Movie Reviews

“The Narcissism of Small Differences” Michael Zadoorian Akashic Books 978-1-61775-817-1 $16.95 “Are we weird?” And so begins Detroit-area writer Michael Zadoorian’s provocative novel, “The Narcissism of Small Differences,” a story of how a pair of Detroit hipsters approaching middle age negotiate the throes of the 2008 crash...

The fifth installment of the “Scream” franchise — originally titled “Scream” — introduces new teen victims, when Ghostface begins a slashing campaign in the unfortunate target town of Woodsboro, while also reuniting surviving members from Wes Craven’s first tale; terrorized survivor Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), get-the-story newscaster Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox) and bumbling-but-brave Deputy Dewey Riley (David Arquette)...

After nearly 19 years on the shelf, Lana Wachowski has dusted off the family's popular sci-fi franchise; got the old band back together in the terms of stars Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss and a few others from previous films; and decided to pick up in modern time for this fourth installment of “The Matrix” series. ...

In a world where sequels are the trend, the idea is traditionally to ramp things up and take each film a step further. After the first two “Kingsman” films, it would seem a bit challenging to outdo the action, gadgets and fight sequences which made the two original graphic novel stories-turned-motion-pictures imaginatively enjoyable, if not at all realistic with over-the-top heroes and bad guys. ...

(((MUG))) “Famous People You Might Meet in Eternity” Tony A. Powers Christian Faith Publishing Inc. ISBN 978-1-0980-7321-3 $14.95 If you were on the operating table and flatlined, what would you see? That’s the question Tony A. Powers, former sportscaster at WHO Radio and Television in Des Moines tried to answer in his moving novel, “Famous People You Might Meet in Eternity.”...

The third picture in the “Spider-Man” franchise featuring Tom Holland as the web-shooting, wall-crawling, school-age superhero, picks up immediately following the conclusion of “Spider-Man: Far From Home.” With his supposed final breath, the villain Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) implicates Spider-Man in his death and publicly reveals Peter Parker is indeed the masked hero.

The tragic story detailing the rise and fall of the Gucci fashion empire seems a little more like a mafia tale of betrayal and death surrounded by cutting edge attire. I mean it has Al Pacino in it, for pity’s sake. The film centers around the powerfully established Italian design family, the Gucci’s, under the control of two brothers, Rodolfo (Jeremy Irons) and Aldo (Pacino). ...

A return to the original feel, “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” returns to the formula which made the original such a success and adds in family dynamics with some excellent child performances as the cherry on top. Down and out, and with two kids to raise, Callie Spengler (Carrie Coon) and her children — nerdy scientist Phoebe (McKenna Grace) and awkward high schooler Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) — are facing the prospect of homelessness.

“The Eternals,” definitely one of Marvel’s lesser known properties, blends a series of historical flashbacks and modern day challenges to introduce you to the team of characters who have apparently been living among us for 7,000 years. Ten Eternals are sent, via starship, by Celestial Airshem to Earth to protect the people from a monstrous group of aliens, called Deviants. ...

Minus the press space needed for review, this film is the introduction to what sci-fi fans hope will be a multi-film effort bringing the popular novels to the big screen for the first time in decades. The last time this was tried, the musician Sting sported a pair of metal underwear. ...

This film really could have been called, “Men Without Barbers,” as both Matt Damon’s modified mullet and Ben Affleck’s blonde dye job are tough to stare at for 2 1/2 hours. But I’m tough; I can handle it. The dynamic duo return, appearing together once again as they have done in multiple films. ...

Andy Serkis jumps into the director’s chair for Venom’s second go-round in “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,” a blend of comedy and horror-based comic book story telling. The new installment has Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and his symbiote sidekick, Venom, providing humorous and continuous back-and-forth as Brock attempts to tame the alien’s natural instinct to eat everything including people who get in his way. Living on a steady diet of chocolate and chickens, Venom longs to eat bad guys, but Brock prohibits it — setting up some epic conflicts.

Daniel Craig’s swan song as James Bond, Agent 007, is a fitting tribute to the latest head to carry the crown which comes with a license to kill. Bond, now retired, living off the grid, and looking to settle down with his lady love, Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux), seeks to leave his past behind. A final trip to Matera to say goodbye to Vesper Lynd sets off a chain of events which has Bond questioning everyone he loves and trusts. When a bomb detonates as he stands at Lynd’s tomb and is immediately attacked by Spectre henchmen, Bond finds himself thrust back into the 007 routine to get him and his lady to safety.

James Wan, who brought horror fans the popular “Saw,” “Insidious” and “The Conjuring” franchises introduces to a new potential franchise with “Malignant” — and I only say that because the ending lends itself to a possible ongoing tale, not necessarily because I want one...

In true Marvel film formula, an obscure hero in terms of Marvel history is throw on the big screen, blended with a good dose of super-stylized action, charming humor and cameos making for a good blend of casting old and new to the MCU. “Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” introduces us to Shaun (Simu Liu), a car attendant living his best life with his childhood friend Katy (Awkwafina). ...

Contrary to the old saying, “a rising tide carries all ships,” the rising waters surrounding the tale of “Reminiscence” fail to lift the soggy tale, combining the neo-noir genre and science fiction, out of a slow, plod in terms of story. Not even the multitalented Hugh Jackman, known best for his roles as Wolverine in “X-Men,” PT Barnum in “The Greatest Showman” and Jean ValJean in “Les Miserables” can save this tale. And that’s hard for me as a huge Jackman fan...

Every morning, Guy (Ryan Reynolds) bounds out of bed, slips on his blue shirt, tie and khaki pants and heads off to work at the Free City Bank. Along the way he picks up the world’s best cup of coffee, connects on the walk with his best friend Buddy (Lil Rel Howery), a security guard at the bank, dodges a local business owner being tossed through the plate glass door of his shop and settles into his teller’s job at the bank. ...

One word separates “The Suicide Squad” from its predecessor — quite literally, “The.” But the other word which separates the two films is Gunn. James Gunn, the film’s director, to be precise. Gunn takes the quirky tale of a group of super villains reluctantly forced to serve as heroes in death-defying missions to save mankind and turns it on its head — blending in his humor which made the obscure “Guardians of the Galaxy” team iconic for Marvel...

Take a smidgen of “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” a dash of “Romancing the Stone,” stir in a taste of the humor and charm of Dwayne Johnson and the wit and beauty of Emily Blunt, blend in a popular Disney theme park attraction, and you get two-plus hours of laughs, adventure and an old-fashioned, family-friendly good time in “Jungle Cruise.”...

Twenty-five years after Bugs Bunny dragged “His Airness” Michael Jordan into a golf hole and into Tune Town for a matchup with mutated NBA stars for the future of the world, current NBA frontman LeBron James finds himself on the recruiting end in an effort to escape imprisonment of himself, his son and a host of others who find themselves hostage in a video basketball game...

Marvel returns to the screen in a big way after many COVID-filled months of delayed anticipation as “Black Widow” hit theaters and began streaming on Disney+ for a fee Thursday night. Not the best of the Marvel films, but far from the worst, this serves as a journey into the history of one of the series’ least-featured characters, which officially closes the book on the ex-KGB agent turned Avenger...

The film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda's Broadway musical “In the Heights” opens with a group of children crowded around a man at a bar patio. The bar is called El Sueñito, or Little Dream — a hint for those paying attention. The man named Usnavi sits down to tell the children the story of his neighborhood, a New York block called Washington Heights...

Even the most unlikely of movie sequels get made when there’s money to be had, and a team up of film superstars Deadpool and Nick Fury … sorry, Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson (although the previous coupling sounds pretty cool) is a pretty sure way to make a buck in Hollywood. ...

Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga are back as supernatural investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren in this third installment in “The Conjuring” series, and eighth film set in the conjure-verse, which centers around a youth exorcism they were involved with which led directly into their involvement with the connected 1981 murder trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson...

After delivering his four-hour superhero epic “Justice League: Snyder Cut” to HBOMax, Snyder jumped into another popular genre, zombies, for his next work — “Army of the Dead,” which he dropped via Netflix. Seventeen years after launching his film career with “Dawn of the Dead,” Snyder targets Las Vegas as the backdrop for this new venture. ...

When the boss of a forensic accountant is blown up in a “gas explosion,” Owen Casserly (Jake Weber) finds himself and his son, Connor (Finn Little) on the run from the “gas men,” Jack and Patrick Blackwell (Aiden Gillen and Nicholas Hoult). They hit the road and set out to his brother-in-law, a Park County Sheriff's Deputy, Ethan Sawyer’s (Jon Bernthal) rural Montana mountain home...

A war between two rival factions in 17th century Japan sets the table for our tale of “Mortal Kombat,” an ancient tournament of champions pitting the evil minions of Outworld against the “noble” defenders of Earthrealm with quite a bit on the line. After Bi-Han (Joe Taslim) and his warriors kill the Shirai Ryu clan, Bi-Han attempts to finish the job to establish our history by taking clan leader Hanzo’s (Hiroyuki Sanada) out. ...

On a doomed planet Earth a select group of genetically born children are raised in incubators away from any knowledge of the outside world to populate a mission to another inhabitable planet 86 years away in “Voyagers.” Under the watchful eyes of a scientific exploration team, the children are raised with their limited adult connection to guardian Richard Alling (Colin Farrell). ...

In the spirit of “John Wick” and “The Equalizer,” “Nobody” tells the story of a well-trained killer who finds his dormant instincts reignited by a personal attack on people — or in Wick’s case — a pet. Bob Odenkirk is Hutch Mantell, an everyday dude and family man, whose life is pretty basic and repeated on a daily basis, which we see in montage form multiple times in the film’s early stages. ...

And it’s a wrap. Multiple Godzilla and King Kong films have reached the Apex — you’ll get the pun in a minute — as the two legendary titans finally square off in multiple CGI engagements that lay waste to a small fleet of ships and ultimately, of course, you guessed it, poor Hong Kong, in “Godzilla vs. Kong.”...

When HBO Max’s subscriber-based service decided to privately fund Zack Snyder’s vision to redo the “Justice League” film, they had to know the loyal base of DC fans and superhero geeks would flock to the opportunity to witness the original man behind the “Justice League” share his vision...

Daisy Ridley, who we last saw wielding a lightsaber as “The Last Jedi,” finds herself paired with your friendly neighborhood web-slinger, “Spider-Man’s” Tom Holland, in a sci-fi tale set in the mid-2200s on a newly-settled planet. Holland is Todd Hewitt, a young, poor member of a beet cropping family in a territory on the settled planet where all the women were killed and only the men remain. ...

A very slow burn, this serial murder mystery, “The Little Things,” keeps the audience engaged with a strong cast — Denzel Washington, Rami Malek and Jared Leto — who deliver the type of performances theatergoers have come to expect. Washington stars as former L.A. ...