Alan Ng

Boy Kills World is a two-hour roller coaster. You’ll leave exhausted and beaten, and yet feeling like maybe you too can defeat the fascist dictators in your life.

Predator is a classic action/sci-fi film, albeit a dated action/sci-fi film.

Blade is just good, plain action movie fun. It runs like a smooth roller-coaster and has excellent replay value.

It’s a photo-realistic computer-animated movie. The animation of Kong, Godzilla, and the other Kongs is mediocre at best. The backgrounds should look photo-realistic, but they don’t. I’d rather watch dudes in suits duke it out over a cardboard city than watch this cartoon mess again.

Joshua and Rebecca Tickell’s documentary, Common Ground, is that rare documentary that actually proposes solutions…practical solutions. I fear that the solutions will disappear into the void if we don’t say anything.

The appeal here is a solid story of an aging mobster with all the charm of indie filmmaking.

Great villains and silly heroes make a move that ultimately falls flat.

The Mission is a straightforward documentary about the life of a Mormon missionary. Nothing controversial happens. It’s a day-in-the-life story. Though Anderson never attempts to proselytize audiences into the LDS religion, there are more than enough opportunities to hear their message.

It made bold choices to be a memorable sequel, and most of those chances are exciting. While it has some definite hits and misses, it finds its rightful place in the franchise.

The reason to see The Last Movie Star is its performances from both Burt Reynolds and Ariel Winter. It’s a sweet, solid film and a suitable bookend to Reynolds’ career as a leading actor.

Director Peter Segal knows what strings to pull to elevate the cuteness factor, and he pulls them hard. It’s all good, actiony fun, when you need a moment to unplug your brain. Even though you’ve seen this all before in other cop buddy movies, it works.

Jesus Revolution is one of my favorite faith-based Christian movies, of which I’ve seen more than my fair share. I associate three things with faith-based films: bad acting, an outrageous, overly positive message, and a shoe-horned sermon. Thankfully, this film avoids all three elements.

In any biography/drama, the key is to make audiences believe this is the real person from history. Capone just never gets there. That could be Al Capone, but nothing in the film makes me believe it’s him, nor emotionally connect with him. Capone wastes a lot of good talent, and it’s a shame.

For a movie like this, good is not good enough; it has to be well above average for a recommendation. Unfortunately, I found myself bored through most of Mortal Kombat II.

In these divided times, films centering on political issues either make an earnest attempt to persuade the other side to consider its point of view or play to its political allies and demonize its enemies. The Public does the latter, and the result is to further widen the divide of political discourse with self-righteous finger-pointing.

The standout star here is Cailey Fleming as Bea.

The visuals make this feel like an actual Western, even though it doesn’t have the epic scale of the great Hollywood Westerns.

This feels like a high-budget television drama. Let’s face it, Jackman, Dern, and Kirby can elevate pedestrian dialogue, but they deserve higher quality work for their talent.

Strip out the thriller moments and you have an interesting film, instead, we’re left with a mediocre thriller that phones in the final act.

For a sequel/reboot, Ghostbusters: Afterlife delivers the fun of the original, albeit in very different ways.

There’s really only one reason to see Fisherman’s Friends, and it’s the singing.

If you’re suffering from superhero fatigue, this is just the palette cleanser you need.

The King’s Man doesn’t pick up in any truly incredible way until the second half, where a fantastic narrative twist happens.

Besson’s film is a magnificent achievement. More romance than terror and more faith than devilry, this film is sure to pull the heartstrings.

As far as thrillers go, The Night Clerk is a little light on thrills. That said, there are more interesting things going on, which makes the film worth watching.

Mortal Kombat is a pretty good representation of the video game. It’s all action and not much else, and normally, I do want more from my movies. But here, that is precisely the point, and I’m okay with that!

Lester takes all the wrong approaches.

Despite its touching story of family, Collisions goes a little too far in pleading its case for immigration reform and the return of DACA. If you like to engage in political debate, the film does bring up a literal myriad of issues and questions to discuss, but most likely won’t persuade many right-leaning filmgoers.