Pokémon Detective Pikachu is a film not unlike the Pokémon that populate it. On the surface it appears simple — a collection of seen-it-before neo-noir aesthetics, cute creatures, and a generic story, all tied together with a few charming leads. However, this is merely a façade. Before long it reveals itself to be a beast…
Isn’t It Romantic is extremely self aware, breaking the fourth wall with more frequency than “Deadpool.” It knows the tropes that define the rom-com genre and the rules at play. Thus, there is a desire to establish itself as something different. The problem here is — it can’t. It functions on the complexity level of…
Avengers: Endgame brings the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s (MCU) third phase to a close in splendid fashion, designating much of its three-hour runtime to character arcs and the wider narrative, versus intergalactic fireworks and fisticuffs. In fact, Anthony and Joe Russo’s finale is an intelligent film, introducing novel MCU concepts, “hard” science and a supervillain worthy…
Missing Link, Laika’s latest stop-motion animated feature, opens not unlike an Indiana Jones entry. Our protagonist, Sir Lionel Frost (voiced by Hugh Jackman, “ The Greatest Showman”), along with his assistant, attempt to take pictures of the Loch Ness Monster. However, Frost quickly loses control of the situation, and despite his own precision and deftness,…
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is a film three decades in the making, and it is not shy about highlighting this fact to the viewer. Beginning with a caption that informs the viewer of the length of time it took to bring this adaptation of Miguel de Cervantes’ novel to the big screen, The…
In Stray, an orphaned young woman struggles to discover the reasons behind her mother’s death, aided by an indefatigable detective with child-care issues of her own. The plot is also tinged with a bit of the supernatural, which typically would raise this movie a few cuts above your standard police procedural. Instead, the film left…
After nearly three weeks since my press screening, I have been secretly dreading composing a review for James Cameron’s latest production, Alita: Battle Angel. Even more so than dreading it, I was truly unsure of how to approach it, since the experience has almost completely been wiped from my memory (for the better, incidentally). But…
