Rodrigo Perez

Spider-Man: No Way Home is maximalist, chock full of familiar characters and callbacks, and sometimes all that greatest-hits reminiscing is diverting and and entertaining. But it’s also not very necessary, making for a very regressive, fan-service-y ‘Spider-Man’ legacy-sequel that’s overly nostalgic for its heydays.

It’s a curious mix of contradictions, sentimental in its longing worship for “Ghostbusters” and yet cynical and manipulative in the way it seems to rehash every classic moment of the original, insulting the audience’s intelligence along the way by giving them every cameo, wink, and nod they never knew they actually didn’t want until it was slathered all over them like so much disgusting green ghost goop.

If you’re open to its unconventional, idiosyncratic flavors, Licorice Pizza is a wonderfully wistful and evocative ode to youth, done by a masterfully poised filmmaker who doesn’t really care if this ain’t your bag. All our welcome and invited, of course, but PTA’s mellow and balmy effort feels like it’s enjoying itself too much to care if you haven’t caught on to its whole-hearted drift.

Never once does it carry any of the unclassifiable “It factor” charm that sometimes elevates a mediocre movie. Nope, “Red Notice” is just deeply unexceptional and pedestrian: a lot of lights shining on three worldwide-class superstars, with perfect white teeth with explosions and gloss all around them, and never once creating anything that resembles a captivating spark.

In some senses, Zhao bucks the Marvel formula, but goes so far off-piste, everything that’s enjoyable about Marvel—the breezy snap, crackle, and pop of escapist watchable entertainment—go out the window in favor of something far more muddled. In another sense, it’s not all that different, just not orchestrated very well with an ill-advised structure that mars the entire affair.

When it rides off into the sunset, what you’re left with is a diverse, reimagined fable of iniquity, holy retribution, and comeuppance that is as entertaining as it is surprisingly soulful.

In doubling down on would-be humor, the already poor, perspiring, flop-sweat CGI mess of Venom actually gets worse and arguably even more incoherent, thanks to the unbearable, overweening quarreling between Brock and Venom and the vaudevillian crazy legs antics and presentation.

Despite the oh gee golly wiz Midwestern yokel-isms and the aforementioned cartoonish makeup she wears—historically accurate, yes, but still bordering on the ludicrous in reality— Chastain manages to bring such dignity to the character, really plumbing the depths of her soul for the moments of pathos, heartbreak, and despair. Much of this comes to an incredible crescendo in the third act, when Tammy Faye is tragic, washed-up, but never willing to give up or radiate compassion, even when she’s being mocked.

What makes The Guilty good is the way it tacitly communicates so much about the character without ever having to speak his issues out loud.

Those who find Villeneuve to be a self-serious, humorless, and pretentious bore likely won’t be changing their minds anytime soon after “Dune,” but that just might be their loss. Whether Warner Bros. accepts the call to make a sequel in a climate of dismal box-office returns remains to be seen. But that’s not our concern at the moment; Dune is undeniably impressive, spellbinding, and evocatively immense, regardless.

Poetic and bittersweet, Cmon Cmon is a special film, one that asks us to recognize the mistakes we make, the people we wound, the feelings we hurt, and to maybe give ourselves a break in the process and hold on for what better future tomorrow may bring.

It’s truly a wild, blazing ride if you get on the movie’s bruising, mesmeric wavelength, a tragic but deeply moral film about a righteous, transactional man who has truly weighed and considered the cost of the wicked transgressions committed against his country, his fellow man, and his own soul.

It’s a lovely, charming, vibrant, sad, bildungsroman tale and roman-fleuve that pays small tribute to Maradona. But more importantly, it manages to both memorialize this agonizing turning point in his life and warmly reminisce on the bliss that came before it.

Shang-Chi might get bogged down in the weight of water carrying -plot, legend, plenty of backstories, MCU connectivity, and the obligations of climatic superhero action that gets unwieldy, but in the end, it’s a winning film that’s likable and that quality goes a long way.

Ultimately, The Suicide Squad is a tale of beautiful losers discovering their humanity in a brief, inspired moment of convergence, finding hard-fought salvation in each other and the notion that all of us are always worthy of dignity.

The VU feels like it’s told from the perspective of the band members and is always veering far away from talking-head doc standards.

Poignant and poetic, After Yang is a soulful and heartbreaking meditation on impermanence full of poignant wonder and riches of human grace.

It’s an odd film and a fascinating one—narratively simplistic, artistically complex—at times ravishing and then puzzling, much like the enigmatic films of Carax and the idiosyncratic music of Sparks.

Black Widow is mostly an entertaining and adequate tribute to Natasha Romanoff, Black Widow, and Scarlett Johannson’s time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Still, it’s not quite the bittersweet, moving, or resonant send-off one might have hoped for based on the initial movie’s promise of exploring a dark and damaged past and what that does to the soul.

The climax is entertaining and crazy but not necessarily as satisfying as it hopes to be. Still, for all its flaws and inability to deliver in the end, False Positive is a captivating take on the misrepresentation of the pregnancy “glow.”

Overall, Cummings and McCabe’s film touches a raw nerve with sharp, funny, awkwardly prickly provocation.

The premium placed on upmarket, glossy, muscular cars is so conspicuous that Fuqua scored buyback product placement cash. Elon Musk would surely be enamored. It’s essentially that kind of movie, “The Matrix” and Nolan-lite for dudes who check their bitcoin futures during the movie on their smartphones. Sick, bro.

As an experience, “A Quiet Place Part II” is still riveting and intense and should check all the boxes for most audiences, especially in the “I just wanna be gripped and entertained” post-pandemic age. For those looking for a little more depth and soul and a movie to fully coalesce in the end? Well, you might have to wait for the next chapter for some true thematic and emotional closure, but still, it’ll be hard to argue this won’t be an escapist thrill for most audiences in theaters, at least.

As a taut thriller, it works, but the “why” of it all, the substance that generally makes even Sheridan’s worst efforts still fascinating, is strangely and glaringly absent.

Snyder’s best movie since his debut, the zombie film “Dawn Of The Dead” (2014), Army Of The Dead is tremendously compelling and deftly navigates a lot of different tones, even if it quickly leaves more interesting ones behind. Largely captivating and thrilling, for all is gore, darkly twisted comedy, and delicious tension— surely something satisfied audiences will walk away with—there’s also a minor but palatable sense of loss and melancholy. One that echoes the hardships of the pandemic age and ruthless American capitalism and gives the film some socio-political edge.

Ultimately, put its questionable politics aside, Without Remorse, even as a simplistic action thriller is joyless and lifeless, an arid space of empty macho bullshit with a lead character who is the equivalent of a bulging forehead veins meme.

It’s essential to have characters and a good story around a ‘GvK’ movie because, without it, all your left with is an empty trailer of fight scenes. The irony is this overly involved story detracts from one’s engagement in the movie. Legends may finally collide in this installment, and it’s mildly entertaining in spots, but the whole endeavor is ultimately almost as hollow as the earth’s empty core.

Yes, Naishuller is an inventive action shooter, and if highly-tuned, keyed-up action orchestration is your game, Nobody will light you up, no doubt. However, if you’d love to see the intriguing ideas—that the movie itself proposes upfront—about fatherhood, guardianship, violence, contempt, and neglect, at least semi-threaded throughout the action story, you’ve come to the wrong movie.