Alan Ng

It’s a good-looking movie overall.

After Yang is a good-looking movie, especially for one that’s mostly talking and conversations, the acting is good — an easy feat for seasoned actor Colin Farrell and Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja is adorable as hell. But unfortunately, it misses its storytelling potential by focusing too much of our attention on the wrong story elements.

The only reason to see this film is if you’re a fan of any of the actors. Everyone is good, but ultimately, the story will let you down.

Though I may not have connected with the final product as intended, if the idea of a psychological thriller about pregnancy appeals to you, then the movie might be your cup of tea.

I’m Not In Love is competently made. Despite the screenwriting-as-therapy formula, it’s entertaining and engaging to watch.

Let’s be real: the only reason to see a Jason Statham movie is for all that juicy action. Fist fights, knife fights, gunplay, machine-gun mayhem, explosions… all in this game of cat-and-mouse.

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.

While the film boasts an all Chinese cast, the story, culturally, is pretty tame.

Renfield is a good movie that squanders its potential to be great.

If you’re going in hoping for something the whole family can genuinely connect with on a deeper level, you’ll be disappointed. It’s a kids’ movie, plain and simple, and there’d be no way I’d see this if I didn’t have kids.

Ultimately, Vanquish falls into the cliché of typical action films, where the focus is on the action, and the story is a way to string the action together

There’s a lot of silliness that will warm the hearts of Rom-Com fans. The silliness at least is high brow with Paul Feig at the helm and Emma Thompson part of the writing team.

The Outsider puts a spin on the western drama but quickly falls back into the conventional tropes of the genre. It best to approach The Outsider knowing that its primary focus is on the story and not action.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is fast-food when audiences demanded a five-course meal.

Aside from Hank’s brilliant performance as Fred Rogers, I also liked the style of storytelling. The movie from start to finish feels like an actual Mr. Rogers episode with its simple three-man jazz piano score and its slow, deliberate pace. The overall story is good, sweet, but predictable.

There were many aspects from a filmmaking and storytelling process that I found admirable, but I just can’t see myself recommending it. I know all too well that my criticisms have everything to do with the very core of J.M. Barrie’s original story and Pan mythology itself.

Detective Chinatown 1900 tries to be a high-energy action comedy but gets tangled in a web of subplots, leaving little room for the buddy-cop fun it teases.

Artemis Fowl is not a horrible film, but it had the potential to succeed, yet falls flat in the end.

Inherit The Viper had the potential to be an exciting thriller with dramatic family elements. Instead, its characters fall flat as if the actors were not allowed or unwilling to flesh out their characters more.

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.

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.

With this cast, the film should have been a knockout. Instead, it feels bogged down, heavy, and way too concerned with making statements instead of just being entertaining.

Lester takes all the wrong approaches.

Performances alone cannot save an uninspired script. The story is not bad per se, but it’s not original or inspired and therefore Making Babies wallows in mediocrity, when it needed to make a choice between going for real laughs or have something profound to say about having children to make the journey worth taking.

A Quiet Place: Day One failed to capture what we loved about the original films and instead decided to focus too much of its time on a rollercoaster ride of an alien invasion. Fun is fun, but without proper character development, Day One is more fast food than a hardy meal.

The film’s repetitive themes and lack of emotional payoff leave it feeling more like a beautifully acted therapy session than a fully satisfying story.

Companion takes a stab (literally) at sci-fi horror with an interesting idea, but making a robot the emotional center of the film is a misfire.