Mike Ryan

It’s an admirable effort. It’s just a beautiful thing to look at. And the whole endeavor is such a touching tribute from Fincher to his father. But, in the end, I found myself more interested in the behind the scenes shenanigans that led to the creation of, perhaps, the greatest movie of all time, as opposed to Mank the human being. And Mank focuses much more on the latter.

On the Rocks is light on plot, but makes up for it with just the sheer joy of Murray and Jones out on the town. The actual plot is only there as an excuse to get the ball rolling for those two.

I realize this is an important movie for Shia LaBeouf, but I’m not convinced it’s an important movie for us.

It’s almost as if the filmmakers just thought the idea of a pair of legs were funny, like if it were in a The Far Side panel. But then decided to try to base a whole movie on what should have been at most a single still or a single joke.

Set right after the events of Captain America: Civil War, watching Black Widow kind of feels like watching that MCU movie you just never got around to seeing.

with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, like I said, I think Peyton Reed has given us an installment that, with the material that has to be introduced, is about the best version this could be. But I found myself missing the more grounded and funny world of Scott Lang that the prior movies had set up. You know, being a palette cleanser is a good thing.

I’ll admit, the sequel to Wonka looks pretty good! The plot of this movie leaves off exactly where you probably assumed this movie would start, but for some reason didn’t. And like I said earlier, Timothée Chalamet plays Willy Wonka with a lot of charm and I bet it’s not easy to play someone who is all-knowing, possibly supernatural, but is also not very smart at times.

I think the Swift we have ten years from now will make a much more fascinating subject. What we see now feels more like the very beginning of her story. And there’s just not enough here yet at this starting point to sustain a feature-length documentary.

Sanders plays Bigger Thomas in such a unique, interesting way that I couldn’t help but be enthralled by his life. Unfortunately, the plot points in Wright’s novel, of all things, betray him.

The biggest problem is this is a movie that doesn’t quite realize that McEnroe is the star. When LaBeouf is on-screen as McEnroe, the movie works. But the film desperately wants you to love Björn Borg.

Blue Beetle kind of encapsulates what is good and stale about these movies right now all in one package.

Joker is a movie that thinks it has a lot to say and fancies itself The Social Commentary Of Our Time, but in reality it’s a mishmash of Hot Button Social Issues without anything interesting to say at all. So, in that respect, it’s the perfect movie for 2019. Joker is our comeuppance.

An American Pickle is more interesting than laugh-out-loud hilarious. It’s introspective, without at all seeming that way.

Clooney wants to direct actors who aren’t himself, which I’m sure is why we spend so much time with the crew of the spaceship. But if Clooney weren’t directing, that director would have probably realized that the story thrives in those small moments with Clooney. It’s almost like the director George Clooney is the actor George Clooney’s worst enemy.

Most of The Commuter is a pretty fun ride.

Making this installment complicated is it doesn’t have an ending. It literally ends during the middle of a scene. After 2 hours and 20 minutes of Fast action, even I was taken aback when the credits started to roll.

It has a killer premise, yet the movie seems to actively resent its own fantastic idea and just, instead, decided to become a fairly average romantic comedy — only with a lot more Beatles songs than the average rom com.

At the end of the day (or, anytime of the day, really) I think I admire Aquaman more than I like it. It’s certainly ambitious.

It’s just a really long, more coherent version of that story. I certainly didn’t hate it like I hate the prior version – and, admittedly, I do like it more than Batman v Superman – but all the character motivation in the world still doesn’t help the foundation the whole thing is built on.

Though, yes, by nature the story does have to be a little convoluted after the events of T2 (and this time, it’s basically just a whole new evil entity), but Linda Hamilton is Terminator. And that’s why Terminator: Dark Fate is the best Terminator movie since T2.

There were times it felt like The Rise of Skywalker was put together by reading angry reddit boards, just throwing in anything a fan might possibly want to see. It really is baffling.

Detective Pikachu is one of those movies where, for about half the movie, I was trying to force myself to like it, until I just gave up. I kind of got the sense a lot of people around me were doing the same thing.

Most of the film involves meeting yet another new character, then being told yet another long story about his or her mysterious past. At times, The Crimes of Grindelwald feels more like some sort of Harry Potter encyclopedia or appendices than it does an actual movie.

The biggest problem with Skyscraper is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Look, I am in desperate need for entertainment and if Trolls World Tour is all you’re selling, well, right now, I’m buying. And here’s another thing: I like everything right now. There are no bad movies. If your piece of entertainment can knock off a couple hours of my day, that’s literally all I’m asking for right now.

Even though there are some fun scenes with The Marvels trio, I’d be hard-pressed to recommend this to anyone who isn’t an MCU superfan. Again, even *I* was a bit lost with the latest in the Kree and Skrull political relationships — I felt lost by it all and I’ve seen every movie. I bet a pretty straightforward plot involving the main three characters would have gone a long way.

The good news is you get about an hour of a movie that could be deemed “entertaining” or “enjoyable.” The bad news is, after that first hour (and like so many movies inexplicably do today), someone decided, “Look, hear me out, what if about halfway through we make this movie super convoluted? Like to the point it would be hard to explain the plot to anyone?” And then someone else decided, “Yes, that’s exactly what we should do.”

Look, I get it, scripted films are not documentaries. And, sometimes, creative license has to be used to move a story forward. But I’ve never seen a film distort its facts in such a punitive way. It’s like the movie wants to punish Freddie Mercury.