I can live with all of these things, if only to watch Kendrick charismatically tumble through her love life, but meaningful relationships condensed into 30-minute episodes feel like a disservice to such supposedly seminal points in Darby’s life.
Read MoreFirst introduced to audiences as a graphic novel in 1982 as Le Transperceneige, it was adapted into a feature film in 2013 as Snowpiercer to near-universal acclaim. Fast forward to 2020, and we now have a TV iteration that, so far, struggles to answer the unenviable question of… why?
Read MoreWhat keeps Trank coming back, however, is his ability to craft some really great scenes. Dark, moody and – at times – self-destructive, it feels like Capone’s material speaks to Trank’s personality and career in a personal way, but much like his other projects, it never quite comes together with an overarching big idea.
Read MoreWe’ve seen both Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon - or rather, the amplified versions of themselves that they play in this series - struggle with satisfaction in their careers, happiness in their romantic relationships, and bonds with their children. Now The Trip to Greece pits Coogan against one the toughest challenges a man of his age could face: the illness of an elderly parent.
Read MoreHowever, where Game Night featured a memorable network of supporting characters and some surprising kinks in the plot, everything (even the leads) in The Lovebirds is noticeably underwritten. Other than the onscreen presence of Nanjiani and Rae, the movie doesn’t give us much else to work with.
Read MoreHe’s powerless from the start, and it’s a dangerous fuel to Jahkor’s pride and short fuse, both of which end up consuming him. The film constantly reminds you about institutionalized racism; “they teach you how to survive, but they don’t teach you how to live” is a common refrain.
Read Moret’s a heavy-handed action film, with each cliché delivered to you hand over fist. When we meet Tyler, he casually jumps off a big cliff and into the water, where he stays submerged. He’s drowning himself with the heavy memories of a troubled past, which the film is all too eager to remind you any time there’s a quiet moment.
Read MoreThere’s plenty of moments that, in the era of COVID-19, seem all too familiar. The characters are hypervigilant around sources of infection, frantically double-checking their suits and disinfecting everything. They soon develop an effective blood-based test for the virus, and in the fourth season, part of an episode revolves around performing community-wide tests to determine if someone’s been exposed.
Read MoreA character glimpsed briefly in one episode will eventually get an installment of her own. The high-tech discoveries at the Loop figure into each one, but we’re never left with the sense that the show is trying to sound dire warnings about its viewers’ relationship with their phones or social media.
Read MoreMy internet research tells me Yang was born in California to parents who emigrated from Taiwan, so it’s not exactly clear if the film is biographical. If it is rooted in real-life experience, then the historical and cultural inconsistencies and inaccuracies are rather odd.
Read MoreTiger King is a cross-section of so many genres that its impact on the zeitgeist was perhaps a foregone conclusion.
Read MoreIt’s a good-enough premise, but the moral question it posits is far more interesting. There’s a lot of torture, and a lot of it to good end. Important plot information is revealed usually when Nazis are tortured, and when the situation is flipped and the Nazis do the torturing, it’s usually to show the strength of Jews. I don’t think Hunters endorses torture, but simply by tolerating torture we may not be as progressive as we thought, especially given all the scientific advances made during the war years.
Read MoreLewis is not glimpsed in character for an asphyxiating amount of time. Tollman seems to want to save his reveal like Spielberg teased the shark from Jaws. In the meantime, instead of building a tense cat-and-mouse game between Bram (Platt) and the people protecting Ford, the characters stay in their own bubbles, never crossing paths or ever giving the sense that they’re doing anything to outmaneuver each other.
Read MoreUnlike Cats, we can now look at the main character without skin-crawling existential horror. But in making Sonic look more like he does in the games, it only brings the movie out of the depths of “so bad it’s good” and up to merely “meh”.
Read MoreI had all the ingredients for a brisk, 109-minute ride of joy – a wonderful pastel palette, funny characters, well-choreographed action – but I was also thrown into each and every one of its numerous directions at dizzying speeds, and by the end of it I felt like it was, for the most part, a hit.
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