Movie Reviews

Looking ahead to the holiday movie season lineup, I’ve been waiting with great anticipation for some of the upcoming seasonal releases. Of course it goes without saying, I’m completely geeking out as I continue to countdown the days to the release of the ninth, and supposedly final film, of the original “Star Wars” series, “The Rise of Skywalker” on Friday, Dec. 20, just in time for the Christmas school break...

Second go-round loses original charm When I first learned of the plans to make a follow up to the extremely popular horror-comedy, "Zombieland," I was both excited and a bit puzzled. Where are they going to take us next? "Zombieland: Double Tap" picks up 10 years after the original with our motley pack of travelers Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), Wichita (Emma Stone) and her little sister, Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), headed to the White House to set up residence. ...

Phoenix amazing as evolving ‘Batman’ nemesis “Joker” is not your typical comic book movie. In a day where Marvel and DC are competing to bring their colorful, costumed heroes and bad guys to life on the big screen, DC took this story down a completely different route. ...

Pitt does solid work in slow vehicle I spent all of “Ad Astra” looking for two things — some action and a link to the film’s name. With the exception of one sequence on the moon where a convoy is attacked by a group of rebellious lunar pirates and a gravity-less tussle with a space simeon, I struck out on the action thing...

Sequel doesn’t quite pack punch of ‘Its’ predecessor It’s time to float again. The second part to Stephen King’s classic “It” doesn’t quite have the chill or constant sense of creepiness which made the first installment such a hit, nor does it have the same charm as the tale which centered around a group of teen outcasts who officially dub themselves “The Losers Club.” But it continues as the members of the club have now become adults, but despite their age, still find themselves unhappy in their lives.. ...

The 'Angel' falls flat Gerard Butler returns as Secret Service Agent Mike Banning in the third installment of the “Fallen” series — “Angel Has Fallen” — a disappointingly predictable tale which again pits Banning against unimaginable odds. Banning, has served as the first line of defense for two U.S. ...

Great cast, flat tale I had really high hopes for “The Kitchen.” Sometimes hopes are dashed. Based on a DC Vertigo graphic novel, three great actresses — Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss — play a trio of housewives married to midlevel Irish mobsters in Hell’s Kitchen. When the husbands get caught and arrested in a heist, they are sent away for three years leaving the wives with nothing...

Only Tarantino Only Quinten Tarantino could find a way to blend humor in a story centered around the period of time leading up to the Manson Family murders. What I believe is the ninth film by Tarantino — I think he has indicated he’s only making 10 — “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” celebrates the end of the wild 1960s in Hollywood and the transition to the 1970s. ...

Disney animated classic roars onto big screen in live format Disney’s magical transformation of its animated classics to live-action, big-screen powerhouses continues with “The Lion King.” The key difference being the entire cast is comprised of jungle animal actors rather than human beings. Human actors are instead relegated to voice over duties and they handle their duties with amazing skill...

Flashback, nine years ago, Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) and the whole gang of Andy’s toys perform an emergency rescue of R.C., a race car caught up in heavy rain waters. The team works together to save Andy’s remote control car from being swept into the sewer, only to discover that while they were making the save, Bo Peep (Annie Potts) and her sheep are packed up and shipped away to another deserving child...

Following the dramatic conclusion of Marvel’s “Avengers: Endgame,” Asgard’s biggest heroes, Thor and Valkyrie, have taken on new jobs — or at least the actors who portray them have — in “Men in Black: International.” Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson team again, not to battle space baddie Thanos, but this time to take on naughty space aliens who make earth a stop during their intergalactic travel schedule...

Satisfying, but not super, finish to ‘young’ X franchise In what is being billed as the final film if the “X-Men First Class” franchise, Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and his team of mutants have finally gained worldwide acceptance as heroes in times of crisis, but all good things come to an end. Such is the case for the X-Men as they find themselves torn apart from within in a storyline modeled loosely after the very popular “Dark Phoenix” multipart saga in the Marvel comics...

Giant monsters and massive destruction — remember when If you’re a sci-fi or comic book geek, this is a summer to celebrate. It’s been week-after-week of Hollywood geek-dom on the big screen and for those of my generation, “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” is a throwback to our childhood which featured a mixture of Saturday afternoon of giant monsters on the TV screen. ...

Animated favorite plays well in live action as well Disney continues to successfully transform its animated classics into live action, big screen fun for families to enjoy. This time audiences are treated to director Guy Ritchie's vision of the popular Arabian folktale of “Aladdin.”...

2-plus hours of nearly nonstop action Keanu Reeves returns as the shaggy-haired, ex-assassin engaged in a never-ending battle to stay alive in a world which desperately wants him dead in the third (and most likely not the last) installment of the “John Wick” series...

Pokemon are cute, of course their cute Gonna be honest, really never got into the whole Pokemon thing. Not when it was a card game. Not when it was a video game. Not when they decided to have people start chasing virtual Pokemon around the bushes in your neighbors yard. They'd do battle and it was the charge of us mere mortals "to collect them all."...

Living up to the hype ... and so much more It’s been a year of waiting. I admit it. I’m a comic book and sci-fi geek. Shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows me. I’ve been a huge fan of the Marvel series of films dating back more than a decade to the original “Iron Man.” Before that, I was a Marvel comic book consumer since childhood. ...

I was intrigued when it was announced, studios would be retelling the “Hellboy” story about 15 years after the Dark Horse comic book sensation was first brought to the big screen. Sadly, a decade and a half has not helped with the visuals and for some reason the production team decided to ramp up the language and graphic violence 10-fold which, despite the wishes of the money behind the film, make it worse than I had hoped...

Stephen King is bad for Maine tourism I had always wanted to go to Maine. The beautiful Northeast coastal communities, woods, friendly people, scenic drives. Then came Stephen King. Every tortured, nightmarish thought which pops in his creepy little head seems to originate or be centered in Maine...

As a kid, especially if you’re a comic book geek like me, there’s always the discussion, “If you could have any super power what would it be?” And if you are anything like me, it’s something you may ask yourself from time-to-time during an occasional daydream...

The first of Disney’s four scheduled animated classics to live-action films hits the screens this weekend as “Dumbo” takes flight ... literally. And who better to bring the fantastic tale of a flying baby circus elephant to the big screen than the king of fantasy, director Tim Burton...

I’m going to admit it, as a teen during the height of the slasher film craze — Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, Jason Vorhees, etc. — I have grown weary of films designed to cause my heart to skip a beat via what I term as “jump scares.” So the idea of settling in for Oscar-winning writer-director Jordan Peele's second go at the big screen came with a bit of trepidation...

The real message gets lost amidst the wonder Despite a decent voice cast, this animated film about a girl dealing with the absence of her ill mother set against the backdrop of a super-colorful, make-believe amusement park overseen by a wacky team of animals under fire from a an army of zombie chimpanzees bent on its destruction seems like a bit of a stretch...

To kick off what looks to be a busy, hero-based summer movie season, Marvel offers audiences a glance at its fledgling universe in the 1990s with the introduction of “Captain Marvel” to its iconic comic book-to-big screen ensemble. Actually, with the exception of the other captain, World War II Captain America, Captain Marvel may be the earliest superhero sighting we have. And ultimately she may prove to be among the most powerful ― only the box office knows for sure, wink-wink...

Kid-focused, adult friendly fun Celebrity voices abound in this sequel to the popular “Lego Movie” which offered life from the perspective of the miniature Lego characters and creations filtered through the life of a young boy, Finn’s imagination. Five years after Finn (Jadon Sand) introduced the movie going audience to Master Builder Emmet (voiced by Chris Pratt) and his upbeat, everything-is-great-world, things are a bit different as Finn’s younger sister, Bianca (Brooklynn Prince), wanting to play with her brother, creates chaos when she brings her Duplo creations into the Lego world. ...

Take away the ridiculously scripted moments of peril between two ill-fated young lovers — one a human and one a cyborg — and you’ve got a fun, well-crafted, special effects heavy, sci-fi tale in “Alita: Battle Angel.” Featuring a couple of Hollywood A-listers in Christoph Waltz and Mahershala Ali, the futuristic tale – based on a popular manga series “Gunnm” — is set in Iron City in the year 2563...

So I’ve had some people give me a bad time because according to them I rarely give movies a bad review. For those of you who fall into that category, this is your week! I generally try to look at a movie from the perspective of its intended audience and really go from there. ...

Known for his film-ending twists and interesting fashion of telling a story, M. Night Shyamalan once again puts a “didn’t-see-that-coming” spin on “Glass” to cap his “superhero” trilogy which began with “Unbreakable” in 2000 and continued (unbeknownst until the film’s final scene) in 2016’s “Split.”...

　 When I first learned a new film in the “Transformer” franchise was in development, I let out an internal groan of pain. At least I hoped it was internal. The worn franchise, about a war being waged between two factions of enormous, shape-shifting mechanical aliens, had lost its charm in the past adaptations, resorting to a Power Ranger-esque inclusion of dino shape-shifting bots. ...

Clint Eastwood directed and stars in “The Mule,” based on the true story of a 90-year-old World War II vet, Leo Sharp, who become a cartel drug mule back in the 1980s. Eastwood’s character, Earl Stone, is a Korean War vet to better suit the modern time frame...

Jason Wan directs the first solo, self-titled “Aquaman” film to hit the big screen, tying the underwater hero’s history into a larger-than-life action film combining Jason Momoa’s likable portrayal of the previous wimpified DC comic book character and an underwater kingdom of “Avatar”-ish proportions...

There’s just something about hearing the “Rocky” theme “Gonna Fly Now” as the training sequences flash across the screen that sends a tingle up my spine and makes the hairs on my arm stand on end. And that formula never gets old. The gangs all here as Michael B. ...