Tag: Netflix

  • Wake Up Dead Man

    Wake Up Dead Man

    5 outta 5 With the third Knives Out Mystery, writer/director Rian Johnson once again jumps genres, defies expectations, and has a great mystery with Wake Up Dead Man. While the 2nd film, Glass Onion, went full bonkers comedy, this is more of a gothic horror film with ruminations upon faith and control. But there is…

  • Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (’22 review)

    Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (’22 review)

    5 outta 5 Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is a fantastic sequel to the fantastic original movie, Knives Out. This doesn’t simply repeat the murder mystery formula of the first film, this murder mystery has a unique tone and structure. With a lot of Rian Johnson’s output, like The Last Jedi or Looper, he…

  • Ballad of a Small Player

    Ballad of a Small Player

    3 outta 5 Ballad of a Small Player seems to be about a degenerate gambler, lost in a nation that isn’t his own but then it starts throwing out ghosts and so forth. But another fantastic performance by Colin Farrell makes the odd turns endurable. It is like Farrell’s performance as the Penguin as he…

  • Fixed

    Fixed

    3 outta 5 There’s a Sony Pictures Animation and Netflix exclusive that is setting viewership records and that is K-Pop Demon Hunters. Which is well deserved because it is pretty awesome. And the next effort from both these companies is the raunchy balls-centric anthropomorphic animal comedy, Fixed. It’s … alright, if one doesn’t exactly look…

  • The Electric State

    The Electric State

    3 outta 5 The Electric State is Netflix’s 300 million plus stab at event filmmaking by the writers and directors of the last two Avengers movies. After all that money and talent thrown around, the result is okay. There are cool robots smashing stuff, even if almost all of them look grungy, but there is…

  • Ad Vitam

    Ad Vitam

    2 outta 5 Ad Vitam is a Netflix French Language action thriller that is considerably short on action or thrills, but those do arrive eventually. The most interesting stuff happens at the start and then a very long exposition flashback that drags into awkward police romance, and then some solid action at the end. In…

  • Spellbound

    Spellbound

    3 outta 5 Spellbound is a film by Skydance Animation that was released exclusively on Netflix that is trying really hard to emulate the singing Disney princess animated formula. And it kind of succeeds! It may be a bit basic copy and paste in some places, the wistful princess with a cutesy animal sidekick, transformative…

  • Uglies

    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…

  • Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F

    Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F

    4 outta 5 Comedy legacy sequels that come out decades after the original, are often dicey propositions as comedy sequels are hard to nail down what clicks from the original. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is the 4th Beverly Hills Cop movie arriving 30 years after the not great Beverly Hills Cop III from 1994.…

  • Trigger Warning

    Trigger Warning

    3 outta 5 As far as unhelpful titles go, Trigger Warning is kind of up there because it seems like a parody title. Instead, this is a fairly straightforward action flick. Also, there is a lot of (rather well done) knife battling in this film but inserting the word “trigger” in the title makes it…