Alan Ng

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is good, when it should have been great.

It is a good movie, but what elevates it from the pack are the performances from Riz Ahmed and Octavia Spencer.

Just as a movie skewed toward kids will bore adults, Soul will bore children, and it did mine. I love jazz, but I don’t think my child will add it to her Spotify playlist. In the end, Soul told a good, insightful story but was too much of a departure from the norm.

The plot, about a man who followed his dream, just oozes optimism. If you grew up in this era, there’s a lot of nostalgia value here. Toe-tapping fun is how I’d describe my time with Spinning Gold

Ultimately, it’s fine. Yet, considering its cinematic history, fine is never good enough.

The entire film seems to be the book’s narrative highlights strung together but rarely spotlights any of the themes or subtext from the book (if there are any). I don’t think this David Lynch film is Lynchian in any way. To me, Dune is a straightforward adventure with very little depth or character motivation outside the genre’s tropes.

This is a thoughtful, visually inventive film showcasing Zemeckis’ continued willingness to push cinematic boundaries.

Overall, the movie’s performances are good, not great, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Paradise City is a fun and lightweight tale for an evening of Hulu and chill. It’s not going to change the world, but it’s entertaining enough, especially considering Willis’s recent retirement.

This is an action film, meaning that’s where the fun lies. Cage gets to show off his special skills with unique bits of punctuation after each kill. There are plenty of chases, gun combat, and hand-to-hand fighting. The only disappointment you’ll feel is that everything is done for comedic effect. This is much lighter in tone than you probably want it to be.

Writer Jemima Khan and director Shekhar Kapur not only bring the Pakistani perspective on romance but incorporates it into modern English culture.

This is must-see mafia viewing.

In the end, what we have with In Like Flynn is an homage to the action-adventure tales of old Hollywood, appealing to the fans of the adventure films of old.

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

It feels like a reading of ancient tales, with the emotion of the opera replacing the melodrama and acting found in traditional period pieces.

Overall, Afraid delivers an unsettling ride with standout performances.

The ending does have a pretty good payoff to push Masquerade over the recommendation line.

This film barely gets a recommendation only because it finally gets interesting at the end.

Rockwell and Schwartz are basically doing their version of a Hope-and-Crosby road film. They play characters very familiar to an American audience and that is played against a British comedic landscape. The result it interesting to watch, but I think more for the Brits than its American counterparts.

I give Killers of the Flower Moon a mild recommendation. It’s too long and predictable. The saving grace is its performance across the board.

There are many flaws in Animal Farm, but its message is what I’m recommending the film for. Look, it will make great dinner conversation with your toddlers.

Blue Beetle is worth seeing, but it has many missed opportunities.

In the end, my question is whether Never Rarely Sometimes Always is meant to be just a story or offer something political to say in the great abortion debate. I’m certain the film exists to highlight the stories of young women forced to travel across state lines for abortions. Either way, there’s not enough of either to make it a compelling movie in the end.

UglyDolls is good for the kids and a great way to occupy their attention for almost 90 minutes. For the adults, it’s just another uninspired children’s film to hold us over until the next one comes along.

In the end, the film and its storytelling is meh.

The story is unique, and the end revelations are clever but fall short of mind-blowing (which is the bar). Lathrop Walker carries the film from beginning to end. He’s exciting and likable. He excels at his stunt work and provides the empathy we need for his character to carry us to the finish line.

The highlight of Snake Eyes is the action.

While having all the key elements of a mystery, director Stacie Passon’s film is more a character study focusing on themes of the safety of sisterhood and self-imposed alienation.