Jared Mobarak

We Summon the Darkness reveals itself to be a fun ride when all is said and done because nobody on-screen knows what he/she is doing.

DeMonaco has his finger on the pulse of our struggle and has found a way to put it onscreen as all good horror does. Sure he and Jason Blum are making money, but you cannot deny they aren’t also forcing us to acknowledge the social science at play.

Poulter and Ackie are so cute together with their acerbic flirtations.

The film bills itself as a suspense thriller due to the predicament Kyle and Swin must eventually try to escape, but it works best as a comedy using that narrative drama to entertain regardless of the stakes.

Minamata isn’t without its flaws, but a solid tale of art as power and citizens as heroes emerges.

I do think it’s improved upon the original insofar as relying on narrative cohesion (episodic or not) above random acts of pandemonium. I still believe having three episodes of television to focus on one character at a time is the better way to go, but their convergence upon Snowball and Daisy’s adventure is authentically drawn regardless of convenience.

The result is bittersweet and poignant in its complex truths, but also saccharinely convenient in its execution.

Director Pete Travis lends the evening setting a welcomingly mysterious glow amongst its shadows, visually complementing Neate’s plotting to bring us into the action on the ground floor.

It’s using a taboo topic to compare/contrast how those existing within it can be angel and/or demon. It’s not, however, trying to comment on that topic, so don’t expect a message movie. This is a genre film utilizing its subject matter as a springboard towards drama.

This film is about ownership of one’s actions. It’s about accepting that which you cannot run from. No matter how dark that reality appears, however, The Ranger is also very funny.

Its mere existence is a win, though. As is its ability to galvanize Lucy and Shaw’s relationship to help steer them through a third act that resonates on a frequency the rest couldn’t approach. It’s a testament to Plaza and Caine’s performances, too, since they are finally able to shake free of the hyperbolic hamming and prove why they were cast in the first place.

Piper will reveal the strings of a stage set to slow things down or turn extras into kangaroo-court jurors to throw shoes on instinct instead of reason. She’s throwing convention to the wind to expose love and life’s glorious mess—whether you’re ready or not.

Records does his best Lou Taylor Pucci in the lead role, crazed yet innocent (his turn from Where the Wild Things Are unavoidably brought to mind). He imbues John with a sense of longing, out-of-place and out-of-touch with social cues delivered his way.

The entirety of Good Joe Bell is an awakening not for those who actively harm at-risk youth like Jadin, but those who don’t realize the implicit harm they’re supplying by centering allyship on themselves rather than those they’re supporting.

Besides an unnecessarily indulgent epilogue, the film’s good versus evil dynamic is successful at extricating itself from any mainstream trappings while also nicely serving its audience.

As a comedy with a good-natured soul doing bad things to earn his surrogate brother freedom, Stockholm is a success.

Fuglsig’s job was to document, commemorate, and inspire. He does all three.

LaBute is meticulously escalating the danger by providing Hap his wildest dreams in a way that reveals to the audience how their ability to come true is reliant upon him losing control.

That’s the fun of it all: complete unpredictability.

The First Purge becomes a call to arms so to speak (sometimes to its detriment) — a reminder that we must stand up and for each other at the voting booths and in our communities now so we won’t need the civil war of Election Year.

Much of the film is forgettable in the sense that you’ve seen it all before. But where the jokes at the beginning feel tired, the drama at the end lands.

It’s empty horror barely skating by on recognizable IP.

Luckily the familial and personal stuff has the strength to stick in our heads when the battle on the court fades because the work the actors put in is effective.

The marketing may try to dress it up like a prestige picture, but Magnificent Seven is a summer season thrill ride.

Cage is having the time of his life playing the role––flippant, unhinged, oozing the confidence of a man with nothing to lose.

Gutierrez does well to share just enough information so that each subsequent revelation can reframe everything before it.

The case here is secondary to the lengths its protagonists will go to solve it. It’s about the paranoia that builds when a lead seems good and the demons that take control of our actions once the system proves ill-equipped to dole out the justice we “know” to be deserved.

We’re shown damning cycles feeding on each other that prove worse when their hypocrisy and irony is acknowledged. And both Wood and Stone will make you scream and cry depending on what they allow or ignite.