Sci-Fi/Fantasty

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)
When Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom ended, I sat in my second-row seat staring at the rolling credits with a feeling of general puzzlement. I’m a pretty attentive movie-goer but I wondered if I had missed something. I wondered if there was a line of dialogue or a plot point that blew by me amid all […]

Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
Most people attending Solo: A Star Wars Story will do so this weekend more out of curiosity than anything else. Han Solo is arguably the most popular character in this series’ overstuffed cannon, but his origins are his least interesting aspect. Does his background really matter? Do you care where he came from? Do you […]

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
A little less than an hour before sitting down to write this review, a lady asked me “Would the new Avengers movie make any sense to someone who hasn’t seen the other movies in this series?” My quick answer is simple: “Yes, but it won’t mean as much to you because you don’t know the […]

Ready Player One (2018)
Ready Player One credits itself as being based on the 2011 book by Ernest Cline and, in fact, it lovingly retrofits the book’s overstuffed narrative to a visual style that is so overcrowded with nostalgic tentpoles that it asks – practically begs – that you see it twice to take it all in. Home video […]

Pacific Rim Uprising (2018)
As I enter into my positive comments on Pacific Rim Uprising, I do so with the realization that I’m kind of a lone wolf here. Nearly all of my fellow critics seem to deride this sequel with a hate and vitriol that, given the fact that Guillermo del Toro isn’t at the helm, might have […]

Annihilation (2018)
So, it’s very late. I go to see Alex Garland’s Annihilation at the 10pm show. I know nothing about it. The theater, which has a seating capacity of about 100, is empty – the movie is attended 99 empty seats and me. As the trailers wrap up, I wait for late stragglers to come through […]

Bright (2017)
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. This will not do. I’m sorry but no matter how you bend it, twist it, turn it, pull it or stretch it, the word ‘Orc’ just doesn’t work in a cop buddy movie. The fact that Bright – Netflix’s first attempt at a massive big-budget theatrical-style fantasy – […]

Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)
At this point, the last two things that you might expect a Star Wars movie to be are unexpected and unpredictable. After ten theatrical features, you might imagine that you could call every twist and turn; every fiber of this saga seems to have been mined until the surprises are long gone. It is refreshing […]