Simon Spier (Nick Robinson) will tell you that he is your average teenager. He drinks too much iced coffee, jokes around with his friends, probably has a vested interest in meme culture. You know, post-millennial junk. But Simon also has one huge secret: nobody knows he is gay.
Luckily, Simon finds an outlet in another closeted teen at his school. When Simon sees this mysterious “Blue” post an anonymous message on the internet, he Continue reading Love, Simon (2018) Movie Review
Harold Soyinka (David Oyelowo), a low-on-the-totem-pole businessman working for a nondescript white collar business run by Richard Rusk (Joel Edgerton) and Elaine Markinson (Charlize Theron) travels to Mexico to take a meeting, only to find out that he is being used as a patsy by his employers.
The man that he is in Mexico to meet, it turns out, works for drug kingpin Black Panther (not that one), who, upon hearing that they are being cut out of Richard and Elaine’s business dealings, assumes Harold is Continue reading Gringo (2018) Movie Review
The 2008 horror film The Strangers is, at its essence, a ripoff of Michael Haneke’s Funny Games with a high concept marketing angle (i.e. eerie masks and a crude smiley face logo). Now, 10 years later, we are granted with another high concept sequel, The Strangers: Prey at Night. It is a film that both relies on the weight of its predecessor to get people to see it and expects us to ignore that first film when it attempts the same template.
Much of Prey at Night is a rehash of the first film. The victims, in this case a nuclear family of four (Christina Hendricks, Martin Henderson, Bailee Madison, and Lewis Pullman), are stalked quietly and forebodingly by Continue reading The Strangers: Prey at Night (2018) Movie Review
A Wrinkle in Time, directed by Ava DuVernay and based on the book by Madeleine L’Engle, follows young Meg (Storm Reid). Meg is an introverted and picked-on teen who still hasn’t come to terms with the disappearance of her father (Chris Pine), who left four years earlier in search of a grander meaning to the universe.
This pursuit is not a figurative one. Meg’s parents, once upon a time, were on the verge of using quantum entanglement to bend time and space and allow access to Continue reading A Wrinkle in Time (2018) Movie Review
Death Wish, the Eli Roth-directed remake of the 1974 film—both were adapted from the same novel source material by Brian Garfield—could not have come at a poorer time. That is what many reviews of this film are reporting, and, yes, it is unfortunate timing for this film release.
That said, there is a sect of the American public that would likely champion the efforts of Dr. Paul Kersey (Bruce Willis), the surgeon-turned-vigilante who Continue reading Death Wish (2018) Movie Review
In Red Sparrow, Jennifer Lawrence plays ballerina Dominika Egorova, who, after a less-than-accidental accident leaves her leg broken, is brought into the world of the Russian secret service by her uncle (Matthias Schoenaerts). She is sent to a special school that trains “Sparrows,” government agents who are trained to seduce their targets and to withstand any amount of force.
And, mostly, it’s uncomfortable. But it’s not uncomfortable in any productive way. We see Lawrence’s Dominika be subjected to Continue reading Red Sparrow (2018) Movie Review
There is a scene midway through Annihilation, the latest science fiction expedition from Ex Machina writer-director Alex Garland, where a woman gets yanked off of the ground and rag-dolled by what appears to be a half-bear, half-warthog creature. It’s all right, though. We already knew this was coming.
The woman is one of five tasked with venturing into the “Shimmer,” an enclosed, alien space that crash landed on Earth near a lighthouse and began slowly expanding. Inside the Shimmer, the Continue reading Annihilation (2018) Movie Review
Annie (Rachel McAdams) and Max (Jason Bateman) have a relationship that was founded on the competition of game night. They first meet at a bar trivia night. Max proposes during a game of charades. Years later, they continue the tradition of a weekly game night with their friends (Lamorne Morris, Kylie Bunbury, and Billy Magnussen).
The only issue on this particular weekend is that Max’s upstaging big brother Brooks (Kyle Chandler) is in town and ready to blow Max’s game night out of the water. Brooks plans a game night at his luxurious home that he claims will be unlike any other. He’s not wrong, but even he does not foresee what is about to happen.
Game Night is a broad comedy with a sprawling plot that sends this small band of characters across the city, pitting them, at first unbeknownst to them, in Continue reading Game Night (2018) Movie Review
In Black Panther, T’Challa (Chadewick Boseman) takes his rightful place on the throne as the king of Wakanda, following the death of his father during the events of Captain America: Civil War. However, some people, particularly a man by the name of Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan), seeks to challenge this crowning.
The film is the latest in the increasingly robust Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is the first of three in 2018. And, of the 18 MCU films, it Continue reading Black Panther (2018) Movie Review
Clint Eastwood’s latest, The 15:17 to Paris, tells the true story of three Americans who prevented a potentially disastrous terrorist attack on the eponymous train to Paris in 2015. Not only does Eastwood tell this story, but he casts the three men to play themselves.
This is a lot to ask, having three non-actors carry the dramatic heft of a movie, but the three men (Spencer Stone, Anthony Sadler, and Alek Skarlatos) do a Continue reading The 15:17 to Paris (2018) Movie Review
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