SPOILER TALK: A Deep Dive into Spider-Man: Brand New Day

 I confess: while it was always a given that I was going to watch Spider-Man: Brand New Day when it came out in theaters, I was among those who figured that there was no way Marvel Studios was going to top the spectacle of putting three Spider-Men in one movie that they did with Spider-Man: No Way Home. I was happy to be proven wrong when Marvel did exactly that, by taking a completely different approach.

As I have said in my review, I loved Destin Daniel Cretton's extremely kinetic approach to storytelling, from using mostly practical effects like having in camera swinging done using rigs to staging some truly amazing fight sequences using wire fu.  I also appreciate how Marvel actually took note of fan feedback on this one; putting Tom Holland in a physical suit rather than painting over him with computer-generated imagery. 

While these little details did a lot to enhance my enjoyment of this film, what really sealed the deal for me was just how coherently Cretton and his crew told this story, hitting the emotional beats with near perfection.   Even though Spider-Man had to share the screen with three other major comic book characters, namely the Punisher, the Hulk and Jean Grey, each and every one of them fit into the context of the story, and unlike, say, No Way Home where the plot had to stretch credulity a bit just to yank Doctor Strange out of the narrative when he needed to be gone, here the participation of each character felt well-thought out. 

Though their dynamic here is different from what it was in the comics, this story effectively reminds folks that before achieving iconic status as a murderous vigilante, the Punisher was actually introduced in the pages of "The Amazing Spider-Man" as an anti-hero, so it's a bit poetic that his return to the big screen for the first time in almost twenty years is through a Spider-Man movie. 

Now, the inclusion of the Hulk in the film could have felt gratuitous, especially since we know that this film would feature a throwdown between the two Marvel icons, but again, Bruce Banner is worked quite sensibly and logically into the script, and even his eventual exit makes sense in a way that Doctor Strange's from the last film quite honestly did not.  

Then, of course, there was the masterstroke of introducing one of the founding X-Men in a Spider-Man movie, none other than Jean Grey, who was (apparently) originally conceived in the writer's room as a "young telepath" before Marvel eventually decided on her character. The intent, according to reports, was for the villain to be a misguided teenager to serve as a foil to Peter.  There are few characters lonelier and more alienated from society after all, than the X-Men, so having Peter face off against one of them, and lead her to basically change her worldview, worked pretty smoothly. This doesn't result in Spider-Man feeling like a guest star in his own film, fortunately, which was something that could very easily have happened with this many other heroes in the mix. 

I want to take this opportunity to pat Marvel on the back for having learned an important lesson from one of its biggest marketing mistakes. Though it's often said that the identify of Sadie Sink's character was one of the worst kept secrets in Hollywood, at no point did either Sony or Marvel ever crack and admit who Sadie Sink was.  This was brilliant of them. This was quite a departure from featuring the Hulk quite prominently in the marketing for Thor: Ragnarok even though the story for that film clearly indicated his appearance was meant to be a surprise.  

There has been quite a bit of commentary about how Jean wasn't made to answer for her acts of villainy throughout the story, and although I don't want to dismiss these claims, I still respectfully disagree that this sours the narrative. For one thing, after Jean's capture, we see her getting tortured by Damage Control, the people who grabbed and eventually killed her sister. This is basically the kind of thing that would really set someone on the path she chose with her life.  This is someone who has lived for years on the run without any form of parental care, whose only guiding light was snatched away from her in broad daylight. Peter's act of kindness towards her is the first she has probably seen in years, and it's worth pointing out that she's basically just a kid. So no, I wouldn't really have been keen for the story to end with her behind bars, especially since probably the only prison that could contain her would probably require superhuman restraint.  Regardless of how she is written, though, I feel Sadie Sink truly killed it as this character, and she has really set the standard for how the X-Men should be cast. 

There are other aspects of the story that I found interesting, though, that nobody seems to want to talk about. The inclusion of the ninja clan the Hand, for example, felt a bit out of left field, and prompted speculation from a whole segment of fandom (myself included) that their presence, as well as the Punisher's AND a character from Daredevil: Born Again, meant that we were getting another appearance from Matt Murdock, who famously appeared in No Way Home as "a really good lawyer."  Unfortunately, this was not the case, and it seems that the only purpose for the Hand to show up was to provide a show-stopping fight sequence.  I wouldn't say I'm complaining, but as a fan of both comic-book and MCU Daredevil I was disappointed not to see him here. 

The other Jean in the story that folks aren't really talking about, however, could be quite significant for Peter's story in the next couple of films, because Detective Jean De Wolff, in the comics, is arguably most famous for the story arc "The Death of Jean De Wolff."  It's a death that affects Peter quite deeply in the comics and eventually ties into the introduction of the character Venom.  The thought of DeWolff dying in the MCU seems particularly tragic given that this iteration has children, but it seems that her eventual demise was the specific reason for which her character was introduced. It also might not be the case considering that the comics version of Ned Leeds also died and that hasn't happened here, but let's just see what future films may bring. 

Prior to the heart-wrenching events in No Way Home, MCU Spider-Man films were conspicuously light in tone. Uncle Ben's death is never explicitly mentioned in any of the films, with Aunt May's death eventually superseding it, especially given that she says the iconic line often attributed to him: "With great power, there must also come great responsibility."  It seems, though, that there really is no turning back, even for a film aimed primarily at kids. In the "Home" trilogy, perhaps killing off someone like Jean DeWolff would have seemed unthinkable, but now, all bets are off.  Weirdly, this new darker, more grounded tone, which is quite the departure from most of the previous trilogy, works for the character at this stage of his journey.   I find myself particularly impressed as it's not necessarily the most family-friendly direction in which to take this franchise, either but I am more than willing to see where this leads.  I hope they keep Destin Daniel Cretton on Team Spidey for years to come! 

   

Superhero Fatigue, My @$$: A Review of Spider-Man: Brand New Day

 directed by Destin Daniel Cretton

written by Erik Sommers and Chris McKenna

After the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home, in which Peter Parker asks Doctor Strange to erase him from everyone's memory to prevent a cataclysmic collision of different worlds, I was always interested to see what was going to come next for the character. He ended that film and starts this one with absolutely no one; his aunt has died, and all of his friends and even acquaintances have no idea he even exists. Literally the only thing left is his life as Spider-Man, and on Spider-Man: Brand New Day, we get to see exactly what that's like for him.

The film starts where the last one ended, with Peter Parker (Tom Holland) living alone in a dingy New York apartment from which he operates as Spider-Man, with homemade tech presumably fished out of dumpsters or bought online.  The closest thing he has to a friend is NYPD Detective Jean de Wolff (Liza Colon Zayas) who supports his crime fighting, even if she's never seen his face.  Peter's pretty much immersed in his life as Spider-Man at this point (though it's at least hinted that he has a job working at Delmar's bodega), with his only guilty pleasure being video reels of his former best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) and his former girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) as they navigate life at MIT.  Before Peter knows it, they have graduated and moved back to New York.  He cannot help himself; as he crashes a party they attend, but neither of them remembers him. Loneliness is hard enough to bear, but then Peter's homemade AI named EV (Naomi Watts) detects disturbing changes in his physiology; his spider DNA has begun to assert itself in new, extreme ways, like enhanced strength and organic webs. To top it all off, Peter finds himself facing a new, unseen menace: someone who can jump into people's minds at will, and who will apparently stop at nothing to break into Damage Control, no matter who gets hurt. Will the help of Professor Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) be enough to help to rein in Peter's increasingly dangerous power, and will the help of Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal) be enough to help Spidey take down this mysterious new villain? 

Since opening around the world last Wednesday, this movie has been shattering box office records left and right, with reviewers and box-office numbers crunchers alike talking about it nonstop. I don't know what I can write that hasn't already been written elsewhere, other than to say I loved this film.

To be clear, I thoroughly enjoyed Jon Watt's "Home" trilogy of films, warts and all.  They each told coherent standalone stories that didn't require encyclopedic knowledge of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, even though they featured other characters from that universe. In all of those, Watts knew how to coax some pretty engaging performance from his cast of mostly young actors. The thing is, though, that as competent as these films were, they did not quite stand out from a craftmanship perspective.

This movie, in that sense, is truly a breath of fresh air. Everything from the practical costume that Peter wears (as opposed to the CGI ones from the previous movies) to the meticulous stunt work and fight choreography to the more saturated color grading marks a noted shift from Marvel's infamous desaturated house style.   Director Cretton paints a prettier picture than Watts ever did.   These are, first and foremost, action movies, and Cretton, who had previously directed Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings, brings all of his experience on that exemplary martial arts film to bear here, and recruits a Hong-Kong-based stunt crew set up by no less than Jackie Chan to help frame the action. It also helps that Cretton also had a whole lot of Spidey-philes on his crew, people who went then extra mile to capture Spider-Man's most iconic visual moments, from recreating classic comic book covers to designing a swinging style that is, quite frankly, outstanding, and unlike anything that's been seen in the MCU before.  

Better still, however, Cretton has a script that from series veterans Chris McKenna and Eric Sommers (with a helping hand from Holland himself) that allows him to bring the absolute best out of his actors, especially Holland, who apart from his obvious A-game, brings his years of experience with this character to the table, imbuing him with a sense of pathos that we've never seen from Peter  Parker before.  The supporting cast gets a chance to shine, too, and it's really the relationships between the characters that truly drives the story forward, from Spidey's bickering with the Punisher or exchanging pleasantries with DeWolff. 

Of course, the central relationship of the story is between Peter and MJ...or more precisely, the memory of that relationship and how its basically torments Peter. It's hard to go into the specifics of how this plays out without spoiling plot details, but suffice it to say that Peter and MJ benefit tremendously from Holland's and Zendaya's chemistry as real-life spouses and from topnotch acting from the pair of them. It's beautiful and painful to behold. 

This was a really great time at the movies for me, and I absolutely want to see it again. 

10/10 

Worth All the Fuss: A Review of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey

 written and directed by Christopher Nolan

inspired by the poem by Homer

I honestly would not have had "controversial Christopher Nolan film" on my bingo card, as nearly every movie the British filmmaker has made since his breakout film Memento at the turn of the millennium has been received with near-universal anticipation and acclaim, with the possible exception of his third "Batman" movie. There has been so much noise surrounding his latest film, an adaptation of Homer's epic poem "The Odyssey"  that it was honestly hard to watch the film without being even just a little bit affected by it, but I gave it the old college try.

Well, I liked it.  I can't rate how well it adapts the source material, never having read Homer's poem, but I definitely appreciated it as a story.

The story, in a nutshell, is about the journey home of Odysseus (Matt Damon) from Troy, where he helped Agamemnon (Benny Safdie) wage a ten-year war against the Trojans, ostensibly for stealing his sister-in-law Helen (Lupita N'yongo) from his brother Menelaus (Jon Bernthal) but really in furtherance of his own ambitions. The war has scarred Odysseus, and even though his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway), his son Telemachus (Tom Holland) his loyal servant Eumaeus (John Leguizamo) have been waiting for him for twenty years, he still can't find his way home because of how deeply he has been affected. In fact, for several years he's been held prisoner by both his own personal trauma and the bewitching Calypso (Charlize Theron) who has kept him enthralled with lotus flowers, even as he struggles to remember the many terrifying adventures has had since leaving Troy which ultimately left him marooned with Calypso. Odysseus desperately need to hurry home, though, as a gaggle of suitors led by the slimy Antinous (Robert Pattinson) simply will not leave Penelope alone until he either returns or she chooses one of them.

For me, the film, which clocks in at three hours, took a while to get going, but once it did, it had me completely engrossed all the way to the end. There have been a number of critiques on the storytelling, and there are valid criticisms of this film, but for my money it was an effective piece of narrative, with remarkable attention to craft.  The film looks great, and Nolan's dedication to realizing the story's more fantastical scenes using practical effects rather than the ever-ubiquitous computer-generated imagery are much appreciated.  

For me, the film's real strength, though, comes from its actors. Particular standouts for me were Damon as Odysseus, Himesh Patel as his right hand Eurylochus, and John Leguizamo as Eumaeus, but there were strong performances all around...yes...even with the American accents.  I can admit the dialogue felt a little strange at times, but in most cases, the cast carried the story with utter conviction.  Samantha Morton as the creepy Circe was another particularly remarkable performance for me. 

Could the film have been better? Well, as I said, the first part dragged quite a bit and it could have been shorter, but as it was, I enjoyed watching this film and would certainly recommend it. 

9/10

Could Have Been Better, Could Have Been Worse: A Review of Supergirl

 directed by Craig Gillespie

written by Ana Noguiera

based on "Woman of Tomorrow" by Tom King and Bilquis Evely

This movie was already on my radar from the time the trailer dropped last year, but for some reason, I found myself even more interested in watching it when a particularly toxic section of fandom decided that it was a terrible movie before it even came out, clinging on to every tidbit of negative news that came out about the movie and gleefully prognosticating its failure at the box office.  What really sealed the deal, though, was when I picked up the collected edition of the "Woman of Tomorrow" miniseries, or the first ever Supergirl comic I had aver actually read.  I knew I had to check this movie out.

Having seen it, I can say while I definitely enjoyed it, there was actually more to the criticism than misogyny and rage-bait.  

Like the story it adapts, the film tells the story of Kara Zor-El (Milly Alcock) aka Supergirl, traveling to a solar system with a red sun in order to cancel out her super powers so that she can get drunk, something she can't do in Earth's solar system with its yellow sun.  Kara is both celebrating her birthday and continuing to mourn the loss of her planet, Krypton, and just wants to drown her sorrows in alcohol with her faithful dog, Krypto, by her side. Unfortunately, her quest to get drunk gets disrupted when a young woman named Ruthye (Eve Ridley) approaches her, asking her to avenge her family against the brigand Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts). Kara refuses at first, but in a whirlwind of events, Krem steals Kara's ship (which she needs for space travel when she's depowered), and shoots Krypto with a deadly poison, with Krem carrying the antidote on his person.  Kara then finds herself joining Ruthye on her quest to find Krem, albeit for different reasons altogether. Will she be able to save Krypto? Will Ruthye get her revenge, or will Krem and his fearsome brigands prove to be too much, even for Supergirl?

As someone who likes to end my reviews on a high note, though, I'll delve into the negatives first. 

It's honestly such a cliche by now to deride "Marvel humor" as a storytelling negative. When done well, it can help give life to excellent films like the first Iron Man film and the Guardians of the Galaxy films. It just requires the filmmaker to balance the humor and the seriousness of the film, and unfortunately, in this case, director Craig Gillespie and writer Ann Noguiera just don't quite strike that balance. 

Supergirl actually tackles some pretty heady themes, like the pain of loss and grief, and could in the hands of better storytellers, served up a pretty powerful narrative, but the human drama is frequently undercut by humor that borders on bathos at times, and even though Milly Alcock gives a sterling performance as Kara and Eve Ridley is a bit of a revelation as Ruthye, most of the rest of the cast just seems to phone it in, especially Schoenaerts as Krem, who, despite his character having a much more striking visual design than the comic-book villain on which he was based, feels like one of those generic space goons that Rocket Racoon would have shot dead in a Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Visually, the film has a western aesthetic, but it really didn't come close to capturing the beauty of Bilquis Evely's artwork.  

Then, unfortunately, there's utterly gratuitous and quite frankly superfluous cameo by popular DC character Lobo, played here by Jason Momoa who appears to have made the jump from the Snyderverse to the Gunn-verse.  He wasn't in the original "Woman of Tomorrow" series and it's painfully obvious that his presence  here is nothing more than poorly-executed fan service.  

All that said, I still enjoyed this movie thanks to Alcock's and Ridley's performances, and some glimpses at the world-building going on here, specially Kara's flashbacks to Krypton. Again, I appreciate that Gunn's DC Universe has actually developed a Kryptonian language, and I quite like David Krumholtz as Zor-El, Kara's father, who is basically the benevolent Kryptonian patriach that previous incarnations of Superman's father Jor-El used to be.  Even speaking in a completely made-up language, Krumholtz is still able to convey the kind of compassion that would inspire his daughter to take up a life of heroism, no matter how difficult it might be.  Those scenes, to my mind, gave me a glimpse of how much better this movie could have been, so it's hard to dismiss it altogether. 

There's a better movie that could have been made from the ingredients that went into this one, but unfortunately, this was what we got. Still, I managed to enjoy it. 

7/10

This is How You Do It: A Review of Masters of the Universe

 directed by Travis Knight

written by Christ Butler, Aaron Nee, Adam Nee, and Dave Callaham (screenplay) and Alex Litvak and Michael Finch (story) 

There's something strange (to me) about having strong nostalgic feelings for a cartoon from the 1980s which was created to sell a toy line despite never having owned a single toy from that line.  That said, Amazon Prime/MGM Studios' live-action adaptation of the popular 80s sword-and-sorcery franchise Masters of the Universe was among my must see films for 2026.  

The film begins with Adam Glenn (Nicholas Galitzine) a worker in a human resources, reminiscing wistfully about where he's really from: the fantastical world of Eternia. where as a child (Artie Wilkinson-Hunt) he lived with his parents, King Randor (James Purefoy) and Queen Marlena (Charlotte Riley) and their subjects. Adam struggles to live up become the man his father thinks he should be, even as the king's man-at-arms Duncan (Idris Elba) tries to train him and his best friend, Duncan's daughter Teela (Eire Farrell) tries to encourage him, but all of that is forgotten when Skeletor (Jared Leto) and his minions attack, in search of the mystical power of Eternos located in the mysterious Castle Grayskull, which is guarded by the Sorceress (Morena Baccarin).  With Eternia's forces overwhelmed, the Sorceress and Queen Marlena cast Adam and the sword of power, key to unlocking the power of Eternos, into a portal that takes Adam to Earth, where he's been trapped ever since, unable to leave without the Sword of Power, which he lost in transit. When, after years of searching, Adam finally finds the Sword of Power at a hobby store, he seizes it, hoping to be instantly transported home. What happens instead is a series of harrowing events that involves him being chased by one of Skeletor's minions, rescued by the now grown-up Teela (Camilla Mendes) and taken home to Eternia, which, he discovers, has turned into a desolate wasteland under Skeletor's rule. Will Adam and his friends be able to unlock the secrets held by the Sword of Power to bring peace back to Eternia, or is the might of Skeletor simply too much for them?

I was a huge fan of its director, Travis Knight, who has delivered two memorable films for me, namely 2016's animated film Kubo and the Two Strings, and the only truly decent live-action Transformers movie to date, 2018's Bumblebee.  I walked in expecting a nice, light and frothy nostalgia trip, callbacks galore, and people running around in brightly colored costumes. I'm happy to report that I was not disappointed. For me, the filmmakers knew exactly what kind of tone they had to go for to make this story work, which is completely goofy and irreverent. After all, we're talking about a film based on a toy line involving sword-wielding barbarians and spaceships. There was no way to pull this off without dollops of self-awareness and self-deprecating humor, and while there are a number of jokes that don't quite land, I am convinced this was still very much the way to go.

It helps that, for all of the silly dialogue and story contrivances, none of the actors in this movie is phoning in it. Nicholas Galitzine shines as Adam, with some wonderful earnestness and some pretty great comic timing, while Jared Leto does some delightful scenery chewing as Skeletor, very much going for the mustache-twirling bad guy, complete with the British accent. Idris Elba does a surprising, somewhat against-type turn against Duncan, who has a surprising bit of a character arc in this film. Camilla Mendes delights as Teela; not only is she easy on the eyes but she has some pretty serious action chops as well as great chemistry with both Galitzine and Elba. Alison Brie is quite fun as Skeletor's right-hand Evil Lyn but could have been so much more if the script had only let her. 

For all the silliness in the script, apart from some really solid acting, this movie boasts some pretty impressive  production value as well. The fight scenes are well-staged, the color-grading is nice and vibrant, and the music score by Daniel Pemberton which even features Queen guitarist Brian May is simply magnificent, with just the right amount of drama and 80s vibes.  There are a few needle-drop moments that are completely on-point.

This is the kind of movie that's easy to pick apart upon closer analysis, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself as to my mind, it did exactly what it was supposed to do; tickle the audience's nostalgia bone and provide heaping servings of some good, silly fun.  If I had nitpicks, it would be that the movie was a touch too long, and that at least one the jokes (the one involving a character's name) was repeated to the point of wearing out its welcome, but that's about it. I really wasn't expecting high art, and this movie delivered on my modest expectations. 

For  ANYONE who enjoyed the 80s cartoon or played with the toys, this is definitely for you.

9/10     

Space Buddies: A Review of Project Hail Mary

 directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller 

written by Drew Goddard

based on the book by Andy Weir

As one of the more hyped-up movies of 2026, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller's Project Hail Mary had a lot to live up to, as an adaptation of the best-selling book by Andy Weir, who also penned the book The Martian, which was adapted by Ridley Scott with much success about a decade ago.  The good news for me is that this film pretty much lived up to the hype.

The film opens with a disheveled man (Ryan Gosling) waking up in deep space to discover that he is the sole survivor of a manned space mission with no memory of who is or how he got there. As he slowly wakes up he remembers that he is Dr. Ryland Grace, a mild-mannered, middle-school science teacher who, after one of his classes, was approached by government agent Eva Stratton (Sandra Huller), with a mission to save the sun from a mysterious phenomenon that seems to be consuming it.  The phenomenon has been dubbed the Petrova line, a trail of organisms stretching the sun to the planet Venus, filled with some kind of creatures that eat stars. Ultimately, the solution that Earth's best and brightest have come up with is to have astronauts travel to a distant star, 11 light years away from Earth, which also has a Petrova line but is not dimming, as the sun is.   As Grace remembers more and more of how he ended up here, so far away from home, he is startled by the discover that someone else, in another ship, from another planet, has traveled to exactly the same place. He will soon discover that they are there for the same reason, and that they need to cooperate if their worlds are to have any chance of survival. Fortunately, Grace and his new colleague, whom he names "Rocky" after his stone-like appearance, hit it off pretty quickly, but they'll need more than just good vibes to save the day: they'll need ingenuity, courage, and the willingness to basically lay it all on the line. 

I loved The Martian, so when the trailer for this film dropped, it was an easy call to go check it out at the nearest movie theater.   

Like The Martian, which was also adapted by screenwriter Drew Goddard, this movie features an affable, relatable lead character in Ryland Grace, who is very much out of his element as an academic who has been sent on a deep space mission for reasons that we, the audience, only discover quite late in the film. He's an ordinary man thrust into extraordinary circumstances, and his journey is utterly compelling. Ryan Gosling does a brilliant job of playing Grace as an everyman, even though he actually holds a doctorate in molecular biology.  He basically carries the film on his shoulders, as his co-star Rocky is part puppet, part digital effect and part voice actor (James Ortiz). It helps, though, that his earthbound co-star Sandra Huller plays an effective "straight" man to Grace's wisecracking schoolteacher. Lord and Miller do an outstanding job of exploiting the chemistry between their actors, which is not the easiest thing to do in film like this, with such limited human interaction. 

Visually, the movie is a treat, with art direction and visual effects which still manage to give the film its own distinct aesthetic at a time when science fiction movies set in space like Dune and the Star Wars film have already thrown down the gauntlet in terms of how space should look on the big screen. 

For me, though, the technical standout of this film was Daniel Pemberton's soaring musical score. Even though it admittedly felt slightly heavy-handed at times, it was wonderfully evocative and, like the film's unique visual design (best exemplified by Rocky's ship), it really made sure the movie was its own thing, and not just some redux of the astronaut-in-peril trope that we've seen fairly often over the last decade or so (e.g. Gravity, Interstellar, The Martian, to name a few).   The movie's strongest selling point, for me at least, is its humanity, which is embodied in the bond between Grace and Rocky. Kudos therefore go out not just to Gosling but to the team of puppeteers, effects artists and the voice actor who gave him something palpable to play off, even when he was probably just talking to a tennis ball.

It's not often I say this about a science fiction movie, but it's something that the whole family can enjoy. There's no swearing, sex or extreme violence, and thematically, it's actually got the kind of values that parents would want their young children to imbibe like selflessness. So in short, to the Gen-Xers and millennials worried about where to leave their kids, rest assured, you can take them to see this with you.  That said, at two hours and thirty-seven minutes, it does run a tad long. 

 When I rewatched The Martian on DVD years  after I had enjoyed it in theaters, I was pleased to see how well it had aged.  I am pretty sure I'll be able to say the same thing about this movie. 

10/10  

Animals on the Court: A Review of Goat

 directed by Tyree Dillihay

written by Aaron Buchsbaum, Teddy Riley, Nicolas Curcio and Peter Chiarelli

Since Sony Pictures Animation basically rewrote the animation rulebook with 2018's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, they've just gone from strength to strength with one outstanding film after another, with last year's KPop Demon Hunters adding to their Oscar trophy cabinet with not just one but two Oscars, including their first-ever Best Original Song Oscar. Their offbeat story choices and their now signature animation style have pretty much cemented their position as one of the animation industry's major players.

As a result, I guess it's inevitable that they'd eventually come up with a movie that was basically just "OK."

The film Goat, the title of which is basically a play on the sports acronym GOAT or "Greatest Of All Time" centers around an anthropomorphic young goat named Will Harris (Caleb McLaughlin), who lives in a Zootopia-like world populated by anthopormorphic animals, and who aspires to play roarball, his world's equivalent of basketball, albeit a much more extreme version. His big dream is to play for the Vineland Thorns like his hero, Jett Filmore (Gabrielle Union). He's a talented shooter, but as a "small" animal, he'll never be accepted in a league where only the "big" thrive.   This changes, however, when a video where he plays streetball and scores against one of roarball's most respected players, Mane Event (Aaron Pierre) goes viral, and Thorns team owner Flo (Jenifer Lewis), sees an opportunity to spruce up the Thorns, that have yet to win a championship (called a "Claw" here) basically because Jett is a complete ballhog.  Flo recruits will as a sixth player, and he joins Jett and her teammates, the giraffe Lenny (Steph Curry, yes THAT Steph Curry), rhinoceros Archie (David Harbour), ostrich Olivia (Nicola Coughlan), and komodo dragon Modo (Nick Kroll). It's an uphill battle for Will, who is constantly bullied by Jett and who can't even count on the proboscis monkey coach Dennis (Patton Oswalt), so he basically has to make his own breaks. Through his sheer grit and plucky spirit, however, Will may yet show the Thorns the value of teamwork, and take them into uncharted territory.

As that little blurb suggests, the film is basically loaded with sports underdog movie cliches, and is completely okay with that. So am I, to be frank, especially since they bring their patented visual flair to the game, and some pretty enjoyable voice acting. The animal world this crowd of animals moves in is no Zootopia clone; it's rough and tumble and pretty "extreme" in it s orientation, even more so when the various animals are facing off in the roarball court.  The whole thing really is a treat, especially when watching it with one's kids. 

Maybe down the line I could see myself calling Sony Animation out for making movies like this, but for now, this is just fine. 

 

8/10

Yet Another Missed Opportunity: A (VERY LATE) Review of Wake Up, Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

 written and directed by Rian Johnson

As someone who considers himself a fan of Rian Johnson's "Knives Out" movies, I'm a little sheepish to admit that I didn't catch this latest one, Wake, Up, Dead Man, until several months after its release on Netflix, and I'm even more embarrassed to admit that I haven't gotten around to reviewing it until just now. I'll explain why later, but I am glad I eventually caught the latest mystery adventure of Benoit Blanc, played once more with aplomb by Daniel Craig.

Writer-director Rian Johnson takes us to Church for this film, which actually focuses on a different character this time: Catholic priest Fr. Jud Duplenticy, played by an excellent Josh O'Connor.  Fr. Jud's a bit of a hothead, having been a former boxer before joining the priesthood, and his temper still manages to flare up as he punches a deacon and lands in a backwater with a dwindling congregation and a very cantankerous old priest, Father Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin).  Fr. Wicks preaches to a tiny handful of parishioners who include his secretary Martha (Glenn Close), a doctor Nat (Jeremy Renner), washed-up author Lee (Andrew Scott), cutthroat lawyer Vera (Kerry Washington), ailing musician Simone (Cailee Spaenee) and aspiring influencer Cy (Daryl McCormack).  Sparks fly almost instantly when Fr. Jud sets foot in the new parish, with Fr. Wicks determined to provoke him into even more violence with his incendiary words and even physical abuse. When Fr. Wicks mysteriously dies during a mass, as a result, Fr. Jud is an instant suspect, and Benoit Blanc is once again on the case, much to the chagrin of the local sheriff (Mila Kunis).  As always, though, the situation is far more complicated than it appears, and the real killer could have been anyone from among Fr. Wick's remaining parishioners.

More than either of the previous two movies, Wake Up, Dead Man is very much a whodunit, rather than Johnson's social commentary disguised as one, and while Johnson's swipe at religion, as embodied by the very worldly, very corrupt Fr. Wick, was very much expected, the fact that he centers the narrative around the idealistic Fr. Jud and (no spoilers, I promise), makes his crisis of faith a central tenet of how the film's conflicts are resolved is something I would not have expected form a modern Hollywood film.  Benoit Blanc is a supporting character in his own film; this is all about how Fr. Jud navigates the extremely trying time he faces in the film as a murder suspect, and Josh O'Connor truly rises to the occasion with a performance that is just superb in its nuance.

I said earlier that I almost passed this movie up, and it's simply because I am annoyed that it wasn't available on the big screen. These Knives Out movies may not be action extravaganzas, but this is, for me at least the kind of meat-and-potatoes storytelling that deserves a good, long run in movie theaters. Decisions like Netflix's call to keep this almost exclusively to their streaming service with a token theatrical release make me so very glad that Netflix didn't end up buying Warner Brothers. 

9.5/10

Two More? Really? A Review of Avatar: Fire and Ash

 directed by James Cameron

written by James Cameron, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Josh Friedman and Shane Salerno

This movie made me sad.

James Cameron's new sequel Avatar: Fire and Ash brings viewers back to the world of Pandora, which humans of Earth's Resources  Development Administration  are still trying to colonize, with the native Na'vi race still trying to resist them, with ex-marine-turned-Na'vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) leading the resistance. Leading the attack on the Na'vi's is the cloned Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), whose memories have been uploaded into a Na'vi hybrid as well.  Jake, his wife Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and their family are in grieving following the events of the second film (The Way of Water) in which their son was killed, but things are about to get even more complicated for them. They realize that their adopted son Spider (Jack Champion) cannot live in the Na'vi water tribe in which they have settled because he needs a steady supply of oxygen to be able to breathe, but as they are making the trip back to colony of human settlers they can trust, they are attacked by a new tribe of Na'vi, the Mangkwan, led by the fierce Varang (Oona Chaplin).  Between this new menace and the determination of the RDA to plunder Pandora's resources and wipe out all resistance, Jake and his allies find their backs to the wall once again, unless they can get much needed help from Eywa, the planet's deity.

At first, I was encouraged by the fact that this sequel picked up where the last film left off, with the protagonists still reeling from the events of that film. I thought this meant that we would get a lot of new developments moving forward, and to be fair, we did get some pretty cool additional world-building, like the Wind Trader clan led by David Thewlis' Peylak, as well as the aforementioned Mangkwan tribe. Varang, thanks especially to Oona Chaplin's feral performance, is a promising bad guy at first, who looked like she could add some very interesting new dimensions to the thus-far limited storytelling.

But then, it all went downhill pretty quickly around the end of the middle of the second act, and by the third act, the film has decended into tropes that were not only familiar, but are ripped right out of the first Avatar movie, right down to the late James Horner's music score.  This was not only disappointing, but it was downright tedious, and because I had already been disappointed by The Way of Water, I didn't bother to shell out the premium for the IMAX experience.  I know this meant I didn't get the full sensory experience that the film had to offer, but with a script this limp, not even a feature length 3-D 60fps could have saved this viewing experience for me. Yeah, I know, beautiful visuals, blah blah blah...but adulting is hard, and movies are expensive, so when I shell out money for these movies, I want more than just eye candy. 

The sad part for me was that there was actually potential for things to get interesting, especially with the introduction of Varang. She's a bit of a first for Cameron; the big bad girl. The closest thing we got to a major female antagonist f rom Cameron was Tia Carrere's femme fatale in True Lies, but Varang had the potential to be so much more.  She certainly was a step up from Edie Falco's grossly underdeveloped RDA antagonist, whose fate was almost as laughable as her dialogue was cliche.

The worst part for me was how much of the narrative was anchored around Jack Champion's Spider, who is, hands-down, the worst actor in the whole franchise. His dialogue was rancid enough, despite having been written by three writers, including Cameron himself, but Champion simply cannot act to save his life. This was the kid whom Ant-Man spoke to in Avengers: Endgame, after he emerged from the Quantum Realm, and it's worth pointing out that in those few seconds of screentime Champion managed to act better than he has in two whole Avatar films.   

This film honestly feels like a wasted opportunity; this series--including this film--has had some incredible world-building moments, but for as long as Cameron and his co-writers continue to anchor the narrative on such emphatically uninteresting characters as Jake Sully and now Spider, they won't really amount to anything.

I honestly wonder if Cameron even has any narrative juice left to sustain this franchise over another two movies like he has said he plans to, because if this film is any indication, he doesn't.  

5/10

If It Ain't Broke: A Review of Zootopia 2

directed by Jared Bush and Byron Howard

written by Jared Bush

One of my very favorite movies of 2016 was Walt Disney Animation Studios' original film Zootopia. Set in a fictional world populated entirely by anthropomorphic animals, the film told the story of rookie police offier Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin), a rabbit and her reluctant partner, small-time con Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman), a fox, and how they solved a conspiracy aimed at basically destroying Zootopia.  The film was a smash hit, grossing over a billion dollars worldwide and taking home numerous awards, including the Academy Award for best animated feature film.  A sequel should have been a sure thing, going by Hollywood logic. Bizarrely, it took them nine whole years to make this sequel. 

Whatever the reason for the delay, it seems that the filmmakers took their time to ensure that they could give viewers the best possible experience, and what better way to do that than by...basically making the first film again?

That may sound a touch uncharitable, but as odd as this may sound, I consider it a good thing. Honestly, the film is so similar in its beats to its groundbreaking predecessor that it wouldn't be fair not to point it out. The winks and nods to the first film actually feel like a "welcome back" to the people who loved the first film and are back for more, kind of like what Pixar did with Inside Out 2. It's like coming home after a long time away, or tucking into some really good comfort food. 

Story-wise, even though it's been nine years for us, only a week has passed since Judy and Nick solved the case of the missing mammals and stopped the insidious efforts to foment conflict between the "predator" and "prey" mammals.  Judy and Nick, raring to get back into action, end up botching a sting operation against smugglers, and wreaking a fair bit of property damage all over the city, including the destruction of the statue of Ebenezer Lynxley (a lynx--duh), the mammal credited as having invented the weather walls that make Zootopia habitable to such a wide variety of mammals.  This prompts Chief Bogo (Idris Elba) to put Judy and Nick in "partners' therapy" sessions. However, having recovered a fragment of reptile skin at the site of the smuggling, Judy suspects that something might be afoot at the upcoming "Zootennial" event set to mark 100 years since Zootopia's founding, considering that there haven't been any reptiles since before the founding of Zootopia, when reptiles were basically banished from the mammal community after one of them supposedly murdered a tortoise in an attempt to kill Ebenezer Lynxley.  Judy and Nick show up at the Zootenial gala in disguise where Lynxley's prize journal containing his notes on the weather wall is on display, only for things to go completely bonkers when a snake (Ke Huy Quan) shows up to steal it.  In a flash of chaotic events, Judy and Nick find themselves on the run, in the crosshairs of the the very police force they were sworn to serve, and of the Lynxley clan, headed by Milton (David Strathairn) and including his children Cattrick (Macauley Culkin), Kitty (Brenda Song) and black sheep Pawbert (Andy Samberg).  

Looking at the evidence, Judy has trouble reconciling what she knows of Zootopia's history with what he has just discovered, but she may get a helping hand from, of all people, conspiracy theorist Nibbles Maplestick (Fortune Feimster) a beaver, and her...unusual friends. 

With the odds against them, can Judy and Nick crack the case once more?

 Like the first film, Zootopia 2 has its fair share of twists and turns. It is, after all, a cop movie, complete with a mystery that needs unraveling.  Writing a synopsis without giving anything away is a bit of a challenge and even involves hiding at least one pretty fun celebrity. The good news is that if Disney's main goal was to give viewers a good time, it's pretty much mission accomplished because between the pixel-perfect animation, the riotous humor, the fast-paced action and the generous helpings of fan service, the movie is basically a delightful confection.  Of course, like the first film, it has something to say about things happening in the real world, but unlike the first film, this one has villains who have some very clear parallels in real life.  To be honest, the allegory feels just a little ham-handed this time around.  That said, I really like how the filmmakers added to the already impressive world-building that they had done in the first film while leaving room for plenty more.

Goodwin and Wilde maintain their characters' chemistry from the first film, making me wonder if they had recorded their lines together.  Some welcome additions to the voice cast include Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan and comedienne Fortune Feimster, and Andy Samberg, but of course it's the leads that truly carry the film to its exciting conclusion.  

In the nine years between the first Zootopia and this sequel, I had really started to worry that Disney Animation (and their sibling Pixar) had lost their way considering the films that had come out in that period of time, ranging from strikingly mediocre to downright awful. It therefore comes as a huge relief to me that they are still fully capable of replicating some of their best work, even if it does feel quite a bit familiar.   

9/10

From Slasher to Swashbuckler: A Review of "Predator: Badlands"

 directed by Dan Trachtenberg

written by Patrick Aison and Trachtenberg

I find it mildly amusing that some people look back on the 1987 action/horror film Predator as if it were some kind of high watermark of action cinema.  Personally, I considered it a poor man's Alien,  and the studio's attempts to cash in on the popularity of two things that were huge at the time: a) killer aliens and b) Arnold Schwarzenegger. John McTiernan's testosterone-fueled action-slasher film hybrid was pretty decently-paced but it ultimately was kind of silly.  I do still get a kick out of reciting some of Ah-nuld's lines from the movie, though, like "Come aahh, kill meeh" or the immortal "GET TO DA CHOPPAH!" Beyond that, though I really don't care much for the original movie.

This is why it was no big deal to me that, having failed to recapture that 80s magic with the disastrous 2018 film The Predator, and having experienced some success with director Dan Trachtenberg's TV-only release Prey, which pitted a predator against Native Americans from the 18th-century, the makers of Predator decided to take the franchise in a decidedly different direction, one in which the Predator was actually the hero.

Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is a Yautja (the Predators' race) with ambitions of proving himself a hunter worthy of his clan, and as the film starts he is sparring with his brother Kwei (Mike Homik). Dek declares that he intends to hunt the biggest, fiercest creature known to the Yautja as part of his rite of passage to be declared one of them, and picks the nastiest one known: the Kalisk.  However, Dek's father (Reuben de Jong) is convinced that, as a runt, Dek is better off dead and orders his brother to kill him. However, fraternal love prevails over filial piety and soon Dek is off to the planet of the Kalisk, where he crash lands with a singular mission: to hunt down the Kalisk and bring its head home as a trophy, so he can take his place among the Yautja. It's a daunting task ahead, but Dek discovers that he may have  some help in the form of half a Weyland-Yutani android named Thia  (Elle Fanning), who knows quite a lot of about the fauna of the planet, especially the Kalisk, and offers to help Dek in his hunt. What she doesn't tell him, though, is the reason she was on the planet in the first place, which was how she got her legs severed from the rest of her.  Will Dek be able to fulfill his  quest to secure a trophy and take his place among the Yautja, or will the Weyland-Yutani corporation, with their army of synths, including the calculating Tessa (also Fanning) get in his way?  

 I was very pleasantly surprised by how much fun this movie was, and I enjoyed the action, the gorgeous (probably CGI enhanced) New Zealand setting, and even the humorous dynamic between Thia and Dek, who are joined in their mission by a curious creature whom Thia dubs "Bud."  It's not what I'd call the most memorable action movie of the year, but it does give the Predator franchise some new life, though I do admit I still preferred the 2010 sequel Predators starring Adrien Brody and Topher Grace. 

 Anyone looking for a serviceable, reasonably entertaining action movie should be pretty satisfied with this, though I think it's safe to say the hardcore Predator fans aren't likely to be won over by the franchise's new direction, which, if the grosses allow, will no doubt continue into the next film. 

8/10 

Faithfully Troubling: A Review of Guillermo del Toro's "Frankenstein"

 written and directed by Guillermo del Toro

based  on the novel by Mary Shelley

I read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in college, many years ago, and I was instantly struck by how different the book was from what the movies and television shows from which I knew the story had presented. For one thing, Frankenstein's creation, more popularly known as the "monster," was a surprisingly articulate fellow, in stark contrast to the lumbering, monosyllabic creature featured in those movies.  Also, he is far  more of a tortured soul. Since then, I have seen two movies which hewed quite closely to Mary Shelley's original vision: Kenneth Branagh's 1994 adaptation, in which he starred as the scientist obsessed with conquering death and Robert De Niro starred as the creature, and now, Guillermo del Toro's adaptation available on Netflix, starring Oscar Isaac as the title character and Jacob Elordi as his hulking, tortured creation. 

The basic story beats are still very much the same: a ship bound for the North Pole encounters a mysterious threat and then finds a man nearly frozen to death, who then proceeds to tell his tale. 

Young Victor Frankenstein (Christian Convery) grew up with a loving mother (Mia Goth) whom he lost when she gave birth to his baby brother, William, and a stern father (Charles Dance) whom he lost to old age. His experience with his mother's death has formed an obsession within Victor to conquer it once and for all, and when as an adult (Isaac) he is expelled from medical school for demonstrating his ideas on conquering death, he then catches the attention of Heinrich Harlander (Christoph Waltz) a wealthy arms merchant who offers to finance his experiment. Harlander is the uncle of Elizabeth (also Mia Goth) who is engaged to the now-successful finance whiz William (Felix Kammerer).  Harlander's deep pockets ensure that Victor has the equipment and the place he needs for his experiments, and his knowledge of when battles will take place provides Victor with a fresh supply of dead bodies from which to stitch together his creation (Elordi). Victor succeeds in his grim quest to reanimate the creature using a combination of lightning and the lymphatic system, but in fairly short order, things go horribly wrong as he learns the real reason for Harlander's interest in his experiment. Victor then finds himself confronted with the reality of what he has created, and with his own petty jealously as his brother's fiancee, with whom he has developed an unhealthy obsession, seems more enamored with the creature than she ever would be with him, and he attempts to destroy the creature by burning his entire laboratory down with the creature still inside.  The creature lives, however, wanders the countryside and settles in a cottage beside a family, where he learns to read, and to appreciate people, until things again go horribly wrong, and he finds himself hunting down his creator once more to exact a final reckoning.

As faithful as this movie was to the book, I noted several liberties taken, such as number of prominent characters removed from the book that even featured in Kenneth Branagh's 1994 film, but more prominently, I noted that Victor Frankenstein was no longer an even remotely sympathetic character and his creature was depicted as almost completely blameless, which somehow felt right.  The book and the Branagh adaptation had Frankenstein's creature doing fairly monstrous things, like outright murdering people which made Frankenstein's own rage feel righteous somehow, even though he was very much to blame for what happened.  The Frankenstein of the books and Branagh's film was misguided but one could feel he had good intentions at heart. Del Toro's and Isaac's Frankenstein oozes of narcissism and vanity, and basically every truly horrible thing that happens in the film is as a result of Victor's own reckless disregard for others.  Unfortunately, this little tweak makes the narrative denouement a little harder to accept, though I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen the film.

In terms of production value, this film is a lush, extravagant throwback to the days of huge, imposing physical sets, and it was gratifying to see Netflix give Del Toro the money he needed to make this movie in all its gothic glory.  Due praise should also be given to the heart-wrenching performances, from Isaac's magnificent mad scientist to Elordi's soulful, forlorn and misshapen creature. 

It's a movie I could have liked a whole lot more if the ending had been written but a little differently, but it's still something I can recommend. 

7/10  

 

Pleasant Surprise: A Review of "Kontrabida Academy"

 directed by Chris Martinez

written by Alpha Habon, Randolph Longjas and Martinez

I tend to expect very little from original Netflix movies by way of production value or storytelling. While Netflix has managed to produce its fair share of decent movies, they seem, in equal measure, capable of producing some complete and utter shlock, and that is often the case with its Filipino-produced content, which tends to be derivative and sometimes nonsensical.   It was such tempered expectations, a few weeks ago, that I watched "Kontrabida Academy" an original Netflix film starring several known Filipino actors including comediennes Eugene Domingo and Barbie Forteza. The premise was fun and outlandish enough; Gigi (Forteza) a downtrodden assistant restaurant manager with problems at home, at work and in her relationship, is at wit's end when a mysterious television set is delivered to her home. As she watches the drama always broadcast on the TV, one of the characters on screen, the villainous Mauricia (Eugene Domingo) invites her to step into her world, and one day, in a fit of despair with her life, Gigi does exactly that, and discovers an incredible new world beyond the screen, but one which she can only navigate with the skills that Mauricia and her cohort of fellow villains kontrabidas can teach her...at the Kontrabida Academy! Gigi's life, suffice it to say, will never be the same.

Let's get this out of the way; this film is not high art, but at no point does it aspire to be so.  It is, however a whole lot of campy fun. Writer-director Chris Martinez and his co-writers Alpha Habon and Randolph Longjas lean heavily into the tropes of Filipino soap opera writing and have a whole lot of "meta" fun in the process. It helps, of course, that they have an entirely game cast led by Barbie Forteza and Eugene Domingo, and including actors both old (Michael De Mesa, Baron Geisler, Carmina Villaroel and Jaime Fabregas) and new (Jameson Blake, Xyriel Manabat).  Impressively, though, the film also has something to say about the quality of writing in Philippine soap operas, critiquing the one-dimensional manner in which "good" and "bad" characters are portrayed, basically explaining that in real life, people have to be a little bit of both. 

It's a film that, like most of Netflix's catalogue, is pretty easily forgotten, but it was worth the time it took to sit down and watch it. One could say that's the beauty of Netflix; it gives us the opportunity to watch, free of charge, movies that we otherwise would not have the time and money to check out.

8/10

The Better Movie About Manuel Quezon: A (VERY LATE) Review of "Quezon's Game"

 directed by Matthew Rosen

written by Janice Y. Perez and Dean Rosen

I could have sworn that I reviewed this film back when I watched it in 2019. Back then I watched it with just one of my children, and we both enjoyed it quite thoroughly, whatever its flaws may have been.  I was ready to refresh my imaginary review by posting a link of it on my Facebook feed in view of the incessant chatter surrounding Jerrold Tarog's new film Quezon, a film I distinctly disliked, but to my shock I found that this review only ever existed in my mind.  

Well, it's time to remedy that.

Quezon's Game tells the apparently little-known story about how Manuel L. Quezon, President of the Philippine Commonwealth, saved the lives of 1,200 Jews who were fleeing persecution from Nazi Germany back in the 1930s, just before the Second World War broke out.  In the film, President Quezon (Raymond Bagatsing) faces the most challenging time of his presidency; the world is on the brink of war, into which the Philippine Commonwealth will undoubtedly be swept up, when he is approached by a Manila-based, Jewish American businessman Alex Frieder (Billy Ray Gallion) with a desperate plea:  asylum for Jews seeking to escape persecution in Europe by Germany's Nazi party.  It is far from a straightforward task, and Quezon finds himself having to walk a diplomatic tightrope with America, still the ruling colonial power, and even Nazi Germany, which has opened a consulate in Manila.  Though Quezon is on good terms with General Dwight D. Eisenhower (David Bianco) and Philippine High Commissioner Paul McNutt (James Paoleli), the challenge of bringing these refugees over from Europe will put their relationship to the test. Standing firmly by Quezon's side are his devoted wife, Aurora (Rachel Alejandro) and his Vice President Sergio Osmena (Audi Gemora).

There's so much to love about this film, helmed by British filmmaker Matthew Rosen. First of all, it is gorgeous. Shot in sepia against the sumptuous backdrop of a beach resort in the province of Bataan containing actual Spanish-era houses and buildings and faithful reproductions thereof, it evokes the atmosphere of 1930s Manila quite vividly. The Filipino actors like Bagatsing, Gemora and Alejandro are pretty much in top form here, inhabiting the real life historical figures they play not as larger-than-life archetypes but as humans, with frailties and doubts, capable of making good and bad decisions but often choosing the latter, especially in the face of such a tense situation. 

This brings me to another remarkable point here; with the exception of a very brief scene early in the film depicting a chase between a fugitive and Nazi soldiers, the film is entirely a "talking heads" affair, relying on acting, cinematography and music to generate and maintain the tension that the story demands.  The atmosphere evoked by the location and set decoration can only do so much without strong performances driving the narrative, and fortunately, as far as the leads are concerned, the acting is as strong as it can get. 

 

Bagatsing, in particular, truly stands out as the first President of the Philippine Commonwealth and the man who helped usher in the independent Philippine Republic, even though he would never live to see it come to pass. I first saw Bagatsing in a performance of A Streetcar Named Desire way back in 1996, and I feel he was a good choice to play Quezon, with just the right mix of debonair swagger and cautious statesman. I liked how he navigated between the three languages Quezon reportedly spoke the most: English, Spanish and Tagalog. Most of all, I really appreciated the humanity he brought to the character. His Quezon was neither a hero nor was he a villain, but a man with a conscience who was ready to do questionable things to achieve his goals. It helped that the script by Janice Perez and Dean Rosen gave him a lot to work with, but Bagatsing truly made the character his own. It may not have been a 100% true-to-life depiction (no portrayal ever is) and it wasn't punctuated by the histrionics of Jericho Rosales' performance in Jerrold Tarog's film, but it was a deeply affecting turn just the same.  Gemora and Alejandro were also outstanding in their respective turns as Vice President Osmena and First Lady Aurora Quezon.  The American actors were...competent, which is better than I can usually say about foreign actors in Filipino productions (even though this was directed by an Englishman), though the actor who played the Nazi was simply awful.  

If I had any nitpicks, it was with the largely electronic music score, which, unfortunately was a result of the film having a miniscule budget, and, well the score not being particularly good. 

Still, the movie was both uplifting and educational, a marked contrast to the highly cynical take on Quezon now playing in cinemas. There are no self-inserts of the filmmakers getting up on soapboxes in the middle of the narrative, and whatever liberties that may have been taken do not feel gratuitous.  

The best part of all is that this movie is available to watch, completely legitimately and free of charge on YouTube. I highly urge everyone to check it out.

9/10 

Nothing Personal, Just Politics: A Review of Jerrold Tarog's Quezon

 directed by Jerrold Tarog

written by Jerrold Tarog and Rody Vera

It's hard to believe it's already been ten years since Jerrold Tarog launched his "Bayani" trilogy with the narrative tour de force that was Heneral Luna, and seven years since its sequel, Goyo: Ang Batang Heneral.  Yet, here we are with the third film in the trilogy, Quezon.

Set primarily during the tumultuous years before Manuel L. Quezon (played here by Jericho Rosales and Benjamin Alves as his younger self) was elected president of the Philippine Commonwealth, the film tells the story of Quezon's ascension to the power, including the people with whom he clashed, like former President Emilio Aguinaldo (Mon Confiado), Speaker of the House Sergio Osmena (Romnick Sarmenta) and Governor General Leonard Wood (Iain Glen), and the many compromises he had to make in pursuit of his avowed dream of an independent Philippine Republic. This narrative is framed through the perception of Tarog's fictional avatar, Joven Hernando played by Arron Villaflor as a young man and by Cris Villanueva in his older years. I have a lot to say about this character later.   

There's a clear trajectory here for Tarog's historical protagonists; General Antonio Luna of Heneral Luna was easily Tarog's "purest" protagonist, untainted by any kind of corrupt motive and who acted purely for the good of the nascent Filipino nation, even to his own detriment and eventual destruction, which was largely brought about by his own arrogance.  In Manuel L. Quezon, Tarog presents the most morally compromised character of his entire  "Bayani" trilogy. 

The problem for me is that, to be properly considered compromised, there needs to be some good to go along with the bad. Even most villains in fiction nowadays are depicted as flawed people who made really bad choices, often in the name of some perceived greater good.  The problem with Manuel Quezon, as depicted in this story, is that he simply has no redeeming qualities. This film presents a deconstruction of this larger-than-life persona that is so thorough, so merciless that it borders on being a demolition job.  The man is a liar, a womanizer, a narcissist, and possesses virtually every one of the most despicable qualities of the worst of Filipino politicians. One might argue he's even the godfather of modern-day patronage politics, though the film stops just short of saying that.  To depict the man as a saint would, of course, have been idiotic, but it feels like Tarog has gone too far in the other direction. 

Every good thing Quezon is depicted as doing in the film is underpinned by some darker truth, some act of wanton betrayal of either the people who trusted him, the Filipino people or even just basic human decency.  That the film would shine a light on the darker side of a career politician who made many, many shady deals in his relatively short lifetime made perfect sense, and one appreciates the candor on display here, but the problem here is that there is no nuance, just as Heneral Luna felt somewhat like a hagiography, this is basically the complete opposite. The Manuel L. Quezon of this film is such a bastard that one even wonders how this film can be called part of the "Bayani" trilogy. Tarog even torpedoes narratives that he pushed in his previous films, such as Emilio Aguinaldo's very strongly-hinted hand in the deaths of Antonio Luna and Andres Bonifacio, by out-and-out declaring that Quezon's people made it all up. As is usual with films like this, it has been declared that creative license was taken with historical facts, so one wonders how much of Quezon's onscreen depravity was based on actual events, and how much was a product of Tarog's mind?

This brings me to the part of the film that I quite vehemently disliked; fictional journalist Joven Hernando goes from the audience avatar, a passive observer and recorder of events, to an active character in the story, who interacts quite closely with all of the principal characters in the story, and who eventually gets screwed over by Quezon when he dares write unflattering things about him.  This part was the last straw for me. This was where story went from an earnest attempt to tell the complicated, flawed legacy of one of the Philippine Republic's most important founding figures to a mean-spirited smear job. Another thing that irks me about this glaring creative liberty is that Hernando feels like a narrative crutch that Tarog leans on. Ironically, of all the three "Bayani" films, Quezon takes place in the most recent period of history, at a time when more information was available than during the settings of previous two films, which would mean that stitching a cohesive narrative together should have been even simpler given the available data. It confounded me quite a bit, then, that Tarog seemed to take even more liberties here than he did with either of the previous "Bayani" films, by expanding the role of the fictional character. 

My final critique is with the acting. Now, in the previous two films, I found the acting to be mostly beyond reproach, with John Arcilla's booming line delivery still ringing in my mind.  To Tarog's credit, he assembles a mostly competent lineup of performers here, too, but there were two things that stood out. First of all was Scottish actor Iain Glen's turn as Governor General Leonard Wood.  In the final analysis I thought Glen turned in a mostly decent performance, but I was struck by how for several of his lines early in the film, Wood had a distinctly British accent, which he fortunately dropped as the film went on. 

The biggest problem for me, though, was Jericho Rosales as Manuel Quezon. Now, I have nothing against Rosales as an actor, but to my mind, he was simply out of his depth here, and it did not help matters any that the film's makeup department couldn't be bothered to age him beyond giving him a gray dye job (or wig). Rosales is 46 right now, but the Quezon he was depicting was in his late 50s and quite haggard as a result of the tuberculosis that ravaged his body.  Sure, he mimics his voice and mannerisms, having no doubt pored over newsreels of the Commonwealth President, but too often, his performance feels like it strays into caricature, and Rosales fails to elevate his character past the teleserye villain that the script so clearly makes him out to be. 

I really, really wanted to like this film. Like its predecessors in the trilogy, it has excellent production value, and outstanding performances from the likes of Bodjie Pascua (as Aguinaldo's running mate Raymundo Melliza), Mon Confiado as Aguinaldo, and Benjamin Alves, who in a rather confusing turn plays both the younger Manuel Quezon and an actor who plays Quezon in a series of propaganda films made by Hernando's daughter Nadia (Therese Malvar) for Quezon's presidential campaign.  It has some pretty good humor and is a winner from a technical standpoint, with some pretty sharp editing and music scoring, both courtesy of Tarog. For all of that, though, Tarog has fallen short, to my mind, of the standard that he himself has set. 

I like to imagine there's a draft of the script somewhere that contains a more nuanced portrayal of Quezon, one that, while not necessarily making him more heroic, makes him a bit more sympathetic. Whatever his flaws may have been, and I'm sure there are many, Quezon managed to make a significant contribution to our country's efforts towards independence, and I feel he deserved a portrayal even just a tad more sympathetic that what we got here.

6.5/10

Riding the Zeitgeist: A Review of K-Pop Demon Hunters

 directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Applehans

written by Danya Jimenez, Hanna McMechan, Kang and Applehans

In a cinematic landscape dominated by Intellectual Property of one sort or another, be it derived from books, comic books, video games, or even old movies, it truly is refreshing to see a new property truly take off, which what the new animated film K-Pop Demon Hunters, has managed to do since it dropped on Netflix over two months ago. A completely original film (with a kind of regrettable title that sounds like they never moved past the concept stage), this film give American animation a shot in the arm it has needed since original properties from studio giants like Disney, Pixar and Dreamworks have all been faltering.

As the title states, K-Pop Demon Hunters is the story of a group of K-Pop singers named Huntr/x, who, by day are a hugely popular music group, but by night, hunt and kill demons. The three girls Rumi (Arden Cho), Mira (May Hong) and Zoey (Ji-yong Yoo) are actually continuing a tradition that's hundreds of years old, of three women fighting demons with not only martial arts skill but with the power of song. It is through this song that they maintain the Honmoon, a magical barrier between the Earth and the Demon's world that helps keep them at bay. The demons aren't easy to keep out, however, especially considering that their boss, Gwi Ma (Lee Byung Hun) hungers for souls to consume, which is why Huntr/x seek, through their music, to create the Golden Honmoon, which will bar demons from entering the world completely.  The demons, however, may just have an ace up their sleeve in the form of Jinu (Ahn Hyo-seop) a handsome singer of a demon who hatches a bold plan; to fight the singing demon hunters with a band of their own. Meanwhile, things get complicated when Rumi's normally golden singing voice starts to falter on her, which may or may not have something to do with a dark secret she's been keeping from her friends. Will they be able to seal the Golden Honmoon in time to stop Gwi Ma?

Given the success of their giant-killing, Oscar-winning smash hit Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, it's gratifying to seen that Sony Pictures Animation hasn't just leaned on existing IP to keep their slate running.  While the worldwide popularity of K-Pop may have made this movie seem like an obvious choice to make, it was still a risk to make something so culturally specific, and yet this risk appears to have paid off in dividends.

To my mind, what makes the movie work is its accessibility to non-K-Pop fans. The story lets us "normies" in on the ground floor, and even though there are undoubtedly plenty of Korean of K-Pop references that fly over our heads, the filmmakers give us characters that are somehow both ultra cool and relatable at the same time. It helps that both the animation and the voice acting does a sterling job of bringing these characters to life.

Now, I'm still not a fan of K-Pop music, but I appreciate how it propelled this movie forward in a catchy, earworm sort of way. This is the kind of thing that will eventually date this movie, I suppose, but it is definitely good fun, which to my mind is something the other big studios seem to have forgotten about. 

 This is easily worth the 100 minutes or so that it will take to sit down in front of one's TV and tune into Netflix. Well done!

9/10

Who Needs Origins Anyway? (Spoilers for Superman 2025 and Fantastic Four: First Steps)

 There's something I've observed about the last couple of comic-book based movies that I've watched that I've actually found somewhat refreshing; they appear to have done away with origin stories.  James Gunn's Superman threw us right in the thick of the action right after a few lines of text told us about how Superman came to Earth, and Matt Shakman's Fantastic Four: First Steps introduced Marvel's first family through a quick, Ed-Sullivan-show like montage depicting their beginnings in less than five minutes before diving straight into the story.  

Having seen nearly every movie based on a Marvel Comics character in theaters and having seen most movies featuring Superman and Batman in one medium or another I have to say it is refreshing to not have to sit through origin stories again. I don't know who said it first but like that person, I do not have to see Thomas and Martha Wayne get shot by a mugger to that Bruce Wayne gets inspired to fight crime as a  giant bat, nor do I have to see Uncle Ben die again so that Peter Parker learns about great power and greater responsibility. I don't have to see Jor-El sent Superman hurtling off a dying planet again, and I don't need to see Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm take a radiation bath again in order to get incredible powers.   

Dispensing with the origin means getting to explore the characters in different ways, and avoiding the slow burn that usually comes with the main characters going from ordinary to extraordinary. It also challenges the writers to find ways to make life miserable for the main characters even though their hero's journey has already been established. 

Marvel kind of did this first when Spider-Man showed up in Captain America: Civil War with super powers and a pre-offed Uncle Ben.  Eventually, the MCU trilogy provided him an origin story of sorts when it killed off Aunt May but I feel that the main reason Uncle Ben never showed up was that Marvel had shrewdly decided not to waste time telling that story again, and it's a lesson that James Gunn took with him to DC, and which Matt Shakman learned well enough to incorporate it into his hit movie.

Neither Marvel nor DC will get away with this when launching new characters, of course, but given that they will undoubtedly be dipping into the well of their marquee superheroes for many years to come, complete with the occasional reboot, it's gratifying to know that they no longer consider origin stories a non-negotiable in storytelling.  

Honoring Lee and Kirby as They Deserve: A Review of Fantastic Four: First Steps

 directed by Matt Shakman

written by Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan and Ian Springer

When Marvel sold off its various intellectual properties to stave off bankruptcy in the 1990s, one of the bigger casualties was the property that had kicked off the Marvel Age of comics back in 1961, the Fantastic Four.  Whereas other key properties like the X-Men and Spider-Man had their big screen breakthroughs in the early 2000s, Marvel's first family stumbled out of the gate with a film that was reasonably entertaining but notably less well-made than its contemporaries, followed up by a sequel that was more of the same, but which didn't make enough money to justify a continuation of the franchise. The worst was yet to come for Marvel's premier team when in 2015, back when the Marvel Cinematic Universe had already been launched and was going from strength to strength, rights-holders Twentieth Century Fox made the disastrous Fant4stic, a reboot of the franchise that was so infamously terrible it was only the second ever comic-book property to take home the dreaded Golden Raspberry Award or Razzie for worst picture. 

Ten years after that debacle, Walt Disney now owns Twentieth Century Studios, and as a result, Marvel Studios has finally gotten to take its own crack at its maiden superteam with Fantastic Four: First Steps.

 The movie kicks off in the 1960s, in Earth 828, which is a universe quite distinct from the Earth-616 in which the mainstream Marvel Cinematic Universe is set. The Fantastic Four, namely Mister Fantastic/Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), his wife the Invisible Woman/Susan Storm (Vanessa Kirby), her brother the Human Torch/Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn) and their friend the Thing/Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), have been operating as a superhero team for four years, having gained their powers from cosmic radiation that struck them on a journey to space. They've been using their powers to fight crime and other threats to the world, and as a result, they are widely beloved.  As the film begins, they are about to welcome a brand new member to the family when they find out that Susan is pregnant.  However, their entire world is shaken to the core with the arrival of a mysterious silver alien (Julia Garner) who arrives on what appears to be a flying surfboard, who tells them that Galactus, the Devourer of Worlds (Ralph Ineson) will soon arrive to consume their world. Not about to take an existential threat lying down, the quartet head off into deep space to meet Galactus, only to find a threat unlike any they've ever faced before. 

Like DC Studios did with James Gunn's Superman, Marvel mostly dispenses with the team's origin story, recapping it in a five-minute sequence reminiscent of the very first page of a comic book, and dives straight into the action. The story is simple and straightforward, and the film is briskly-paced. The four actors who portray Marvel's most famous foursome have such wonderful chemistry together that it's easy to believe that they're a family.  They're all accomplished actors in their own right but group chemistry isn't always the easiest to manage, and yet their collective performance is pitch-perfect.  The villain Galactus is less a bad guy than he is a force of nature in this film, and Julia Garner acquits herself well as Shalla Bal, this universe's iteration of Galactus' herald, the Silver Surfer. While people may grumble that she's serving as the herald and not Norrin Radd, the better-known version of the Silver Surfer from the comic books and the previous films, she gets far less screen time and character development than the last iteration of the Surfer did, so I really didn't have a problem with the change. Ralph Ineson certainly is an upgrade from the giant cloud we got as Galactus in the 2007 FF sequel.  Incidentally, I really liked how they handled Johnny Storm's character, which ultimately played a significant part in how the film was resolved.  It was a nice bit of writing, helped along by some effective acting from Joseph Quinn that showed that there's more to the character than chasing skirt and driving around in fast cars.  

Shakman gets the most important ingredients right; he extracts sincere, effective performances from his leads, and tells a clear and engaging story, but he also gets the big, bombastic stuff right, too. The action sequences have their own distinct energy to them; they're well-staged and not shrouded in darkness or nighttime, a usual cheat resorted to in visual-effects-heavy films. Another thing worth noting about the film is the decidedly bright color palette. After years of having to endure mostly washed-out colors that facilitated last-minute changes to special effects, it was refreshing to see a Marvel film confident enough to show its effects in broad daylight for a good chunk of the film. The space sequences were also staged quite impressively as well, though not quite on the level of the best that the Guardians of the Galaxy films has to offer.  This truly fills me with hope that Marvel will be able to tackle more of the FF's otherworldly foes like Annihilus, the Impossible Man, and the Skrulls. Yes, the Skrulls, whom the MCU has embarrassingly fumbled since debuting them in 2019's Captain Marvel, deserve a proper onscreen portrayal.  The CG effects that turned Ben Grimm into the Thing were basically flawless, and while I've never had a problem with the visual effects depicting the Human Torch, even in the older movies, he looked great here, as did Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman.  

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my absolute favorite part of this movie, and it was the soaring, utterly heroic and instantly iconic music score from Oscar-winning  composer Michael Giacchino.  This is already the fourth Marvel Cinematic Universe film franchise to which Giacchino has contributed music after the first Doctor Strange film, the MCU Spider-Man trilogy, and the fourth Thor movie, but to my mind, his work here easily surpasses anything he's done for the MCU before, and I'd argue it's among the very best music that's ever been composed for a Marvel film, including gems like Alan Silvestri's score for Avengers and Ludwig Goransson's Oscar-winning score for Black Panther. 

I liked Marvel's last offering before this, the dark and somber Thunderbolts about as much as I liked this, but there's something I really appreciate about a bright and hopeful movie like this. Alongside Superman, this film really is one of my highlights of the summer movie season of 2025.  

8.5/10

The Movie the OG Superhero Deserves is Finally Here: A Review of Superman (2025)

written and directed by James Gunn

I may be a Marvel guy through and through, but there are a couple of things that had me very eagerly anticipating the new Superman film written and directed by Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn. The first one, quite simply, was that the trailer looked spectacular and promised a very exciting time at the movies. The second was that I had virtually complete trust in Gunn based on his track record of making superhero-related films; the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy was just about the best resume that anyone could have brought along.  The third one was that this movie, based on everything I had seen and read about it, seemed very happy to embrace its comic-book roots, and not pretend to be something that the character clearly was not.

The film, breaks away from both the continuity established by the original, 1978 Superman film, which Bryan Singer actually attempted to continue with his disastrous 2006 sequel Superman Returns, and from the DC Extended Universe that was kicked off by Zack Snyder in 2013's Man of Steel.  

For this film, Gunn dispenses with telling his own version of Superman's origin story and drops us viewers right into the action. Metahumans have been on this version of earth for over 300 years, and Superman, aka Clark Kent (David Corenswet), from the doomed planet Krypton, is the most powerful of them all. He has sworn to be a force for good, because he believes that this was the reason his parents Jor-El (Bradley Cooper) and Lara Lor-Van (Angela Sarafryan) sent him to Earth, though most of the time he pretends to be a mild-mannered reporter for the Daily Planet alongside his colleagues Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) and Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo) among others.  Unfortunately, billionaire Lex Luther (Nicholas Hoult does not appreciate Superman's efforts at all and, clouded by hate and envy wants to destroy him once and for all, and when he discovers a startling bit of information about Superman he might be able to do exactly that.  

I'll get straight to it: I loved this movie through and through. It was entertaining, moving and wonderfully-paced. The writing was topnotch; whatever the film's flaws may have been, writer-director James Gunn clearly gets what it is about Superman that makes him such an enduring part of our pop culture: his humanity and compassion.  Corenswet, was pitch perfect in this role, as were his castmates Brosnahan and Gisondo, as well as his fellow metahumans, the Justice Gang composed of Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi), Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion) and Hawkgirl (Isabel Merced).  Special mention should also go to Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor who manages to make the guy evil as all heck but crazily charismatic at the same time. It's quite a feat.

Gunn brings out the very best out of not just his actors but his effects crews as the film's visuals are simply stunning, in a way no Marvel movie has been for years. Gunn really is an old-hand at these visual effects-driven extravaganzas, and he turns in some of his absolute best work here.

9/10 

Off to the Races! A Review of F1: The Movie

 directed by Joseph Kosinski

written by Ehren Kruger and Kosinski

Slight disclaimer: I had low expectations for F1: the Movie, for two main reasons, the first being that the lead character was played by a sixty-one year old man, and the second being the apparent enthusiasm of F1 management for the content of the film. I get that FOM had to buy in to the movie for it to get made, but it makes me uncomfortable sometimes when the subject of a film embraces it a little too enthusiastically.

Fortunately, F1 far exceeded my humble expectations for it, delivering a genuinely memorable viewing experience and arguably the best car racing movie since 2019's dynamite Ford vs. Ferrari.  

Racecar driver Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) once a rising star in Formula One in the 1990s whose F1 career was cut short by a horrific accident, has spent the last three decades driving in a variety of different racing series all over the world, living out of his van and driving from one race to the next.  One day, however, an old teammate of his, Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) tracks him down after he has just won at the 24 Hours of Daytona, and makes him an offer he cannot refuse: a chance to drive in F1 again. Ruben owns a team, APX GP, that has spent the last three years at the back of the grid, without scoring a single point.  It's midway through the season and Ruben is desperate for results, or else the board of directors will sell the team.  He's got a talented but arrogant rookie Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) driving one of his team's two cars, but the other seat has just been vacated by a driver jumping ship.  Sonny refuses at first, but then realizes that he has unfinished business with F1 and takes the plane to England. 

From there, he finds himself thrown back in the deep end, clashing egos with Pearce and butting heads with his new bosses, Team Principal Kim Bodnia (Kaspar Smolinski) and Technical Director Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon) and of course, having to face off against 20 of the most talented racecar drivers on the planet. Will Sonny and Joshua be able to put aside their differences and work together long enough to get the team the results needed to keep it from getting sold off and scrapped?

Chances are if you've seen a sports movie with plucky underdogs as the heroes, you've seen everything this film has to offer, story-wise.  Director and co-writer Joseph Kosinski doesn't seek to break any new ground here, and none is broken. Fortunately, though, he fills his cast with capable actors who deliver solid performances and have good chemistry together. Brad Pitt has been touted by several reviewers as having a crazy charisma that sells the movie, regardless of how improbable it is that someone his age would be allowed to race a Formula One car in any kind of competitive capacity, and while I'm inclined to agree to an extent, I also think it helps that his other cast-mates are up to the task of selling this somewhat absurd fantasy as well, which is about as believable as a superhero movie when one really thinks about it. In particular Pitt and Bardem have a great chemistry together as former teammates turned driver and team owner and they effectively convey the notion that they have history together, even though the script lets them down a bit at a key point in the film.

Honestly, the less said about the script, the better.  The attempt to sell the reasons for why a fifty-something would even be considered for a driving seat, complete with the obligatory tragic backstory, was heroic but still chuckle-inducing, almost as much as the "built for combat" line that featured heavily in the marketing.  Fortunately, like I said, even the very worst dialogue and story contrivances were mostly masked by some really winning performances from the whole cast. 

Charming performances however, would mean nothing if Kosinski and his crew didn't get the most important thing right: the racing. I am very pleased to report that in this respect, the film not only delivers but exceeded my already lofty expectations for how good the racing would look. For all its silliness, after all I deeply enjoyed Top Gun: Maverick for its jaw-dropping flight sequences, and so I knew what kind of technical proficiency Kosinski, cinematographer Claudio Miranda, and their various crew members brought to bear on this production, and suffice it to say, they brought their "A" game.  With dozens of car-mounted cameras Kosinski and company put viewers right in the thick of the action, capturing all nine races depicted in a truly breathtaking fashion, especially when coupled with the amazing sound mixing that, if anything, flattered the 1.6-liter turbo engines that aren't quite regarded as the most sonorous power plants the sport has ever heard.  Still the races look and sound amazing, in no small part to the seamless mix of practical photography, incredible stunt driving and some judiciously inserted computer-generated imagery.  In this respect, this film stands head and shoulders over what James Mangold and his crew delivered in Ford v. Ferrari, which is no mean feat. 

Oh, and film music deity Hans Zimmer delivers an absolute banger of a music score. This is a bit of an update from his last Formula One-themed movie, 2013's Rush, and his work here is just as good as it was back then.

 

I caught this in IMAX, and while for some reason the dialogue  where I watched was compromised by echoes, in every other respect the experience was elevated by the amazing images and the roar of those incredible machines, so to my mind, it's worth the premium.  Whatever its flaws, this is definitely a movie I was glad to see in a movie theater.  

8.5/10