Category: Movie Reviews
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Joker: Folie à Deux
3 outta 5 Joker: Folie à Deux is an even stranger sequel to an already strange film. While the first film is heavily influenced by the classic work of Martin Scorsese, this goes more in an unexpected direction. It is sort of a musical, but not really because a lot is mumble singing and none…
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Wolves
4 outta 5 Wolfs is a zippy movie from writer/director Jon Watts, the director of the last three Spider-Man films, and he brings a similar pace here. There is even a bit where a young man is parkour running across the rooftops, so he doesn’t entirely let the whole Spider-Man vibe drop. In his Spider-Man…
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Transformers One
4 outta 5 After several “live action” installments of the Transformers franchise, the series returns to its animated roots with Transformers One. However, there was so much CGI animation in the series’ previous films, that it’s hard to make much of a distinction between live action and animation by now. Which isn’t a bad thing.…
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Uglies
2 outta 5 Uglies is a YA novel adaptation that really doesn’t offer anything particularly good. It feels cobbled together from other sci-fi dystopian franchises and that bubble burst a few years ago. The central hook, that people in a dystopian future society undergo mandatory, mind-controlling cosmetic surgery, feels basic. Even the action, such as…
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The Instigators
4 outta 5 The Instigators is a fun flick about low rent crooks getting up to hijinks and setbacks trying to get one big score. Also, there is a psychotherapy angle as the crooks get caught up with a therapist amidst a series of unfortunate heist bungles. There is a pretty stacked cast that is…
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Jackpot!
4 outta 5 As far as action comedies about future dystopias go, Jackpot! is entertaining. The leads have good chemistry, and the constant action is engaging, even if just a bit numbing. It is consistently funny with some random asides like one of the main characters rapping the “Turtle Power” rap from the 1980s movie,…
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Alien: Romulus
4 outta 5 Alien: Romulus is a crackerjack entry in the Alien franchise that flips between knowing homages, splicing in bits of continuity, flat-out ripping off others and repeating some bits exactly. It can be sort of a “greatest hits” version of a few Alien movies all combined into one, and its willingness to take…
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Alien: Covenant (2017 review)
4 outta 5 Director Ridley Scott straight up made a sci-fi horror masterpiece with 1979’s Alien. After staying away from the series for a few decades, his return in 2012 with Prometheus was a heady, sideways, horror-infused look at the fringes of the mythology surrounding the series. It’s an interesting take on the Alien storyline…
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Prometheus (2012 review)
4 outta 5 There’s a scene in Prometheus, Director Ridley Scott’s kinda-prequel to Alien, that involves a character and a surgical procedure that is riveting. It recalls the shocking chest-burster scene in Alien and doesn’t quite reach that level but it gets close. That, in a nutshell, is what you would say Prometheus is. It’s…
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Borderlands
2 outta 5 Borderlands is a movie that isn’t as much fun as it tries to be. There is some fun stuff in here, like a lead performance that is a lot more enjoyable than others in the role would be. But there is also a heck of a lot of unneeded lore and plot…
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