.

Perhaps the biggest flaw of Brave New World is one it shares with many of the weaker Multiverse Saga offerings: its hero has no hero’s journey. Anthony Mackie is as strong a screen presence as ever and any faults with the film are not his own, but the script gives him precious little to get to grips with. It’s frustrating, as SamCap has the potential to be just as interesting as his predecessor. While Steve Rogers is a man out of time, Wilson is treated like a man out of place — never given the same respect as his forebear and kept at arm’s length of the important conversations, despite his clear popularity with the public. Any possible personal turmoil or growth that this promises is only paid lip service.

Really, despite whose name is on the poster, this is Harrison Ford’s film, as President Ross inarguably has the most transformative arc (both internally and physically). Ford brings his familiar brand of curmudgeonly charm to the part, reconceiving the character from William Hurt’s suit with a mustache into a man haunted by a lifetime of mistakes just looking to make amends. Whether he returns as Red Hulk — what? We all saw the trailers, didn’t we? — is the big question, but he’s easily Brave New World‘s best gift to the Marvel multiverse, so with any luck he will.

Just as Ford’s President Ross barely contains the Red Hulk within throughout, there’s a sense while watching Brave New World that a much bigger, more interesting beast has been wrestled into submission after much blood, sweat, and tears. Multiple scenes have some truly eye-watering background CGI (a plain-as-day consequence of all the reshoots), Giancarlo Esposito’s Sidewinder is as paper-thin as only a major antagonist added at the eleventh hour can be, and all the fan-service builds up to a crossover cameo in which the two actors at play were patently never even in the same room.

The result is something far closer to Thor: The Dark World than Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which was surely the MCU movie the filmmakers put on a pedestal while shooting. Working on a script from five (!) screenwriters and no doubt having to restage his own work extensively, director Julius Onah had no hope of recreating the Russo brothers’ jewel in Marvel’s crown, although he doesn’t help himself out with largely lackluster action and small screen-level visuals.

When it comes down to it, Brave New World is not, in fact, all that brave. The extent to which Marvel clearly carved out the heart that must once have beaten within this lumpen, limping mass of moving wallpaper means you could even call it cowardly. On the plus side, though, Captain America 4 might be craven, but at least it’s not, you know, Kraven.