Movie Reviews
Movie Review: ‘Evil Dead Burn’ goes full brutality, without humor, artistry or verve
French filmmaker Sébastien Vaniček vowed when he took charge of the sixth installment in the “Evil Dead” film series that it would be the most brutal. Mission accomplished, mon ami. Not the most artful or clever or scariest. Brutal. Vaniček has certainly delivered — a relentlessly violent, overlong, one-note, meandering grindhouse that lacks its predecessors’ […]
Movie Review: The live-action ‘Moana’ is a lifeless carbon copy of an animated classic
Say what you will about them, but the Disney live-action remakes have at least given us a choice. Which would you rather see? A spirited, soaring, animated “Moana,” or a purposeless remake featuring Dwayne Johnson with Fabio hair? The sea is wide, my friends. Yet Moana, the Polynesian wayfaring princess, has seemingly been stuck swimming […]
Movie Review: An absurd trip to Hollywood in ‘Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass’
A little more than halfway through the extremely silly “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass,” the main character questions the very idea behind her journey, and, by extension, the movie itself. In it, Zoey Deutch’s character Gail embarks on a “Wizard of Oz”-like journey from Kansas to Hollywood to even the score with her […]
Movie Review: Supergirl is a blast, but the movie doesn’t match her punk-rock spirit
Last year’s “Superman” ended with Iggy Pop singing “Because I’m a punk rocker, yes I am” — an ironic coda for a superlatively square hero. But it rings straightforwardly true for Superman’s cousin. Milly Alcock’s Kara Zor-El, or Supergirl, sports not a spandex suit but a Blondie T-shirt. When we meet her in Craig Gillespie’s […]
Movie Review: ‘Minions & Monsters’ is a very yellow mash note to Hollywood
Every once in a while, Hollywood gets high on its own supply and makes a love letter to moviemaking. It happened recently with Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans” and George Clooney’s “Jay Kelly.” Now it’s time for the unlikeliest of love-letter writers: canary-yellow, gibberish-speaking, overall-wearing mini-monsters. “Minions & Monsters” — the third chapter in the ongoing […]
Movie Review: Millie Bobby Brown returns as Sherlock’s sister in ‘Enola Holmes 3’
The “Enola Holmes” movies have done nothing so much as chart Millie Bobby Brown’s evolution from child actor to movie star. She was 16 when the first “Enola Holmes” debuted in 2020. As “Enola Holmes 3” arrives on Netflix, she’s 22. And all three movies have been driven by Brown’s natural charisma. The first two […]
Movie Review: Sex is on the menu in Olivia Wilde’s dinner party comedy of manners ‘The Invite’
Soufflé is for dinner but much more is on the table in Olivia Wilde’s deliciously entertaining chamber comedy, “The Invite,” about a couple whose marriage is on the rocks who invite their upstairs neighbors over for an impromptu get-together. Such a gathering is, of course, a standby setup of stage and screen, alike. Faster than […]
Movie Review: ‘Jackass: Best and Last’ is just a clip-job of greatest hits. And we mean hits
Pour one out for the “Jackass” crew. They’re done. “Jackass: Best and Last” is a sad but fitting end to an extreme stunt franchise that was vanquished not by imagination but time. The fifth and final main installment has all that you’d expect from the Jackass Cinematic Universe — genitalia, electricity, gravity and port-a-potties, often […]
Movie Review: Sex is on the menu in Olivia Wilde’s dinner party comedy of manners ‘The Invite’
Soufflé is for dinner but much more is on the table in Olivia Wilde’s deliciously entertaining chamber comedy, “The Invite,” about a couple whose marriage is on the rocks who invite their upstairs neighbors over for an impromptu get-together. Such a gathering is, of course, a standby setup of stage and screen, alike. Faster than […]
Movie Review: ‘The Death of Robin Hood’ drains the blood, and life, out of an old English legend
In the opening moments of Michael Sarnoski’s “The Death of Robin Hood,” Hugh Jackman’s Robin shelters on a cold and desolate peatland. A young attacker (Jade Croot) emerges from the dark emptiness beyond his campfire. He grabs her, tells her it was a mistake to bathe. He could smell her downwind. Then he puts a […]