Tag: Movie Reviews
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Fantastic Four: First Steps
5 outta 5 After three 20th Century Fox movies and one buried Roger Corman film, the 4th version of Marvel’s First Family in Fantastic Four: First Steps absolutely nails it. It is fairly disconnected from the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe (despite that teaser at the end of Thunderbolts*) and has its own unique vibe. This…
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Fant4stic (2015 review)
2 outta 5 In the long, long ago of the early 1990s, there was a movie called The Fantastic Four that was made simply so a studio could hang onto the license. Now history repeats itself. The primary reason the most recent Fantastic Four film exists is so another movie studio, 20th Century Fox, can…
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Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (’07 review)
1 outta 5 When I sat down to watch Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, I thought “Okay, Director Tim Story, try and wow me.” This was a cynical response to having suffered through the original Fantastic Four movie. However, shockingly, the opening of this sequel immediately wowed me. The first shot involves a…
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Fantastic Four (2005 review)
2 outta 5 Fantastic Four is a cookie-cutter superhero movie. Insert Origin Plot A, mix liberally with a climatic fight with supervillian Plot B, stir and serve. There’s hardly any superheroing done in the flick until the very end. Nothing is driving the movie, aside from a laundry list of explanations about superpowers, complaints about…
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Heads of State
3 outta 5 As far as action buddy comedies go, Heads of State is one of the more unique ones as it’s amusingly involving the action-comedy antics of particularly bulky President of the United States and the Prime Minister of the UK. What gives this film a pass is the entertainingly shouty dynamic of the…
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Superman
4 outta 5 As the world continues to spin, a newly rebooted Superman film is upon us once again, but happily this Superman is great. There are a lot of super characters throughout the film, but they are supporting characters (aside from one or two gratuitous cameos) so it doesn’t feel like overwhelmingly enforced superhero…
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Superman Returns (2006 review)
3 out of 5 Absent from the silver screen for decades, Superman flies back with Superman Returns. The movie is well meaning and earnest, just like Supes. Returns is a visual feast, wonderful to watch, and has FX moments that will leave your jaw on the floor. But it trips up a few times with…
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Jurassic World: Rebirth
4 outta 5 Jurassic World: Rebirth is the 7th installment of the Jurassic Park franchise with its big idea of mutant freak dinosaurs, which has already been done in the last three Jurassic World films. There’s the freaky hybrid monster Indominus Rex in Jurassic World, the freaky hybrid monster in Fallen Kingdom, and giant bugs…
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Jurassic World: Dominion (2022 review)
3 outta 5 The sixth installment in the Jurassic Park franchise goes full bore into nostalgia deep cut mining attempting to stir up some emotion. The park has been abandoned for dinosaurs romping around the world, until the last half of the movie is set at a secluded dinosaur preserve. Ultimately, Jurassic World: Dominion delivers…
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Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (’18 review)
3 outta 5 Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom manages to do something slightly, not a lot, different with the Jurassic Park formula. It’s definitely missing the excellence of the original Steven Spielberg directed Jurassic Park. It doesn’t have the compelling hook that the previous film, Jurassic World, had with the collapse of fully functional dinosaur park. …