Category Archives: New In Theaters

Reviews of what’s out now

New In Theaters

Running Man

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Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

by George Wolf

Remember that eye-popping train stunt in Dead Reckoning? How is this latest Mission: Impossible chapter possibly going to up that ante? Well, it takes two of the film’s nearly three hours to get there, but once Tom Cruise and director/co-writer Christopher McQuarrie break out the dual bi-planes, hang on for some serious thrills.

And The Final Reckoning delivers plenty of them, more than enough to cruise past (pun intended) some clunky moments for a crowd-pleasing, satisfying capper to an epic franchise.

We pick up where they left us two years ago, with Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his team of Luther (Ving Rhames), Benji (Simon Pegg), and Grace (Hayley Atwell) on the trail of villain Gabriel (Esai Morales) and the secrets of disarming the doomsday AI program known as “The Entity.”

In just 72 hours, The Entity’s efforts to frighten and divide the population will enable it to gain control over every nuclear arsenal in the world, and deploy each one. Hunt’s mission? Find The Entity’s original source code, and pair it with Luther’s poison pill algorithm that will distort the AI’s reality enough to bring it down.

That’s a mighty big ask in three days, one takes the MI team across the globe, under the sea and in the air for more IMAX-worthy stunts and camerawork. And Cruise – one of cinema’s great movie stars – sells every minute of it with his ageless physicality and effortless charisma.

And though the the film’s themes are mighty relevant, McQuarrie can lean too much on exposition dialog and some forced visual reminders. But he also knows the last three decades have earned some capital that the film spends quite well, bringing in plot points and characters from previous installments to play important parts of the plan. Sure, The Final Reckoning gets a bit sentimental toward the final shot, but after all this time that feels right.

It also feels like a fitting start to summer movie season, a fitting end to a solid franchise, and a fine mission accomplished.

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Black & Blue Hawaii

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Lilo & Stitch

by Hope Madden

As a general rule, I’m no fan of Disney’s live action remakes. Loved Jon Favreau’s 2016 reimagining of The Jungle Book, but not a single reboot since has lived up to the impressive fun of that one, and most just feel like a soulless cash grab.

Can Lilo & Stitch, an update of Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders surprise 2002 cultural treasure, meet that high bar?

No, but it comes a lot closer than most.

Sanders wrote and directed 2024’s beautiful emotional gut-punch The Wild Robot, and the pair is responsible for 2010’s equally brilliant How to Train Your Dragon. Director Dean Fleischer Camp’s update, based on an adapted screenplay by Chris Kekanoikalani Bright and Mike Van Waes, remains true to the original’s themes of outsiders longing for connection.

Also, the actual Hawaii is one of the few locations as eye-popping as any animated world. The new Lilo & Stitch is also blessed with a lead who surpasses her animated predecessor in wily spunk and pinchable cheeks. Maia Kealoha’s Lilo, never cloying or false, allows the film the sense of childlike chaos that helps it transcend the artificiality of the story.

The tale itself—about a cute, fuzzy, dangerous, alien scientific experiment crash landed in an undeveloped spot of Hawaii, chased by its creator as well as American intelligence, who’s taken in as a rescue dog by a lonely orphan—remains mainly true to the original.

Live action Stitch is at least as much fun as animated Stitch, although the moments of physical connection—hugs, pets, kisses on the nose–look off. But the joy between Lilo and Stitch is as vibrantly real as ever.

The balance of the cast—Sydney Agudong as Lilo’s frazzled older sister Nani, Zach Galifianakis as bumbling evil genius Jumba, Billy Magnussen as Earth fanboy Pleakley, among others—fully commit to the bit. They make the fun spots funnier and the emotional beats heart-tuggier.

The biggest let down is the updated script, which can’t match the original in terms of the delightfully, delicately human writing. But the contrast between the alien and natural world makes this a natural fit for the leap to live action, and the charming lawlessness of the story is as much fun today as it was in 2002.

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This Is the End

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Final Destination: Bloodlines

by Hope Madden

I’ll give you three reasons Final Destination: Bloodlines is the best since James Wong’s clever 2000 original, if not the best in the whole franchise.

Number one, gone is the nihilistic tone that had us all hating characters and waiting glibly for them to die. Instead, directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein invest in character development. So, when Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) realizes her whole family is doomed, you find yourself emotionally attached to each of the damned.

The directors owe a debt to Santa Juana and the whole ensemble—little brother Charlie (Teo Briones), cousin Bobby (Owen Patrick Joyner), dear Uncle Howard (Alex Zahara) and especially, against all odds, cousin Erik (cast stand out Richard Harmon). The actors share a relatable familial bond that helps the film draw you in. And the presence of genre beloved Tony Todd in his final role seals the emotional deal.

An even larger debt is owed to an impressive writing team: Guy Busick (Ready or Not, Scream), Lori Evans Taylor, and Jon Watts (Spider-Man: Homecoming, Clown). We’ll give them Reason Number 2: a great script, full of pathos, tension, and the darkest humor. I laughed out loud often. Was it inappropriate? Probably, but it was no less enjoyable.

Reason Number Three, for this series, is the big one.  The Rube Goldberg of Death franchise boasts many clever, nasty kills and the sixth episode does not let us down. Smart, nutty and goretastic with some of the most impressive comic-beat editing of the year, the bloody mayhem in this film is giddy with its power.

The film offers affectionate nods to some of the franchise’s most memorable moments, but fans of the series would be pleased even without them. Rather than a photocopy of previous installments—one premonition saving a gaggle of good looking youngsters, only for Death to stalk them one by one in the order that they would have died without intervention—Bloodlines delivers as fresh an idea within the bounds of the mythology as you could ask for.

Plus we all get to spend a few more minutes with Tony Todd.

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Voice of Experience

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Hurry Up Tomorrow

by George Wolf

After the chaotic mess that was The Idol, it would have been easy for Abel Tesfaye (aka The Weeknd) to craft Hurry Up Tomorrow as a safely commercial extension of his new album.

To his credit, he doesn’t, and having Trey Edward Shults as his director and co-writer is the first sign that Tresfaye is after something more challenging. He gets that something, though it often frustrates more than it satisfies.

Tesfaye plays himself as a troubled superstar on tour. The crowds are huge and adoring, but a phone message (voiced by Riley Keough) accuses Abel of being a horrible, self-absorbed person, and his personal demons are taking such a toll on his voice that a doctor prescribes immediate rest. Abel’s manager Lee (Barry Keoghan) shrugs it off, assuring the star he is “invincible.”

A backstage meeting with the mysterious Anima (Jenna Ortega) leads to a day of fun and some lifted spirits, but it soon becomes obvious her very dangerous past may repeat itself in Abel’s very immediate future.

Early on, the skilled Shults (Krisha, It Comes at Night, Waves) brings some Gaspar Noé immersion vibes, rolling out cascades of pulsing music and flashing lights, extended takes and minimal dialog. But as this finally gives way to a thriller narrative that has echoes of Misery, the self-awareness of Keough’s accusations can’t save the film from the weight of self indulgence.

Ortega and Keoghan bring their usual sparks, enough to highlight Tresfaye’s limited acting range – though he is in fine voice. But despite the film’s overall ambition, the themes here are too old and familiar. And though Hurry Up Tomorrow can be visually interesting, the story it tells is never compelling, and only The Weeknd superfans should be hurrying out to see it.

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Flight of Fun

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Fight or Flight

by Brandon Thomas

Some might say we’re amidst a Josh Hartnett renaissance (Hartaissance?). 2023’s Oppenheimer saw the former teen heartthrob nearly steal the show in a more adult and subdued performance than we’re used to seeing from the actor. Last summer’s Trap was a complete 180 from the Oscar-winning drama, where Hartnett was allowed to lean into pure camp, and while the movie itself is pretty abysmal, Hartnett was having the time of his life. Fight or Flight – for better or worse – falls somewhere in the middle of the Hartaissance. 

Disgraced government operative Lucas Reyes (Hartnett) has spent the last few years drinking his way through Southeast Asia after being blacklisted when a mission went bad. While nursing one of his daily hangovers, Lucas is contacted by his former boss and lover (Katee Sackhoff, The Mandalorian) to help capture an elusive criminal named The Ghost. The only problem is that he has to capture the Ghost on a trans-Pacific flight that is also full of other assassins. 

You don’t go into Fight or Flight expecting originality. The film is a whole lot of Bullet Train, with a dash of John Wick (which it shares producers). It’s hard to fault director James Madigan and writers Brooks McLaren and D.J. Cotrona for this approach. Hard-hitting action with an ironic sense of humor is a formula that’s popular with audiences at the moment. The film irons out enough of a personality of its own, even if that’s mostly thanks to Hartnett.

Speaking of Hartnett, he’s once again relishing the opportunity to do something different. His resume already boasts a few action films, but Fight or Flight allows him to roll up his sleeves and get a bit messy with the stunts. Lucas is plenty capable in a fight, but it’s fun watching Hartnett reckon with his character’s rusty skills in the face of killers in their prime. Blending dangerous action with spot-on comic timing is a difficult needle to thread, and Hartnett is surprisingly good at it. 

Madigan makes the most of his first effort as director of a feature film. Having worked as a second-unit director for over a decade, Madigan has plenty of experience on action-packed sets, and he brings that skill to Fight or Flight. Not having a Marvel-type budget, the thrills are kept more grounded for the most part. Madigan gets a lot of mileage out of fun gags that involve broken wine glasses and a sprinkler head, just to name a few. Don’t even get me started about the chainsaw on a plane. This is an action director who understands that creative fights get the blood pumping harder than a CG fireball.

Despite getting an initial “been there, done that” feeling with Fight or Flight, the fun action mixed with a bonkers Josh Hartnett performance makes this one a worthwhile effort. 

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Send In the Clowns

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Clown in a Cornfield

by Hope Madden

Adam Cesare’s novel Clown in a Cornfield won the Bram Stoker Award for Best Young Adult Horror Novel. So, there had to be something there, right?

Eli Craig (of the utterly fantastic 2010 genre upending Tucker and Dale vs. Evil) handles directing duties. That seems like a good pairing. Cesare’s novel took a fresh look at slasher material. Craig has shown sharp instincts for deconstructing a horror subgenre with loads of blood and fun.

So why doesn’t Clown in a Cornfield work? Like, at all?

The problem’s not the cast. Katie Douglas charms as Quinn, the Philly transplant making possibly the wrong friends in her new hometown of Kettle Springs, Missouri. The last town doctor took off sometime after the Baypen Corn Syrup factory burned down, and Quinn’s dad (Aaron Abrams) jumped at the opening.

The town seems stuck in time, except for those hooligans making YouTube videos pretending Baypen’s beloved clown mascot Frendo is a bloodthirsty killer.

Thus, we establish the necessary slasher gang: final girl, her crush (Carson MacCormac), bitchy nemesis (Cassandra Potenza), and other nubile teens making bad decisions (Verity Marke, Ayo Solanke, Alexandre Martin Deakin).

Plus, townies, of course, the rube sheriff (Will Sasso) and the rich guy (Kevin Durand) among them.

With an unabashedly Jaws opening, Craig announced his film (like T&DvE) as a loving sendup of horror tropes. Unfortunately, the following 85 minutes feel more like a mirthless retread of better films than an inspired reimagining of cliches.

Craig never lands on a tone. Tongue-in-cheek dialog creeps into the most unsuitable scenes, teens suddenly slowing down an escape to wax comedic. Were the film an outright comedy, maybe that would slide. But Clown in a Cornfield isn’t played for laughs.

The scares are too telegraphed and borrowed to amount to much. Worse still are plot holes so deep and wide you could lose a combine. The second most interesting thing about the film is how little effort is devoted to a backstory that makes sense. The most interesting thing is the wild disregard for the “what happened to that guy?” instinct in the film’s finale.

I had high hopes for Craig’s return to genre filmmaking. Clown in a Cornfield disappoints.

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Tales From the Dark Side

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Thunderbolts*

by George Wolf

In the post-Avengers world, CIA Director Valentina is quick to tell America that there is no one to protect us.

Well, make way for the Thunderbolts* (named for a peewee soccer team!)

Valentina (Julie Louis-Dreyfus, a treasure as always) makes her declaration while testifying at her own impeachment hearing. It seems she’s after unchecked power to alone decide who the criminals are (can you imagine such a thing?), and the details of Valentina’s attempts to develop her own brand of super-soldiers are about to come to light.

She has a plan to stop that, but it only ends up uniting now-Congressman Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Alexei “Red Guardian” Shostakov (David Harbour) “Ghost” Ava Starr (Hanna John-Kamen) JV Captain America John Walker (Wyatt Russell) and a mysterious guy named Bob (Lewis Pullman).

Red Guardian has been biding time operating a limo service (“we protect you from a boring evening!”) so he’s only too happy to get back in game, but the others aren’t so sure. And they have no idea what Bob’s deal is.

It turns out to be pretty dark and interesting, just like this new superteam origin story. Director Jake Shreier (Robot & Frank, Beef) and the writing team do a solid job balancing the required backstory exposition with superhero action and character driven humor (mainly via Harbor’s can’t-miss timing and some delicious deadpans from Louis-Dreyfus.)

And speaking of character driven, Pugh is just so good. As a new, all-powerful villain emerges, she and Yelena carry the film to some dark, psychological places in the third act. Thunderbolts* isn’t just interested in how this team assembles, it wants us to feel comfortable talking about why we all need a good support system, especially in the age of gaslighting, disinformation and power grabs.

A crowd-pleasing glimpse at what’s next comes in the post credits scene, and after the messy misstep of Brave New World, Thunderbolts* puts one back the MCU win column.

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Unwelcome Back

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The Surfer

by George Wolf

Have you seen Wake in Fright, the 1971 Australian nightmare with Donald Pleasence? How about The Swimmer from ’68, where Burt Lancaster’s delusions of greatness are slowly punctured by the reality of his past?

The Surfer will hit harder if you can appreciate how it blends the two for its own deranged tale, as Nicolas Cage takes full advantage of another chance to come unglued before our eyes.

Cage stars as the titular surfer, who has come back to Australia’s Luna Bay in hopes of buying his childhood home. He brings his son along to surprise him with the news, but quickly finds the locals most unwelcoming.

“Don’t live here, don’t surf here!”

The “Bay Boys” rule the beach, and their guru Scally (Julian McMahon) takes the surfer and son aside to give them one polite warning: best move along.

They oblige, but the surfer won’t give up his dream so easily. He returns solo and things quickly escalate with the Bay Boys until the surfer is bloody and barefoot, without money, phone, car, or friends.

The font of the opening credits sets the perfect retro vibe, and director Lorcan Finnegan (Vivarium) leans into it from there. The minimalistic score, wide frames and dramatic punch-ins cast a spell of 70s Ozploitation that makes a fine launching pad for Cage’s slide into lunacy.

Australian accent? You think Cage needs one to sell this quest for survival? He doesn’t, and writer Thomas Martin weaves his lack of dialect into the thread of wry humor that runs throughout the film. Like Wake in Fright, circumstances hold a stranger prisoner in a foreboding Australian town, where – like The Swimmer – the past comes calling.

The Surfer is often smart but can be less than subtle, with some “hey don’t miss this” camerawork – which, to be fair, aligns with the throwback feel – and a lesson about toxic masculinity that’s well-meaning but repetitive.

But there’s much to like here, starting with Cage. The surfer is the kind of role that’s in perfect sync with his legendary eccentricities. He’s a man on the verge for ninety minutes, and nearly all of those are too much fun to look away.

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Rock in the Ruins

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Pink Floyd at Pompeii

by Hope Madden and George Wolf

The gorgeous new restoration of 1972’s Pink Floyd at Pompeii delivers a beautifully discordant glimpse of a transitional period for one of music’s most important rock bands. Gorgeously restored image and sound immerse you in Floyd’s music. 

Adrian Maben’s doc focuses primarily on Floyd’s 1971 trip to Italy, with performances recorded live in the ruins of the Pompeii Amphitheatre to an audience of only crew . The setlist (including selections recorded later in Paris) consists of some of Floyd’s more loosely constructed symphonic jams—Careful with that Axe Eugene, Echoes, Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun, One of These Days—which frees Maben visually from the need to capture a singer. Rather, he lets Floyd’s trippier melodic concoctions provide a soundscape for various images. Sometimes eerily beautiful landscapes and vistas populate the screen, while elsewhere the filmmaker turns the camera to period artwork.

Maben punctuates the live cuts with bits of interviews and fly-on-the-wall footage as the band shares a meal. David Gilmour seems forever in need of a glass of milk, while drummer Nick Mason’s request for apple pie goes unanswered. These brief snippets, though borderline Spinal Tap, balance the live performance’s grandiosity with a sweet bit of banality.

Yes, both Gilmour and Roger Waters get their screen time, but late keyboardist Richard Wright also finds his time in the spotlight while Mason often draws most of Maben’s interest. His manic drumming and respectful requests for “no crust” are a delight, and the interplay between all the band members is a bittersweet counter to the rancor that erupted in years to come.

Wisely, the restoration includes material that had made its way into an earlier director’s cut. We spend time in Abby Road studios with the band as they work through tracks for their as-yet-unreleased masterwork Dark Side of the Moon album.

It’s the perfect balance. The live, undiluted imagination and experimentation that marked Pink Floyd’s early career gives way to the masterful, controlled artistry of the album that would redefine the band (and music history).  

Even for Floyd fans who have seen much of this before, the new restoration – especially the IMAX version hitting select theaters – is a must. It not only gives some classic early jams due respect, it provides a fascinating glimpse at the days just before a legendary rock band stepped into its future.

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The Old Familiar Sting

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Until Dawn

by Hope Madden

Watching the 2011 genre classic Cabin in the Woods when it came out, you couldn’t help but think it would make a great video game. Each new level could bring on a different one of those beasties from the elevator, and you’d have to try to survive them all to win. Fun!

Until Dawn, the new horror flick from David F. Sandberg (Lights Out, Annabelle: Creation), follows exactly this logic. It’s as if someone did make that video game, then turned that game into a movie. Which is kind of what happened.

Sandberg and writers Blair Butler (The Invitation, Hell Fest) and Gary Dauberman (the Annabelle, Nun, and It franchises, among others) retool the popular Until Dawn survival game to give it more of a cinematic structure. Five friends, out on a road trip to remember a pal who’s been missing for a year, stumble upon a long-abandoned welcome center.

They spy their missing friend’s name in the register. It’s in there 13 times.

Next thing you know, time loop horror overtakes the friends as one malevolent force after another descends upon the welcome center. As soon as all five friends are dead, an hourglass resets, they revive, and the next wave of horror hits.

Peter Stormare lends his effortless creepiness to the proceedings, which benefit from his performance as well as work from an ensemble that’s better than the script demands. Belmont Cameli and Hellraiser’s Odessa A’zion are particularly effective, but all five friends break free of the tropiness of their roles to find familiar, human centers.

It had to have been hard, as their characters continually make the dumbest decisions possible.

The film feels terribly confined by its premise. Rather than the gleeful celebration of all things monstrous that made Cabin in the Woods such a joy, Until Dawn lacks inspiration. The set design never rises above a seasonal haunt aesthetic, the creature design lacks imagination, and the repetitive nature of the time loop grows tedious.

It shouldn’t come as a great surprise, given the filmmakers. Dauberman’s hit big a couple of times, but his fare is mainly middling. Sandberg’s genre films are exclusively mediocre, and Butler’s work rarely reaches that height.

But Until Dawnis not a complete waste of time. Sandberg doesn’t skimp on bloodshed, and the cast really elevates the material. It’s no classic, but it offers a bit of bloody fun.