Tag: Film Review

Highest 2 Lowest (2025) | REVIEW

Denzel Washington in “HIGHEST 2 LOWEST,” available to stream now on Apple TV+.

Directed by Spike Lee (Da 5 Bloods) — Screenplay by Alan Fox.

With Apple TV+’s Highest 2 Lowest, American filmmaker Spike Lee has made his second remake, or reinterpretation, of an East Asian classic in the last twelve years. The last time Lee did this was with 2013‘s Oldboy, a remake of the Park Chan-wook South Korean action thriller classic. Lee’s 2013 film was largely dismissed and criticized as an inferior work, but, at least initially, his second go-around in recent years with an East Asian classic, Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low, has been met more warmly by critics, even if it isn’t perceived as a slam dunk or an improvement. In my opinion, though, Spike Lee’s attempt at a Kurosawa remake is a disappointment. Although I love several of the master American filmmaker’s earlier works, I found his latest film to be difficult to connect with, largely due to quirks and performances that work against the film.

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The Long Walk (2025) | REVIEW

David Jonsson in THE LONG WALK — PHOTO: Lionsgate (Still image from trailers).

Directed by Francis Lawrence — Screenplay by J.T. Mollner.

Based on the 1979 Stephen King novel of the same name (published under King’s pseudonym Richard Bachman), Francis Lawrence’s The Long Walk is set in a dystopian America under a totalitarian military regime, which holds an annual event referred to as, you guessed it, ‘the Long Walk.’ During this event, fifty young men, one from each state, must take part in a coordinated walk of potentially hundreds of miles, while they’re escorted by the military, which also broadcasts the event live. Those who stop walking, or fall below a dictated pace, will receive three warnings (that eventually replenish) and, should they fail to get back to the right pace in time, be executed. The event will only end once a sole victor remains left standing and alive, and the winner will receive not only an overwhelming cash prize, but also a single wish that the regime must grant. Lawrence’s film follows Maine-born participant Ray Garraty (played by Cooper Hoffman), who quickly befriends a group of young men led by the charismatic Peter McVries (played by David Jonsson). However, we soon learn that there is a secret reason why Ray is taking part in the event.

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The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025) | REVIEW

Mia Tomlinson and Patrick Wilson in THE CONJURING: LAST RITES — PHOTO: Warner Bros. Pictures / New Line Cinema (still image from trailers).

Directed by Michael Chaves — Screenplay by Ian Goldberg, Richard Naing, and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick.

We’ve come a long way since the first film about the demonologist duo and married couple Ed and Lorraine Warren, The Conjuring, from director James Wan. Depending on whether you count The Curse of La Llorona, there are now nine or ten films in the film series, with its reported conclusion, 2025’s The Conjuring: Last Rites, serving as the dot at the end of the sentence. Like with The Curse of La Llorona, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, and The Nun 2, this latest film is directed by Michael Chaves, who, despite receiving mixed reviews for his films, has long been positioned as the heir apparent to James Wan (The Conjuring; Insidious; Saw). Chaves has failed in his attempts to reach the height of his mentor’s films, and, in the process of trying to continue Wan’s work in this connected universe of films, has turned in, at best, merely lukewarm films. Does the purported conclusion to the story of the Warrens improve things for Chaves? Well, his latest film still cannot hold a candle to Wan’s Conjuring films, but, to Chaves’ credit, I think this is his most entertaining film yet. 

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Eenie Meanie (2025) | REVIEW

Karl Glusman and Samara Weaving in EENIE MEANIE — PHOTO: 20th Century Studios.

Directed by Shawn Simmons — Screenplay by Shawn Simmons.

Shawn Simmons’ Eenie Meanie is a crime comedy-thriller that follows Edie (played by Samara Weaving), who has a past as a getaway driver. Edie has just found out that she is pregnant, and so she decides to seek out the child’s ne’er-do-well father, John (played by Karl Glusman), whom she hasn’t been with in months. When she shows up at his apartment, however, she becomes entangled in a web of crime to which her former lover is stuck. To save the father of her child, Edie will have to put some of her old skills to good use to do a job.

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True Romance (1993) | RETRO REVIEW

Patricia Arquette and Christian Slater in TRUE ROMANCE — PHOTO: Warner Bros. (Still image from trailer).

Directed by Tony Scott — Screenplay by Quentin Tarantino.

Tony Scott’s True Romance follows Clarence (played by Christian Slater) and Alabama (played by Patricia Arquette), two newlyweds who are headed for Hollywood to start their new life together. However, before they got going, Clarence stole a suitcase of drugs, the loss of which has now put the couple at the top of the Mafia’s hit list.

This is one of those movies that’s been on my watchlist for quite some time. A little over a month ago, I finally got the Arrow Video 4K Blu-ray, and today I finally thought it was a good time to check out what this early ’90s flick was all about. I’m glad I did. True Romance is an exhilarating and irresistible crime charmer.

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Weapons (2025) | REVIEW

One of the vanishing kids running down the street in Zach Cregger’s Weapons — PHOTO: Warner Bros. Pictures (Still image from trailers).

Directed by Zach Cregger — Screenplay by Zach Cregger.

Whenever an up-and-coming new filmmaker, whose previous film had the makings of a bona fide genre classic, is about to turn in his latest film, you pay attention. You especially pay attention when the filmmaker’s script for his new picture was so highly regarded in the American film industry that it not only launched a bidding war but also, reportedly, got a modern horror master to fire his manager over their failed attempt at securing the distribution rights to it. Such is the case with Barbarian writer-director Zach Cregger and his latest film, Weapons, a multi-perspective horror-thriller with drama and comedy elements that had a memorable and fantastic marketing campaign built around it, and which also, thankfully, turns out to be exactly the kind of must-see thriller epic that I’ve been craving.

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War of the Worlds (2025) | REVIEW

Still image of title card from trailers — PHOTO: Universal Pictures.

Directed by Rich Lee — Screenplay by Kenneth A. Golde and Marc Hyman.

Only rarely is a movie deemed to be so bad that its reputation takes on a life of its own. In the case of Amazon Prime’s War of the Worlds, we have one of the most critically derided films released by a streaming service, maybe ever. Not only is it narratively unsound, a visual disappointment, and a poor adaptation of a well-known narrative, but the film as a whole also represents everything film critics, cinephiles, and film historians fear about the state of cinema and its future. This is a film with shameless corporate self-promotion on the part of the streaming service, which shows no appreciation for the material it is adapting or any apprehension about what they might treat their audience to. The Ice Cube-led War of the Worlds film from Amazon is, like you’ve heard, the worst film you’re likely to see this year. It is, at once, both embarrassing and alarming how faulty and ill-conceived it is. 

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The Naked Gun (2025) | REVIEW

Liam Neeson in THE NAKED GUN — PHOTO: Paramount Pictures (Still image from trailers).

Directed by Akiva Schaffer — Screenplay by Dan Gregor, Doug Mand, and Akiva Schaffer.

One of the best pieces of marketing for a film that I’ve seen this year is an ad for The Naked Gun that features Liam Neeson prominently asking viewers to go back to theaters to watch comedy films. At the end of the ad, we hear Liam Neeson do a classic Leslie Nielsen-style fart-machine joke. It is a delightfully silly note to end on, but the message at the heart of the ad rings true. Comedy films have largely been relegated to being streaming fodder. If you want to watch a new comedy film, you’re more likely to find one on Netflix or on Amazon Prime Video than in the movie theaters. For example, Happy Gilmore 2 recently premiered on Netflix, just like the John Cena and Idris Elba vehicle Heads of State premiered on Prime Video. Unfortunately, major comedy stars have flocked to the streaming services and left movie theaters without successful comedies for quite some time. To reignite the spark that would keep comedy movies thriving on the big screen, we now have a reboot or legacy sequel of The Naked Gun, the Leslie Nielsen vehicle from the 80s and 90s, filled with spoof film humor, some of which has become quite iconic. For the legacy sequel, the studio turned to the Lonely Island member Akiva Schaffer, director of Popstar: Never Stop, Never Stopping, as well as producer Seth MacFarlane, with the hopes of finally releasing a good spoof comedy film in the theaters again. Thankfully, with screen legends leading the picture, the reboot of The Naked Gun is a success. It is, undoubtedly, one of the funniest films I’ve seen this year, and I hope it’s the beginning of a new trend where comedy films can once again thrive in theaters.

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Superman Returns (2006) | RETRO REVIEW

Brandon Routh and Kate Bosworth in SUPERMAN RETURNS — PHOTO: Warner Bros. Pictures (Still image from trailers).

Directed by Bryan Singer — Screenplay by Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris.

It seems crazy when you put it like this, but after Superman IV in 1987, we didn’t get to see the Man of Steel on the big screen until 19 years later. In that waiting period, several projects were tinkered with and abandoned, including a fifth Reeve-led Superman film, a Tim Burton-directed and Nicolas Cage-led film titled Superman Lives, and Superman: Flyby, which had people like J.J. Abrams, Brett Ratner, McQ, and various actors attached before it was eventually let go. But in 2006, we finally got a new big-screen Superman with X-Men director Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns, which received a decent-enough critical reception despite the fact that Roger Ebert gave it a negative review. I’ve always been quite underwhelmed by the film, and I had hoped that my latest rewatch could change my stance on the film, but, unfortunately, I still think this film is a little bit of a dud.

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The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) | REVIEW

The Thing, the Invisible Woman, Mr. Fantastic, and the Human Torch in THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS — PHOTO: Marvel Studios / Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures (Still image from trailers).

Directed by Matt Shakman (WandaVision) — Screenplay by Josh Friedman (Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes), Eric Pearson (Thunderbolts*), Jeff Kaplan, and Ian Springer.

Although the Avengers are today the most well-known superhero group, even though the X-Men dominated the big screen in the 2000s, it was, in actuality, the Fantastic Four that were the original Marvel Comics team. Though Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created the Fantastic Four and found great popularity for the team often referred to as the ‘First Family,’ the team of four has long struggled to find the same success on the big screen that the Avengers and X-Men have enjoyed. Prior to this new live-action attempt at making a successful Fantastic Four film, there were four other films, none of which found success with fans and critics. There was the 1990s Roger Corman-produced, low-budget, and unreleased adaptation, then Tim Story got to release two fairly campy films about Marvel’s First Family in the mid-2000s both of which were largely dismissed by critics, before Chronicle-director Josh Trank got to sit in the director’s chair for 20th Century Fox’s Razzie Award-winning dark and gritty reboot, which Trank, notably, disowned publicly on Social Media during its week of release. It seems that it isn’t all that simple to make a good film about four of Marvel’s most iconic characters. Thankfully, this latest attempt succeeds where prior films failed. The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a strong superhero film that possesses a strong audiovisual identity and aesthetic, and it also does a good job of honoring the characters and the original creators. 

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