Category: Movie Reviews

Control Freak (2025) | REVIEW

Kelly Marie Tran in CONTROL FREAK — PHOTO: DISNEY PLUS (Still image from trailers)

Directed by Shal Ngo — Screenplay by Shal Ngo.

Shal Ngo’s generically titled body horror flick Control Freak follows Valerie (played by Kelly Marie Tran), a motivational speaker, who, in her first scene, talks to her audience about rejecting and resisting the voice inside of your head that keeps you down. Valerie, who is struggling with a constant itch in her scalp, is quite popular, it seems, as she is getting ready to go on a tour of Asia. This world tour requires her to go find her birth certificate, which forces her to face her troubled family history. When she meets with her father, who fought in the Vietnam War and is now a Buddhist monk, she is told that the itch, as well as the frequent visions of both ants and a dark figure, is a direct result of a demonic parasite that will attach itself to a host and will continue to gnaw away at them until they’re all gone. Valerie initially refuses to believe her father, but when things start to escalate, she realizes she has to do something drastic. 

Continue reading “Control Freak (2025) | REVIEW” →

Mickey 17 (2025) | REVIEW

Robert Pattinson and Robert Pattinson in Bong Joon-ho’s MICKEY 17 — PHOTO: Watner Bros. Pictures (Still image from trailers).

Directed by Bong Joon-ho — Screenplay by Bong Joon-ho.

It boggles the mind that it’s been more than half a decade since the release of Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, the first non-English language feature to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Director Bong’s Oscar-winning magnum opus is a widely recognized 21st Century masterpiece, and, thusly, the director’s follow-up to such an achievement would always be hotly anticipated, especially given the fact that his next release was a blockbuster-budgeted American studio release. In fascinating fashion, Bong Joon-ho has spent his Hollywood blank cheque, or carte blanche, on a scathing but funny political satire sci-fi flick about the way capitalist governments, whose leaders may use religion to gain and exercise power, view and treat the common person, women, and foreign territories, as well as its inhabitants. Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey 17, an adaptation of Edward Ashton’s novel Mickey7, is ambitious, messy, strangely predictive about the time we’re in, and very much a Bong Joon-ho film, even though it is very different from Parasite.

Continue reading “Mickey 17 (2025) | REVIEW” →

The Monkey (2025) | REVIEW

The titular toy monkey in Osgood Perkins’ THE MONKEY — PHOTO: NEON / Black Bear.

Directed by Osgood Perkins — Screenplay by Osgood Perkins.

Filmmaker Osgood Perkins is fast becoming one of the most interesting horror filmmakers on the rise. Following three relatively unknown features, including the quite good The Blackcoat’s Daughter, Perkins finally had his breakthrough as a filmmaker in 2024 with the excellent horror-thriller flick Longlegs. Now in 2025, he’s hoping to fully etch his name into stone, as a prominent horror filmmaker with Keeper, releasing later this year, and The Monkey, an adaptation of a Stephen King short story, which was released in theaters at the end of February. Here Perkins is trying to prove himself in another horror subgenre, namely that of the horror-comedy, but, while there is a lot to like here, it isn’t quite as effective as his 2024 hit.

Continue reading “The Monkey (2025) | REVIEW” →

Nickel Boys (2024) | REVIEW

Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson in NICKEL BOYS — PHOTO: Amazon MGM (Still image from trailers).

Directed by RaMell Ross — Screenplay by RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes.

Based on Colson Whitehead’s 2020 Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Nickel Boys, RaMell Ross’ Nickel Boys follows a smart and politically engaged young African-American man named Elwood Curtis (played primarily by Ethan Herisse) who, in 1960s America, is wrongfully convicted of grand theft auto while hitchhiking on his way to college. Elwood, due to being underage, is then sent to Nickel Academy, a so-called ‘reform school,’ where he befriends a boy named Turner (played by Brandon Wilson) and experiences racial segregation and abuse.

Continue reading “Nickel Boys (2024) | REVIEW” →

The Order (2024) | REVIEW

Jude Law in THE ORDER — PHOTO: Amazon MGM Studios / Vertical (Still image from trailers).

Directed by Justin Kurzel — Screenplay by Zach Baylin.

Based on Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt’s The Silent Brotherhood, Justin Kurzel’s The Order follows a veteran FBI agent, Terry Husk (played by Jude Law), who, alongside a local Idaho Deputy named Jamie Bowen (played by Tye Sheridan), takes on a case to investigate a series of disappearances and instances of domestic terrorism carried out by a white supremacist militant group led by a man named Bob Mathews (played by Nicholas Hoult).

Continue reading “The Order (2024) | REVIEW” →

The Count of Monte Cristo (2024) | REVIEW

Pierre Niney as the title character in THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO — PHOTO: Pathé.

Directed by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière — Screenplay by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière.

Based on Alexandre Dumas’ novel of the same name, The Count of Monte Cristo is set in the 1800s, where we follow Edmond Dantès (played by Pierre Niney), a recently promoted sailor, who, during his wedding with his fiancee Mercédès (played by Anaïs Demoustier), is arrested and accused of being a Bonapartist. Though innocent, Edmond is betrayed by people he thought that he could trust and is, eventually, imprisoned indefinitely on a harsh prison island. When he starts talking to his neighboring inmate Abbé Faria (played by Pierfrancesco Favino), Edmond starts to plan for both an escape and sweet revenge on the people who wronged him.

Continue reading “The Count of Monte Cristo (2024) | REVIEW” →

Evil Does Not Exist (2024) | REVIEW

Ryo Nishikawa in EVIL DOES NOT EXIST — PHOTO: Incline / Janus Films.

Directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi — Screenplay by Ryusuke Hamaguchi.

Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist follows Takumi (played by Hitoshi Omika), a single father, who lives with his daughter (played by Ryo Nishikawa) in the snowy Japanese mountainside village of Mizubiki. When, one day, the local community is confronted by representatives of a corporation seeking to establish a glamping site there, he and his neighbors and friends voice their concerns about the plan and the possible pollution it would lead to. Later, when the representatives try to influence Takumi, things transpire that causes our lead to panic.

Continue reading “Evil Does Not Exist (2024) | REVIEW” →

Captain America: Brave New World (2025) | REVIEW

Red Hulk (Harrison Ford) hulking out in CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD — PHOTO: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.

Directed by Julius Onah — Screenplay by Rob Edwards, Malcolm Spellman, Dalan Musson, Julius Onah, and Peter Glanz.

Despite the huge success of Deadpool & Wolverine last year, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is in an unsteady moment currently due to an inundation of Disney+ series, and several rushed and poorly received films. In the post-Avengers: Endgame era, Marvel Studios still needs to get back on track, and, unfortunately, Captain America: Brave New World isn’t the film to do that. Though it’s not the worst film in the connected universe of films, I believe that it is, however, a lower-tier MCU film that feels messy, tinkered with, and sometimes even soulless. This is despite the fact that certain elements and scenes are quite satisfying. Although Marvel die-hards will probably still have a decent-enough time with it, but outside of the massive Red Hulk sequence teased in the marketing, the film arguably fails to justify its existence on the big screen. 

Continue reading “Captain America: Brave New World (2025) | REVIEW” →

The Gorge (2025) | REVIEW

Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy in “The Gorge,” now streaming on Apple TV+.

Directed by Scott Derrickson — Screenplay by Zach Dean.

Scott Derrickson’s The Gorge follows two elite snipers, an American man named Levi Kane (played by Miles Teller) and a Lithuanian woman named Drasa (played by Anya Taylor-Joy), as they are both independently recruited for a top-secret mission in the middle of nowhere. At some unknown place in the world, there are two watchtowers standing across from each other, one representing the Western Bloc and another representing the Eastern Bloc. Each watchtower is guarded by mechanized turrets and bombs, and between the two watchtowers is a giant long hole in the ground — hence the title. Levi and Drasa have been hired to do maintenance on the weaponry and, at the same time, defend the world from what is hidden inside the mysterious valley. As they are the only two people in the vicinity, Drasa and Levi establish a connection, but when one of them accidentally falls down into the valley, everything changes and top secrets are revealed.

Continue reading “The Gorge (2025) | REVIEW” →

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (2025) | REVIEW

Renée Zellweger as Bridget Jones (in the middle) in BRIDGET JONES: MAD ABOUT THE BOY — PHOTO: Universal Pictures (Still image from trailers).

Directed by Michael Morris — Screenplay by Helen Fielding, Dan Mazer, and Abi Morgan.

Based on the Helen Fielding novel of the same name and, obviously named after the iconic song, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy finds Bridget Jones (still played by Renée Zellweger) at a particularly challenging moment in her life. Her husband, Mark Darcy (played by Colin Firth), has passed away, and she and their two children now struggle with grief in their own ways. At the same time, though, so many people around her are suggesting that Bridget should get back out there and date again. Back on the market, she develops a surprising romantic connection with a much younger man (played by Leo Woodall), while she also gradually grows closer to a schoolteacher (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor).

Continue reading “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (2025) | REVIEW” →