Review by Adam Donato

Interesting how there’s two Disney films this summer that center around a broken family relationship between a child that has trouble fitting in and their female family member who has to sacrifice career opportunities in order to try to take care of the child after their parents died. While Lilo & Stitch cops out when resolving this dilemma, Elio delivers in stride. The true heart of the film is the relationship between Elio and his aunt, voiced by Oscar winning actress Zoe Saldana. Not only that, but this relationship delivers the funniest Pixar joke in years. The film is very overt and clear about what its themes are and they flow through these two. 

Elio rivals Dog Man for the funniest family film of the year. This movie just proves how much better animated child characters are than live action children when it comes to performances. The live action Lilo fumbled every joke, but Elio in contrast is such a funny little psycho. He’s just such an endearing and flawed little boy to follow in the film. He has such a defined character arc and leads the film well. The supporting alien characters all have such interesting designs and silly quirks. It’s just nice to watch a big expensive movie like this that’s full of personality. 

Elio deserves to be in theaters that are packed full of families. The allure of the familiar when it comes to these live action remakes is safe and strong, but children deserve new stories on the big screen. While Elio isn’t like classic Pixar movies, it stands among the best of the Pixar movies from the past fifteen years. Sharafian and Shi appear to be inner circle Pixar directors for the foreseeable future. Expect Elio to be in the mix come award season. The quality of the film has the potential to be a huge hit and a big win for original blockbusters. 

​Elio will be in theaters on Jun 20.

Rating: 5/5

Review by Camden Ferrell

Review by Camden Ferrell

Last month, Norwegian writer and director Dag Johan Haugerud released the first movie in a trilogy of films, The Oslo Trilogy. The second movie to be released in this trilogy is SEX, which had its premiere at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival. While there are a handful of tangents that disrupt the film’s momentum, this movie is full of amazing and lengthy dialogue that addresses the unspoken yet complex interaction between masculinity and sexuality in today’s modern society. ​

This movie follows two chimney sweeps who grappled with their roles as men in heterosexual marriages. One of them engages in an impromptu extramarital affair with a man but doesn’t interpret that as having homosexual desires. The other experiences a recurring dream where he presents himself as a woman. Both men experience complex emotions that challenge their status quo and the perspectives they have of themselves and the world. Even if it’s an experience most have likely never had, it’s still a bold and provocative way to force the viewers to join the leads in examining the more hidden and taboo aspects of modern sexuality and the expectations that are imposed through gender norms. 

Haugerud's writing is utterly phenomenal more times than not in this movie. He utilizes lengthy and captivating scenes (one of the first scenes is a nearly ten-minute single take) that allow its characters to freely explore the film’s central themes. It never feels like the movie is fighting to pad its word count; every line feels essential and most importantly natural to the overall flow of the movie. Even when the movie can sometimes lose its way as far as the narrative goes, the dialogue and analysis of the film’s thesis is more than enough to make up for it. 

Review by Adam Donato

Review by Adam Donato

The main couple of the film played by Mason Thames and Nico Parker feel like Tom Holland and Zendaya were the blueprint. Thames doesn’t pull off geeky quite like Jay Baruchel did, especially with a lack of that iconic voice. Still a very serviceable performance. Unfortunately, the topic of conversation around Parker has been more about the color of her skin than anything else. It seems foolish to complain about a black Viking when dragons definitely don’t exist. She embodies the character well and her role is beefed up as her character aspires to be chief. The entire handling of Astrid’s character is the most “woke” aspect of the remake, but aren’t actual problems at all. Both of these characters are too cute. All of the other Vikings are properly ugly so the couple definitely stands out weirdly. 

At the end of the day, it’s the same complaint as every other live action remake. This story and these characters were designed to be represented in animation. Adapting it into live action and doing the exact same things only draws attention to how much of a useless downgrade this movie is. It’s not a bad film, but it provides nothing new. There should be zero sympathy for the film as it will gladly utilize the franchise recognition for box office success, therefore the film must be held to the standard of the franchise’s quality. The law of diminishing returns is strong in this one. 

Every movie borrows from movies that came before it, but How To Train Your Dragon doesn’t even bother making it its own in any way. This makes for a very disposable experience. It’s hard to imagine anyone preferring the live action to the animated version. This safety is good for the box office and theme park success, but its lack of ambition will make this movie fade away over time. It’s not necessarily a bad movie, but it’s not worth going out of your way to see. 

How To Train Your Dragon will be in theaters on June 13.

Rating: 3/5

Review by Daniel Lima

What is a John Wick movie without John Wick? The critical and financial success of the four films helmed by Chad Stahleski has made Lionsgate very keen to find an answer to this question, seeking to leverage that acclaim into a multimedia franchise. From the World of John Wick: Ballerina is the latest attempt to capture that essence, a proof-of-concept for the labyrinthine criminal underworld being a compelling draw even without Keanu Reeves. Though it fails in many ways to successfully justify its own existence, it ultimately does find the one key component that both distinguishes it from the John Wick movies, and makes it worthy to be spoken of in the same breath.

Ana de Armas plays Eve Macarro, a young woman raised within the Ruska Roma, the fraternity of assassins that also counts a certain man of few words as a member. Seeking vengeance for the death of her father years before at the hands of a mysterious group, she sets off on her own to figure out who is responsible. Her quest takes her around the world, and brings her face to face with some dangerous characters, as well as familiar faces.

Immediately, this film begins to clarify what has made the John Wick films so special. In that first 2014 release, just a quarter of an hour is spent establishing the emotional buy-in to the carnage that will unfold: we meet John while he is sad, we see a montage of him being happy with a little puppy, then the puppy is killed. That has been the foundation of hours of bloody revenge, with Keanu Reeves massacring scores of well-dressed assassins around the world who have absolutely nothing to do with that damn dog, and millions of fans have been entire satisfied with it. That kind of resonance goes beyond just a general love for man’s best friend; it is clear to the audience that for this character, the puppy means so much more. It’s a link to love lost, it’s a promise for a bright and peaceful future, and that is the kind of abstraction that humanizes an otherwise unempathetic character.

Conversely, the hero of Ballerina has a far more generic motivation. Certainly, the death of a parent is a traumatic experience for a child, but the manner it’s played out at the start of the film fits so neatly within genre conventions that it’s hard to take seriously. The random act of violence that kickstarted this franchise is the kind of nightmare within reach of most people; the same cannot be said of an army of masked men with matching scars storming your idyllic Mediterranean mansion and executing your dad after a heated gunfight. The film doesn’t even bother attempting to sell what the life that was torn out of the young girl’s hands looked like beyond a father/daughter dance that lasts all of one minute. This is what is supposed to power both the protagonist’s motivation, as well as the audience’s sympathies. To say that it is grossly insufficient is an understatement, and it has a directly negative impact on the rest of the film.

This is also about as much definition as Ana de Armas’s professional killer receives through the narrative as written. Almost as soon as she takes the reins, she is flung into a wide-spanning, fast-moving plot that is more about getting her to the next big set piece than fleshing her out as a person. John Wick is similarly underwritten, but that is both in service to the story and world of the films, and Reeves as a performer. After a life filled with violence and losing the one person who could pull him out of it, he has become a shell of himself, more myth and legend than man. What the audience learns about John is conveyed through how other killers react to him: apprehension, respect, deference, terror. It is also the kind of role that benefits the terse, clipped, awkward delivery of Reeves, and his limited range of physical motion (at least, compared to the career stuntpeople he is up against) further defines how John fights and kills.

Eve Macarro could have been played by anyone. That’s not to say that de Armas is bad in the role, but there is nothing to distinguish her from all the colorful characters in the world that she moves through. The lack of an emotional core means her quest lacks dramatic weight, there are few characters with a sense of shared history through which she could be further defined, and unlike John she is an unknown quantity with no reputation. That gives de Armas precious little to grasp on to as a performer, and so she ends up mostly conveying exposition and reciting action movie clichés. By the end of the film, she was just as amorphous as the start.

One of the most novel features of the series is the intricate network of professional killers operates just under the radar of the general public, in spite of the fact that it seems there’s at least a handful of hit men in any public gathering. They have their own economy, their own power structure, code of laws and ethics, nomenclature and social mores. Fans of these films know what it means to post up at a Continental, to live Under the Table, to visit a Sommelier or go for a Hunt. Some may balk at the complexity as it becomes increasingly byzantine, but this scaling grandeur is something that truly sets these films apart from other actioners. It certainly doesn’t hurt that it also allows for some unique settings for gunfights.

An important part of this, however, is that the cosmology of John Wick’s underworld is constantly expanding and iterating on itself. There are certain touchstones, characters, and ideas that recur, but each movie introduces a host of additions to the worldbuilding. Ballerina instead spends much of its runtime reminding the audience that it is, in fact a John Wick movie. Look, there’s the Continental! Winston and Charon, you know them, you love them right? Hey, there’s the man himself, the Baba Yaga!

All the allusions to the previous films keep this one in their shadow, interrupting the flow of this story while not allowing the world to grow beyond the boundaries previously set. It points to a worrying trend that has befallen many a media franchise, simply regurgitating the iconography that general audiences are already familiar with rather than experiment or creating something new within a particular universe. We are the cattle, this is the cud; we are the piggies, here is our slop. It’s what’s in vogue among the studios, and it remains as irritating and demeaning to the public as ever.

Even more frustrating is that the one new idea that Ballerina introduces is not even elaborated on. Over the course of the film, it becomes clear that the group that killed de Armas’ father has motivations that go beyond merely killing people for the sake of it. The reveal of those motivations introduces a level of moral complexity that is new to the franchise, questioning inborn assumptions about these kinds of revenge thrillers and how audiences tend to emotionally respond to these narratives… at least, they would, if the movie were at all interested in pursuing that line of thought. Any such nuance disappears into a hail of bullets and streams of flame, and in the film’s closing moments I couldn’t help but wonder whether anyone had stopped to tease involved in the production had stopped to tease out the implications of what had been put forth.

There are, however, those hails of bullets and streams of flame.

One of the most infuriating tendencies in those who would call themselves appreciators of art — cinema specifically — is the anti-intellectualism surrounds action cinema. With a handful of exceptions, it is incredibly hard to get otherwise erudite, thoughtful people to consider the craft and artistry that goes into choreographed violence on equal terms with, say, the latest arthouse-coded indie drama with awards prospects. No one would question whether the physical control displayed by a dancer in a production of Swan Lake, or the propulsive editing rhythms of a Bob Fosse movie, constitute art worthy of serious critique. Simulate a fistfight that calls for both precise physical control and editing, however, and it is populist drivel.

Action is storytelling, not an aberration in the middle of a story. Beyond the amount of grueling physical and mental energy that goes into building an action scene, these are integral parts of an artistic work. Whether a gunfight, a car chase, a big death-defying stunt, or an old-fashioned brawl, these scenes establish character, create atmosphere and tone, communicate broader ideas and worldviews that are particular to the identity of a given film and the artists behind it.

The John Wick films are some of the clearest contemporary examples of this. Series creator Chad Stahelski is an action veteran whose career goes back to working on direct-to-video productions in the early 1990s, and throughout his films he has had an action-forward design philosophy. Stuntpeople are front and center, with every set piece shot clearly to allow the audience to see the breadth of movement, every kick and every fall. There is a constant drive to experiment and incorporate new complications into the choreography, whether it be as simple as 3-Gun competition shooting or as radical as attack dogs. The capabilities of the actors are reflected in how they fight and kill on-screen, which in turn communicates aspects of their character in ways dialogue alone could never do.

Here is where Ballerina lives up to its predecessors. The same ingenuity and playful experimentation that drives those movies, that more than anything has cemented the film in the popular consciousness, is present through just about every action scene. Clearly, each set piece was designed to answer a particular question; “How many ways can we hurt people on ice?” “What would close quarters combat armed with only explosives look like?” “Does OSHA regarding fire safety apply if we’re shooting in Europe?” To answer all these, the 87eleven action team is put through their paces, showcasing not only some incredibly dynamic and fluid choreography, but some absolutely brutal stuntwork. Whether showcasing a diversity of falls like an 80s Golden Harvest film, or pushing the boundaries of how long you can have someone on fire, the film is as much a love letter to the capabilities of these performers as it is jaw dropping spectacle.

More than anywhere else, this is where the personality of the film begins to show. The John Wick movies all have a certain amount of comedy, but confided to some dry wit and some mean-spirited beats within the action. While there’s a handful of puns in Ballerina that serve as a bit of dumb fun, the main comedic thrust is actually slapstick. The graphic but deliberate and controlled violence of the series has always elicited incredulous laughter, but here it is elevated to straight up gags: hitting someone with a TV remote that starts channel surfing, smashing plates over heads straight out of a Three Stooges short, a goofy reaction shot before a grenade goes off. The comedy is synthesized with the violence in a manner that has eluded many an action comedy, without ever detracting from the gravity of the carnage. David Leitch, please take notes.

Most strikingly, the choreography provides the characterization to de Armas’ character that the script sorely lacks. Early in the film, a trainer advises her to “fight like a girl”, as she will always be at a size disadvantage and cannot allow her opponents to dictate the terms of combat. At first, it seems like this simply means she’ll occasionally kick men in the testicles, otherwise adhering to the gun fu style that this series has pioneered. As the film progresses, it becomes clear that she has taken that lesson to heart, and so every scrape she gets in sees her using the environment in every way she can. Where John moves like a shark through water, with deadly efficiency that expends as little energy as possible, Eve grabs every tool at her disposal no matter how outlandish, improvisational but confident. Although yes, she does still kick men in the testicles.

In spite of all this, the action is not perfect. It takes some time for the film to find its own groove, with most of the action in the first half feeling like a pale imitation of the clean shootouts and fisticuffs of the main series. At times, the choreography commits to some of the same shortcomings of those films, with people jumping in front of the camera only be to unceremoniously cut down being the main offender. Even the action in the second half of the film is hamstrung by its broader issues, namely the lack of worldbuilding and the lack of emotional stakes. The latter means that as thrilling and evocative as the action is, it doesn’t feel like it matters as much as the similarly thrilling and evocative action that populates the other films. The former means it lacks a bit of the character diversity and opportunities to build out the universe that motivates many of the series’ best moments. The last movie boasted Marko Zaror, Donnie Yen, and Scott Adkins in showy and memorable roles, that allowed for unique and personalized choreography, same as Reeves; here, you get a bit of Daniel Behrnhardt and human Chad meme Robert Maaser in nondescript roles. It’s not the worst problem to have, but a missed opportunity for sure.

There’s an open question of who to attribute the film’s strengths and weaknesses to. It is known that there was additional photography directed by Chad Stahelski himself, taking over from director Len Wiseman, but there are conflicting reports to the reasons behind them, the extent of what was reshot, and whether or not they were even reshoots in the first place. It’s easy to credit the best parts to the John Wick director, and the worst parts to the Underworld director, but things aren’t quite so clear; for example, the first action scene in the film happens to feature an actor who was only cast for additional photography, and it is clearly the worst. Who actually was behind what is bound to be something of a mystery for at least the length of this press tour, and I am curious to find out those details.

From the World of John Wick: Ballerina does manage to articulate a case for the franchise to exist beyond the confines of its titular character, but only by the skin of its teeth. The lack of faith in this movie to stand on its own its palpable, threatening to overwhelm the film by basking in what is already familiar rather than exploring the possibilities of this world. It is only through the series hallmark action design that the film finds its own identity, and in doing so recaptures the magic that permeates the series. 

From the World of John Wick: Ballerina arrives in theaters June 6.

Rating: 4/5

Review by Camden Ferrell

The movie is led by Nick Kroll and Andrew Rannells as Dom and Cole, respectively. Both stars bring a much-needed energy to the movie that helps keep it afloat even when its script is lacking. They both are able to fully lean into the more comedic and absurd aspects of this movie while having some pretty convincing chemistry between them.  ​

Despite my issues with the noticeable lack of depth in this movie, I can’t deny that it’s still fun. It breezes through its runtime (maybe a little too fast at times), and it’s still worth a handful of laughs. And it still has its fair share of tender and heartwarming moments that will still make you smile even if they lack the nuance that better development would have afforded it. 

Fans of horror and comedy alike will find something to enjoy in I Don’t Understand You whether it's the blood, romance, or quips. It’s a nice sidebar during the summer blockbuster season for those who want something a little smaller in scale while still being a fun way to pass an afternoon in the theaters. It may not persist in my memory much longer, but I liked it more than I didn’t. 

I Don’t Understand You is in theaters June 6. 

Rating: 3/5 

Review by Adam Donato

Review by Jon Berk

Review by Daniel Lima

There is something inherently interesting about a big budget vanity project, an artist who uses the prodigious resources at their disposal to create a monument to themselves and their hubris. Mission Impossible – Final Reckoning puts that notion to the test. On a certain level, it is impressive to see such a vast canvas used to create something so vapid, so empty, so deluded and lost in its self-importance as both the latest in a franchise spanning three decades, and as Tom Cruise’s claim on the modern cinematic landscape. It is hard to get to energized by that, however, when it is so painfully dull.

Beginning only a couple months after the previous entry, the film sees Cruise’s government agent Ethan Hunt reuniting with his team as they attempt to stop The Entity, a sentient AI set on destroying the world by taking control of every nuclear state’s arsenal. In the face of this existential threat, Cruise must both negotiate both a paranoid political landscape and perilous environments in order to obtain the means to destroy the computer program.

If you’re at all confused by this synopsis, fear not, because you will hear it spelled out for you ad nauseam. ​

Final Reckoning continues one of most egregious flaws of the last one, beginning with a torrent of exposition that continues almost without interruption through to the credits. Every conversation reiterates that this is a dangerous foe the likes of which the world had never seen, that only Tom Cruise can stop it, that he needs the key to submarine and the submarine holds the key to stopping the Entity and the Entity wants total annihilation and if they get the key to the submarine they can get the key in the submarine to stop the Entity that wants total annihilation. There are even flashbacks to help make things clear, not only to past entries, but to scenes that passed mere minutes before.

The constant establishment and reestablishment of what is at stake bogs down the momentum of the film, with agonizingly long stretches of people sitting in rooms talking to each other about what needs to happen next. Past films in the series were content to give the barest possible justification to get from one set piece to the next; here, the justification is the set piece, and it’s every bit as thrilling as it sounds. It’s as if the script doesn’t trust that the audience can follow the goals of the characters, and so it proceeds to spend so much time laying them out that the explanation itself becomes white noise.

The time not spent on plot is spent on the characters. Not fleshing out their histories, or building up their personalities, or giving them some dimension to make them feel like people. Instead, the film takes the legacy sequel approach of making the audience care about the characters by reminding you of all the time you’ve spent with them. It is assumed that since you’ve seen Ving Rhames in eight of these movies across thirty years, you must have an emotional attachment to him, even though he has no discernible personality trait beyond being friends with Tom Cruise. Angela Bassett was in one of these, so now that she’s playing the president we’ll spend ample time as she decides whether to preemptively nuke the world (this is a non-spoiler review, so I’ll leave you in suspense). Not to mention the guy who’s apparently the son of one of the previous villains, and the guy who popped up at the end of an iconic scene in the first movie but didn’t have any lines. One person gets a dramatic death scene, and they aren’t ever even named. ​

When these movies are operating as fun thrill rides, it’s harder to fault the lack of effort that’s put in developing the characters. Final Reckoning instead takes on an air of dour seriousness, and so the emphasis it places on some idea of emotional pathos lays bare how horribly shallow they all are. This is made even worse by the insufferable callbacks to series lore, a blatant appeal to nostalgia that is more likely to go over the heads of even longtime fans than actually make the audience care about what happens.

This extends to the antagonist of the film. The simple fact is an enemy with no physical presence, that the hero barely interacts with, who has no personal ties to the hero, who doesn’t ever directly affect what the hero is up against in any given scene, is a terrible villain. Regardless of how much breath is spent on how dangerous the Entity is, it is less dramatically compelling than any foe in any of the other movies precisely because the degree of remove it has from what is unfolding. Even Esai Morales, the bland human henchman of the AI from Dead Reckoning, has been cut loose from it. That leaves the primary driver of the plot an amorphous, impersonal, invisible threat, which hardly suffices for a big action blockbuster.​

For many, the action has been the highlight of this franchise, and it has generally risen above the low standards of most Hollywood studio fare. Sadly, it has never been less impressive. Depending on how you stretch the definition of “action”, there are four set pieces, amounting to maybe a half hour over the course of three hours. Two of these are unremarkable brawls, decently choreographed and captured but unimaginative and brief. One sequence sees Cruise cautious moving through a downed submarine on the edge of an ocean floor cliff, easily the highlight of the film, yet reminiscent of the last. The climax has him dangling off some propeller planes, an impressive stunt, but even that is crosscut with, what else, people standing in rooms talking. After so many grueling hours of nothing happening, it is too little too late.

The exposition, the weak characters, the flimsy emotional appeals, the limp villain, the middling action, there is something underpinning all these issues: this movie isn’t fun. There are other films in the franchise that are weak in one area or another, but they all have the tone of a rousing summer crowd pleaser. The plot moved quickly, characters had identifiable personalities beyond their role in the story, they laughed and argued and felt distinct. It is only with these last two entries, pitched as series finales, that an air of operatic grandiosity has suffocated all the verve, instead insisting on a gravity and weight that goes unsupported by what’s actually on screen.

This shift can be partially attributed to the fact that the Reckoning films are positioned as a finale, though time will tell if such an identifiable IP will be allowed to lay dormant. It also folds neatly into the current studio obsession with legacy sequels, constantly attempting to forge an emotional connection between old media and modern consumers, no matter how forced. More than anything, however, it’s worth looking at the man powering the entire franchise: Tom Cruise.

After a decade of bad press, a career slump, and losing his family, Cruise managed to completely turn around his image. Where he was once seen as a cultist with an army of slaves who eats placenta and jumps on couches, he is now the Entertainer-in-Chief, the President of Movies, devoted entirely to pleasing a global audience any way he can. Climbing the Burj Khalifa, learning to HALO jump, taking on financial burdens to make real movies that shoot on film and are made to be seen in a theater a reality, these actions have completely rehabilitated his image in the eyes of the public.

The Mission Impossible series has been a large part of that, and as audiences and critics have responded with such glowing praise to these films, it seems that the acclaim has affected how he and his creative have approach them. These can no longer be larks, frivolous and light-hearted romps punctuated by intense action. Tom Cruise — Ethan Hunt — is bigger than that. Suddenly, the events of these middle action films become the stuff of myth and legend. Every character, every frame, every word must now take on an almost religious importance, and this “final” entry must take on a stately affect, lest the audience get led astray in thinking that they are supposed to be having fun.

Perhaps it’s unfair to lay this at the feet of one man, but given how central he has been to the marketing, the stylistic similarities between all his recent creative endeavors, and his own demeanor when producing and promoting them, it’s near impossible to not see a movie like this as a monument to himself. The most interesting way to evaluate Dead Reckoning is as the most expensive vanity film of all time.

For it to succeed on those terms, it would need to offer a level of sophistication and depth in the storytelling to complement how po-faced and self-serious it is. For all its posturing and dreary exposition, however, this film is no more interested in actually exploring tangible ideas than any of the previous ones. In spite of Cruise’s own professed disdain for AI, the film offers only the most surface level commentary on how it affects our own world. While the heroes are subverting the will of the government in attempting to destroy the program rather than deliver it to their superiors, the film confines all misgivings about the US security state to one character, with chunks of this movie that play more like a recruitment ad for the military and intelligence agencies than a summer blockbuster. Even that insistence that the AI needs to be destroyed can be interpreted as skepticism about a radical restructuring of the world. Even that requires interrogating the premise with more intellectual rigor than anyone who worked on it.

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning is many things. An action epic bereft of action, a political thriller with shallow politics and few thrills, corporate IP that asserts its place in the culture with no emotional foundation. It is a mask for a man whose own identity has become that mask, even though his efforts to make that facade meaningful in and of itself are in vain. One crucial thing that this movie is not, however, is good.

Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning is now in theaters.

Rating: 1.5/5