With a new film in theaters titled Superman, now feels like an appropriate time to take a closer look at the primary films that inspired it, namely the Christopher Reeve era of Superman films in the 1970s and 1980s. Below you’ll find reviews of both Superman: The Movie, Superman II, Superman III, and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. But, as a special treat, I’ve also reviewed the 2006 Richard Donner cut of Superman II.
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Directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson — Screenplay by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson and Sam Lansky.
I often mention that my parents let my sister and me watch horror films when we were very young. We grew up watching and enjoying many of these, including especially the Kevin Williamson-written slasher flicks Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. Luckily, subsequent sequels and later legacy sequels of Scream have been very satisfying experiences for me to watch. Now, they’re trying to resurrect I Know What You Did Last Summer with its own legacy sequel from director (and Thor: Love and Thunder co-writer) Jennifer Kaytin Robinson. However, it pains me to report that, unlike the Scream legacy sequels, I found the reboot of I Know What You Did Last Summer to be a disappointing and often dreadful experience. It’s the movie this year that made me check my watch the most times, and also the worst film I’ve seen in a theater so far in 2025.
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Directed by James Gunn — Screenplay by James Gunn.
I can’t stress enough how significant it is that the first image of the new live-action Superman is of him lying defeated in the snow, in need of healing and a pick-me-up, and, importantly, bleeding out of his mouth due to all the fighting he has just been through. It is an immediate act of flipping the switch on the modern cinematic understanding of what and who Superman is. When Marvel Studios launched a cinematic universe at the same time that Christopher Nolan was making self-contained and critically lauded Batman films for DC, they gradually set in motion a trend that Warner Bros. was eager to imitate. The head honchos at the studio gave filmmaker Zack Snyder the keys to their comic book movie empire, and, with his epic but divisive Man of Steel, he gave us a Superman born of a gritty, slow-mo heavy universe wherein he was presented as an Alien with god-like powers that was often paired with Christ-like imagery. Snyder notably had a character ask the godlike alien with an ‘S’ on his chest: “Tell me, do you bleed?”
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Directed by Gareth Edwards (Godzilla; The Creator) — Screenplay by David Koepp (Jurassic Park; Black Bag).
Despite Jurassic World: Dominion being met with horrendous critical reception, the film still made $1 billion at the box office, as the franchise appears to be critic-proof. Therefore, even though Dominion was marketed as the ‘conclusion to the Jurassic era,’ Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment fast-tracked a sequel that is here only three years after the release of the previous film. To kick off a new chapter of the Jurassic era, so to speak, the producers turned to Scarlett Johansson to be the new face of the franchise and hired Godzilla and Rogue One‘s Gareth Edwards to take on the directing duties. Even if you felt burned out on the film series following Fallen Kingdom and Dominion, you have to admit that the hiring of Johansson and Edwards — the former a world-renowned thespian and the latter a director known for his understanding of scale and visual effects-heavy filmmaking — was to be seen as good news. Indeed, their film together, Jurassic World: Rebirth, is a definite step in the right direction, as there’s a lot to like about it. That said, given some of its issues, I’m still not sure if it is a big enough step for it to be particularly noteworthy or praiseworthy.
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Directed by Colin Trevorrow — Screenplay by Emily Carmichael and Colin Trevorrow.
Jurassic Park came out the year I was born. I grew up watching that masterpiece and Steven Spielberg’s sequel, The Lost World, over and over again. Heck, despite Joe Johnston’s Jurassic Park III not being particularly good, I still think about that movie all the time and have a lot of fun with it. So, why did this Jurassic Park fan not bother watching Jurassic World: Dominion when it was released theatrically or even review it until this point? Honestly, despite the fact that I liked 2015’s Jurassic World on first viewing and reviewed it favorably, I thought Fallen Kingdom was a low point for the film series and that it made decisions that took the franchise and turned it into something far less interesting than it should be. However, I was hopeful that said film’s ending would signal an interesting sequel, given it opened up dinosaurs to the entire world, but when I heard the negative word-of-mouth upon Jurassic World: Dominion‘s release, I felt incredibly deflated and had no desire to go and see it. That said, now that Gareth Edwards has released his attempt at a Jurassic Park sequel — with Jurassic World: Rebirth — I thought now was a good time to rip off the band-aid and finally review Dominion, which I, honestly, thought was a catastrophic attempt at a sequel.
Continue reading “Jurassic World: Dominion (2022) | REVIEW”
Directed by Tom Kingsley — Screenplay by Colin Trevorrow, Derek Connolly, Ben Ashenden, and Alexander Owen.
Tom Kingsley’s Deep Cover is a crime comedy film about a group of improvisational comedy performers who are hired to use their talents to go undercover in London’s criminal underworld. The film follows Kat Boyles (played by Bryce Dallas Howard), an improv teacher, Marlon (played by Orlando Bloom), a struggling method actor, and Hugh (played by Nick Mohammed), a socially awkward IT worker, who has joined Kat’s comedy group to improve his communication skills and make friends. Their involvement with law enforcement begins when Kat is approached by Detective Sergeant Graham Billings (played by Sean Bean) following one of her comedy shows. Although their first attempt at improvising undercover has some rough edges, they soon find that they’re so convincing that it may get them into trouble.
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Directed by Danny Boyle (Yesterday) — Screenplay by Alex Garland (Annihilation).
Nowadays, we’re inundated with zombie, or zombie-adjacent, entertainment, which, once upon a time, was popularized by George A. Romero. But before The Last of Us and before The Walking Dead, there was an early 2000s zombie movie revival — e.g., the Resident Evil film adaptation, Shaun of the Dead, and 28 Days Later — the effects, influence, and iconography of which are still being felt to this day. Two of the primary voices in this revival — though I doubt they thought of themselves as such — were Danny Boyle and Alex Garland, the director and writer, respectively, of 28 Days Later. Here was a film, which was filmed in the UK at the time of the 9/11 attacks in the US, about civilization breaking down, about how quickly we can be turned into people blinded by rage, and about how important it is to hold on to our humanity. Now, 23 years later, following both Brexit and the COVID-19 outbreak and lockdown, Garland and Boyle have re-teamed to continue the story of the rage-virus that shook their world and humanity’s varied response to it with 28 Years Later. It’s one of the most anticipated genre films of the year, but does it live up to all the buildup? Well, I really like this film, but, due to certain elements that are sure-to-be divisive, I think it’s only fair to say that the answer must be a tentative ‘yes and no.’ Let’s dive in.
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Directed by Sean Byrne — Screenplay by Nick Lepard.
Dangerous Animals is a survival horror shark film from Aussie director Sean Byrne that follows a female American drifter surfer named Zephyr (played by Hassie Harrison), who, after a romantic encounter with a young Aussie real estate agent (Moses, played by Josh Heuston), has cold feet and skedaddles away to to a beach to surf, without saying goodbye. However, before she can catch the waves late at night, she runs into Tucker (played by Jai Courtney), an eccentric Aussie boat captain who makes money taking tourists out to swim with sharks in cage dives. However, Tucker is not a friendly stranger, as he actually abducts Zephyr and traps her on his boat. It turns out that Tucker is a sadistic murderer who gets off on videotaping people getting eaten alive by sharks. While Zephyr tries to escape the boat, Moses partakes in an official search for the woman whom he was smitten by.
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Directed by Dan Trachtenberg — Screenplay by Micho Robert Rutare.
With 2022’s Prey, 10 Cloverfield Lane director Dan Trachtenberg proved himself capable of shepherding the Predator franchise and steering it in a new and exciting direction. Now, in 2025, Trachtenberg’s next moves with the iconic sci-fi horror action film series are coming our way. This November, his second live-action Predator-film, Predator: Badlands, is set to premiere theatrically, but if you’re jonesing for more Trachtenberg-Predator goodness right now, then you’ll be happy to know that Disney+/Hulu just released a brand new Predator from Trachtenberg that is unlike anything you’ve ever seen from this franchise, given the fact that it is actually a fully animated film. That may not sound like the ideal way to tell these stories, but, in actuality, Trachtenberg has, with Predator: Killer of Killers, used the medium to pull off some genuine wish-fulfillment Predator movie moments that are exactly as out there and as gory as you could possibly like.
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Directed by Jesse Armstrong — Screenplay by Jesse Armstrong.
How do you follow up the wild success of audience and critic-favorite Succession, which earned its creator, Jesse Armstrong, four Emmys (one for each season) for writing? Jesse Armstrong opted for an HBO film, Mountainhead, that, although not explicitly connected to the universe of Succession, feels somewhat related to the corporate, capitalist, and inheritance satire that put him on the map globally. However, though it occasionally does capture the right feeling of that show, Mountainhead doesn’t quite manage to say anything new.
Continue reading “Mountainhead (2025) | REVIEW”
I'm Jeffrey Rex 