Mike Ryan

James Gunn bets big that you love each and every one of these Guardians. It’s a movie about friendship and the love these characters have for each other and risking everything to help the people you love. Without that bond to these characters, this movie doesn’t work. It’s still a funny movie with some cool action scenes and a lot of nonsense going on, all glued together by this really powerful emotional core.

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.

This is Jake Gyllenhaal’s show.

Sicario: Day of the Soldado is an intense, at times morally ambiguous, and gritty thriller that will leave you wanting more. And, now, Benicio del Toro finally has a franchise of his own.

The result is a truly suspenseful film with a powerful, emotional ending. Again, it’s one of Shyamalan’s best.

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.

This isn’t a situation where Donald Glover shows up and is so good he saves the movie. And don’t get me wrong, Glover is great, but it’s at this point in the movie that everything gets better. This is the part where the movie finally knows what it should have been all along: a rootin’ tootin’ heist movie and not an origin story.

It never gets convoluted or caught up in itself like movies with meta-sounding titles sometimes tend to do. It’s a ’90s style, R-rated action movie that just keeps moving, with very little fat, and delivers some true applause moments.

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

Honestly, it’s kind of remarkable what Marvel let Raimi get away with, but all that doesn’t really kick in until maybe an hour into the movie, and it becomes a much better movie once that happens.

Wonder Woman 1984 is pure sugar. There’s little nutritional value. But we all deserve dessert right now.

For the first time ever, I cared about Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett. And for the first time, yes, I hope some more Bad Boys come for me. Whatcha gonna do? Well, I’d watch them! Happily, for once.

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.

It Chapter Two is about redemption and the Losers coming together again to learn how strong they all are together. And the actors make it work. But the biggest problem is IT, because IT can be everything and IT can be nothing. IT has no real rules or motivations, or rhyme or reason, for literally anything he does.

As long as these movies keep their earnest, fun, ’90s action movie tone, there is no ridiculous plot point these movies could come up with I wouldn’t believe. By this point they’ve earned that. They are family.

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.

This is a very fun movie . . . but Indy’s arc is poignant and also sad.

Look, I was skeptical of a new Road House movie. This new version certainly isn’t trying to replace the first. But it’s a worthy edition to the Road House family and captures the spirit of what a movie like this should be.

Love and Thunder doesn’t feel as tight as Ragnarok, but it’s still so much fun it doesn’t feel like a lot.

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.

I think Spaceman itself is maybe just a couple tweaks away from being something truly special. But, as is, it’s kind of this oddball movie that I’m glad exists and I truly think Sandler is really terrific.

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.

Look, I’m not a scientist, but, again, chances are, during this movie, you will just run out of adrenaline. Your body will say, “sorry, tapped out, you’re on your own.” So my advice is you might want to pre-schedule in some time for a nap right after. Please make more movies with real stunts. Please make more movies like Ambulance.

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.

The Lion King is a monumental achievement of technological advancement. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

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.

What’s remarkable about Good Joe Bell is Wahlberg plays the role in such a nuanced way, by the end of the movie you want that rousing speech. But it never comes.

So what we have here is a coked-out bear on a murder spree and, honestly, it’s literally everything I would want from a movie called Cocaine Bear.

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.

This movie, hot damn. It just does not care. I can’t help but respect all of this. Please create an honorary Oscar for The Beekeeper.

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 Spy Who Dumped Me does an effective job of putting these two outsiders into the world of a violent action movie, but then the plot of the action movie has some truly head-scratching scenes. But, whatever. This is an August movie and Kunis and McKinnon are funny and that’s what you’re paying to see.

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.

If this movie was going to hit with people, I think I would be one of them. I know the people in this movie. Many of the people remind me of people in my own family. But it didn’t hit. Again, I don’t know who Hillbilly Elegy is for. Well, except maybe J.D. Vance.

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.”

Both McGregor and Hawke seem to be having a nice time with each other. Part road trip movie, part “watch these two knuckleheads do wacky things because of their anger and grief,” they contemplate each other well, to the point I hope they make more movies together.

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.

Yes, this movie is so stupid! But that seems to be the point. And Serkis knows the heart of these movies is the relationship between Eddie and Venom.

I’m not sure who a faithful adaptation of The Call of the Wild would even be for in 2020. Instead, we get a pleasant movie about Harrison Ford having a nice time, laughing it up with his dog pal – and I really can’t imagine a better way to tell this story than that.

It’s just filled with a lot of stupid characters who all do stupid things to the point that the “plot” is just some crazy afterthought of nonsense. What a mess.

Irresistible could have been something that was just a pleasant enough, throwaway comedy – and it feels like that for most of its running time. If only Stewart read his own word, “resist,” and resisted that ending – that urge to try to turn this movie into something it just isn’t.

It’s not as good as the first Shazam movie, which explored what it’s like to be a superhero when, in reality, you’re still just a kid. In this sequel, that aspect is still mentioned quite a bit, but not really explored.

What somewhat saves Samaritan is Stallone.

I am legitimately bummed out about how much I disliked Justice League.

The tone of this movie is weird, but I kind of get what it’s going for. It basically feels like a cartoon, then all of a sudden a character will get stabbed in the head, or sawed in half, in the most gory way possible.

Sadly, everything about Dark Phoenix just feels unnecessary – and it shows in the performances, as everyone just seems to be going through the motions, wondering how on Earth their contracts aren’t up yet.

Glass is a fascinating movie. Now, having said that, I should quickly point out that I did not enjoy this movie and I consider it, after a 19-year wait, one of the biggest personal disappointments I’ve ever experienced in a theater.

Scoob! is basically a really fun Scooby-Doo episode.

It’s kind of remarkable what can be done with a Transformers movie with a director who actually likes these characters. (And also very much loves his mid-90s needle-drop jams.)

The plot makes sense. And Jaume Collet-Serra is a good director and the movie is mostly competent. For me, it’s just a sense of disappointment. There’s nothing that interesting here, but there certainly should be.

Meg 2: The Trench commits the worst sin a movie about a giant prehistoric shark can make: it’s kind of boring. I went in looking for an audacious good time and, instead, I got a movie about rock smugglers.

I do want to make it clear that I think Venom is not a good movie, but I also want to make it clear that I had the time of my life watching it. I think in a couple of years Venom could be the type of movie that sells out midnight showings as people come up to the screen and act out their favorite parts.

Though I will warn you, if you haven’t cared for Matthew Vaughn’s more recent efforts, it’s unlikely Argylle is going to change that for you. It’s like he pays attention to what his detractors despise, then decides, “Well, what if I gave you more of that.”

It’s hard to tell what this movie is trying to be, and end the end just kind of becomes just another superhero movie, despite Jason Bateman’s best attempts at preventing that. I swear, someday, someone will nail one of these premises.