July 10, 2025
jmunney
Cinema, Movie Reviews
Alan Tudyk, Angela Sarafyan, Anthony Carrigan, Beck Bennett, Bradley Cooper, Christopher McDonald, David Corenswet, Edi Gathegi, Frank Grillo, Isabela Merced, James Gunn, María Gabriela de Faría, Michael Ian Black, Mikaela Hoover, Nathan Fillion, Neva Howell, Nicholas Hoult, Pom Klementieff, Pruitt Taylor Vance, Rachel Brosnahan, Sara Sampaio, Skyler Gisondo, Superman, Superman 2025, Terence Rosemore, Wendell Pierce
He doesn’t look like a bird or a plane from this angle (CREDIT: DC/Screenshot)
Starring: David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult, Edi Gathegi, Anthony Carrigan, Nathan Fillion, Isabela Merced, Pruitt Taylor Vance, Neva Howell, Wendell Pierce, Skyler Gisondo, Beck Bennett, Mikaela Hoover, Christopher McDonald, Sara Sampaio, Alan Tudyk, Terence Rosemore, Frank Grillo, María Gabriela de Faría, Michael Ian Black, Pom Klementieff, Bradley Cooper, Angela Sarafyan
Director: James Gunn
Running Time: 129 Minutes
Rating: PG-13 for Some Bloody Blows and Foul-Mouthed Critics
Release Date: July 11, 2025 (Theaters)
What’s It About?: The Big Blue Boy Scout, aka Superman (David Corenswet), aka Supes, aka Clark Kent, aka the Man of Steel, believes deeply that he’s been sent to Earth to protect the human race. That idealism is a big part of why his Daily Planet colleague/girlfriend Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) and so many of his fans have fallen for him. But not everyone is so sure that an alien from Krypton should be their guardian. Especially not Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult), who’s waging a disinformation campaign to erode the public’s trust and orchestrate a war-profiteering scheme. His evil plan also includes imprisoning Supes in a pocket universe, a risky move that threatens to tear the entire fabric of Earth apart. Fortunately there are already some other superpowered folks in this world who might just be willing to help Clark out.
What Made an Impression?: Can Clark Kent Afford Therapy?: With James Gunn behind the camera and the screenplay, it appears that the biggest threat to Superman in 2025 is … social media troll bots! And not even particularly clever trolls. The biggest difference between this Clark Kent and all other previous big screen versions is surely his fragile ego. It’s more than a little jarring seeing him so petty and vulnerable when his predecessors have been so unfailingly upright. But it’s also kind of endearing.
Clark Wants to Be a Punk Rocker: Assuming that this Clark Kent is about the same age as the guy playing him (David Corenswet is 32), then he definitely feels like a millennial whose personality was shaped by the Gen Xers driving culture in the 90s and early 2000s. People like James Gunn, perhaps! (Or people like The State alum Michael Ian Black, who plays a just-asking-questions-style “journalist.”) Corenswet Clark is like the guy who tries to be cool by emulating the indie rock crowd from when he was a kid and doesn’t get it quite right. But Lois still loves him anyway!
Gizmos and Galaxies Galore: In addition to being the most short-circuited and vaguely punk rock version of the character, Gunn’s Superman is also easily the nerdiest big screen iteration we’ve ever seen. This movie is filled to the brim with the sorts of gadgets and phenomena that sound like they’re based on a kernel of real science but are stretched out to ridiculous comic book sensibilities. Nanites, hypno-glasses, antiproton rivers: imaginations have certainly been let loose.
A Promising Forecast: Superman 2025 features some spirited acting, a cast of colorful characters, kinetic action sequences, a clear and unapologetic sense of its own identity, and a super-duper canine. And it also features some fantastically pleasant weather. There are several moments throughout the movie of a news broadcast with a forecast on the ticker informing us that the temperatures in Metropolis range between 62 and 65 degrees (presumably Fahrenheit) for the entire week. No wonder everyone’s in a good enough mood to fulfill their heroic destinies!
Superman is Recommended If You Like: Comic Books; Or, Your Loved Ones Who Enthusiastically Tell You Everything That Happens in Their Favorite Comic Books
Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Justice Gangs
December 23, 2024
jmunney
Cinema, Movie Reviews
A Complete Unknown, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Babygirl, Bill Skarsgård, Boyd Holbrook, Brian Tyree Henry, Charlie Tahan, Dan Fogler, De'Adre Aziza, Edward Norton, Eli Brown, Elle Fanning, Emma Corrin, Eriko Hatsune, James Mangold, Lily-Rose Depp, Michael Chernus, Monica Barbaro, Nicholas Hoult, Norbert Leo Butz, Nosferatu, Nosferatu 2024, Oluniké Adeliyi, P.J. Byrne, Rachel Morrison, Ralph Ineson, Robert Eggers, Ryan Destiny, Ryan Harris Brown, Sarah Allen, Scoot McNairy, Simon McBurney, The Fire Inside, Timothée Chalamet, Will Harrison, Willem Dafoe
Merry Christmas from the Movies! (CREDIT [Clockwise from Top Left]: Aidan Monaghan/Focus Features; Sabrina Lantos/Amazon MGM; A24; Macall Polay/Searchlight Pictures)
A Complete Unknown
Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro, Boyd Holbrook, Scoot McNairy, Dan Fogler, Norbert Leo Butz, Eriko Hatsune, P.J. Byrne, Will Harrison, Charlie Tahan, Ryan Harris Brown, Eli Brown, Michael Chernus
Director: James Mangold
Running Time: 141 Minutes
Rating: R for Arrogant Artist Behavior
Release Date: December 25, 2024 (Theaters)
Nosferatu
Starring: Bill Skarsgård, Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Willem Dafoe, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney
Director: Robert Eggers
Running Time: 132 Minutes
Rating: R for Ecstatic Sex and Bloodsucking
Release Date: December 25, 2024 (Theaters)
The Fire Inside
Starring: Ryan Destiny, Brian Tyree Henry, Oluniké Adeliyi, De’Adre Aziza, Sarah Allen
Director: Rachel Morrison
Running Time: 109 Minutes
Rating: PG-13 for Language, Jabs, and Hooks
Release Date: December 25, 2024 (Theaters)
The cinematic landscape at Christmas is typically dominated by franchise blockbusters and family-friendly flicks, with awards hopefuls also trying to make their way into the mix. But then there are also always some oddballs of various genres for anyone who prefers a more aggro or otherwise offbeat holiday. What’s interesting about December 25 this year is that all four of the wide releases arriving alongside Santa could be categorized in the alternative section. So which one of them should be your chaser after opening up all your presents? Or should you down some nog in preparation of a double feature? Here’s my take on the polar landscape.
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December 14, 2024
jmunney
Cinema, Movie Reviews
Alison Oliver, Jude Law, Jurnee Smollett, Justin Kurzel, Marc Maron, Nicholas Hoult, Odessa Young, The Order, Tye Sheridan
Order up! (CREDIT: Vertical/Screenshot)
Starring: Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Jurnee Smollett, Alison Oliver, Marc Maron, Odessa Young
Director: Justin Kurzel
Running Time: 116 Minutes
Rating: R
Release Date: December 6, 2024 (Theaters)
The Order came out in theaters on the first weekend of December, aka the dumping ground between the mega-blockbusters of Thanksgiving and the mega-blockbusters of Christmas. So it probably won’t be on the big screen for much longer! But if you’re in the mood for a bleak, based-on-a-true-story crime thriller as the mercury plummets and the wind starts whipping, then you may just want to check out Jude Law as a weary FBI agent hunting down Nicholas Hoult as an ambitious white supremacist terrorist. (Marc Maron also pops up as an outspoken radio host!) It’s a worthwhile watch if you want to reckon with the most portentous corners of society.
To sum it all up, I’d like to paraphrase my own headline: all I want for Christmas is for the world to be cured of neo-Nazism.
Grade: 4.5 Attempts to Contain the Disorder out of 6 Kids Birthday Parties
November 13, 2024
jmunney
Cinema, Movie Reviews
Adrienne C. Moore, Amy Aquino, Cedric Yarbrough, Chikako Fukuyama, Chris Messina, Drew Scheid, Francesca Eastwood, Gabriel Basso, J.K. Simmons, Juror #2, Kiefer Sutherland, Leslie Bibb, Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, Zele Avradopoulos, Zoey Deutch
TFW you’re Juror #2 (CREDIT: Warner Bros. Pictures/Screenshot)
Starring: Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, Zoey Deutch, Chris Messina, Gabriel Basso, J.K. Simmons, Amy Aquino, Leslie Bibb, Cedric Yarbrough, Francesca Eastwood, Adrienne C. Moore, Chikako Fukuyama, Zele Avradopoulos, Drew Scheid, Kiefer Sutherland
Director: Clint Eastwood
Running Time: 114 Minutes
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: November 1, 2024
I sure wouldn’t want to end up in the same predicament as Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult), the titular Juror #2 of Juror #2. Watching the movie about him is already stressful enough! But maybe it’s a good way for us to prepare ourselves in case we ever find ourselves in the scenario in which we realize that we might be guilty of the crime at the heart of the trial we’re on the jury of, or a similar situation. It would still be a dilemma, make no mistake about it, but at least one we’ve now been able to visualize.
Grade: 10 Not Guiltys out of 2 Guiltys
May 21, 2024
jmunney
Cinema, Movie Reviews
Bowen Yang, Brett Goldstein, Cecily Strong, Chris Pratt, Garfield, Hannah Waddingham, Harvey Guillén, Janelle James, Lasagna, Mark Dindal, Nicholas Hoult, Samuel L. Jackson, Snoop Dogg, The Garfield Movie, Ving Rhames
This review was written on a Monday. (CREDIT: DNEG Animation)
Starring: Chris Pratt, Samuel L. Jackson, Hannah Waddingham, Ving Rhames, Nicholas Hoult, Cecily Strong, Harvey Guillén, Brett Goldstein, Bowen Yang, Janelle James, Snoop Dogg
Director: Mark Dindal
Running Time: 101 Minutes
Rating: PG for Kitty Calamities
Release Date: May 24, 2024 (Theaters)
What’s It About?: Everyone’s favorite lasagna-loving feline is back on the big screen, and this time, it’s called… The Garfield Movie! (I guess all those other cinematic outings were merely “A” Garfield Movie?) Anyway, now he’s voiced by Chris Pratt, and his gluttony is fueled by his owner Jon Arbuckle’s (Nicholas Hoult) seemingly limitless credit card and all the food delivery apps he can get his paws. He’s pretty happy just lounging around devouring his daily feasts with his beagle buddy Odie (Harvey Guillén). But then his absentee dad Vic (Samuel L. Jackson) shows up out of the blue to wrangle him into a hero’s journey, as they attempt to heist some milk from a farm to square away Vic’s debt with Jinx (Hannah Waddingham), the devilish crime boss Persian cat.
What Made an Impression?: Slingshot All Day: I’m not going to call out a cartoon for its unrealistic portrayal of physics. After all, part of the advantages of this medium is that it doesn’t have to be bound by the laws of science in the same way that live action movies are. That comes into play with a series of train-based set pieces, as Garfield fails to board one of the cars cleanly and ends up getting bounced around by a ridiculous series of objects providing an inordinate amount of thrust. I wasn’t scandalized by the lack of respect for the natural world, but I was befuddled. Perhaps if I had been in a sillier mood, I would have been more ready to throw out a laugh or several.
Wait, What World is This?: The plot of The Garfield Movie isn’t much to write about (or at least it’s not much that I’m interested in writing about), so instead I’m focusing on the weird details that made me go, what the heck is the context here? To wit: at one point during Garfield’s adventures getting tossed hither and thither, he flies by a giant balloon float version of… himself. So does that mean that this movie is taking place on Thanksgiving? And that Garfield is famous in this world as an actual real-world somewhat-anthropomorphic kitty?
Also, what’s the deal with all the blatant product placement? I guess Garfield is just a classic capitalist consumer with a bad case of brand loyalty. Perhaps you won’t notice these details as much as I did. Or perhaps you will notice them but will find them amusing. The people in my screening who were cracking up the most appeared to be in their twenties or thirties, so you apparently don’t need to be a kid for these shenanigans to work. But you probably do need to hate Mondays and LOVE telling people that you hate Mondays.
The Garfield Movie is Recommended If You: Believe That Mass Quantities of Food Are the Most Hilarious Thing Ever
Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Tabbies
April 24, 2023
jmunney
Cinema, Movie Reviews
Adrian Martinez, Alex Fitzalan, Awkwafina, Ben Schwartz, Brandon Scott Jones, Camille Chen, Chevalier, Chris McKay, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Lucy Boynton, Marton Csokas, Minnie Driver, Nicholas Hoult, Nicolas Cage, Renfield, Samara Weaving, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Stephen Williams
Chevali-Hey! (CREDIT: Larry Horricks/Searchlight Pictures)
Chevalier:
Starring: Kelvin Harrison Jr., Samara Weaving, Lucy Boynton, Marton Csokas, Alex Fitzalan, Minnie Driver
Director: Stephen Williams
Running Time: 107 Minutes
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: April 21, 2023 (Theaters)
Renfield:
Starring: Nicholas Hoult, Nicolas Cage, Awkwafina, Ben Schwartz, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Brandon Scott Jones, Adrian Martinez, Camille Chen
Director: Chris McKay
Running Time: 93 Minutes
Rating: R
Release Date: April 14, 2023 (Theaters)
I’ve been noticing something lately: there are a lot of new movies at the multiplex! We might even be back to a pre-pandemic output volume. How else to explain me spending the same weekend catching the likes of both Chevalier and Renfield?
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November 15, 2022
jmunney
Cinema, Movie Reviews
Aimee Carrero, anya taylor-joy, Arturo Castro, Hong Chau, Janet McTeer, John Leguizamo, Judith Light, Mark Mylod, Mark St. Cyr, Nicholas Hoult, Paul Adelstein, Ralph Fiennes, Reed Birney, Rob Yang, The Menu
You show me your Menu, I’ll show you mine (CREDIT: Eric Zachanowich/Searchlight Pictures. © 2022 20th Century Studios All Rights Reserved)
Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Fiennes, Nicholas Hoult, Hong Chau, Janet McTeer, Judith Light, John Leguizamo, Reed Birney, Paul Adelstein, Aimee Carrero, Arturo Castro, Mark St. Cyr, Rob Yang
Director: Mark Mylod
Running Time: 106 Minutes
Rating: R for Deadly Threats That Demand to Be Taken Seriously
Release Date: November 18, 2022 (Theaters)
What’s It About?: Would you pay upwards of $1000 for a seat at the most exclusive molecular gastronomy restaurant in the world? I certainly wouldn’t! Although maybe I would think about it if somebody else were paying for me, though I might still look askance at the whole affair. In that way I’m very much like Margot, Anya Taylor-Joy’s character in The Menu, as she finds herself whisked along by her pompous foodie boyfriend Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) to a remote island dedicated to the culinary craftsmanship of Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes). He’s assembled an exacting series of courses and a very particular lineup of guests for the evening. This is his last hurrah, and that’s very bad news for his customers, if you catch my drift…
What Made an Impression?: I gotta be honest: I thought this movie was going to be about cannibals. And that very much made me want to go see it! But there are in fact zero cannibals in The Menu, at least not literally. Nevertheless, I still had a good time. So that should tell you something. When a film simultaneously fully defies and satisfies expectations, you know we’re in business. Director Mark Mylod delivers the fun and games by meticulously altering reality just so. You might find yourself screaming, “There’s no way this could possibly happen!” Yet in the same breath, you’ll gladly concede, “But I’m grateful for this fantastical catharsis.”
A big reason for that is because Taylor-Joy is so preternaturally easy to root for. The brand of seared-black satirical humor on display here requires characters who obviously deserve their comeuppance. Most of the cast fits that bill with aplomb, but Margot on the other hand is an unassuming interloper. It’s nice to have a peep of light piercing through the darkness. Otherwise, you’d have to wallow in the stink of the wisecrackers, which can be entertaining, but also somewhat exhausting. With a surrogate like Margot, however, you can safely smile as everything burns.
The Menu is Recommended If You Like: Eating the rich
Grade: 4 out of 5 Courses
October 22, 2019
jmunney
Cinema, Movie Reviews
Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, Benedict Cumberbatch, George Westinghouse, Katherine Waterston, Matthew Macfadyen, Michael Shannon, Nicholas Hoult, Nikola Tesla, The Current War, Thomas Edison, Tom Holland, Tuppence Middleton
CREDIT: 101 Studios
Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Shannon, Tom Holland, Nicholas Hoult, Katherine Waterston, Tuppence Middleton, Matthew Macfadyen
Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
Running Time: 107 Minutes
Rating: PG-13 for Big Egos Occasionally Misbehaving
Release Date: October 25, 2019
Note: This release of The Current War includes the subtitle “The Director’s Cut,” which is a rare thing for a movie in its original commercial theatrical release. But it’s arriving under unusual circumstances, as it was originally supposed to come out two years ago, but then it was one of the movies orphaned by the dissolution of The Weinstein Company. Since then, director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon assembled a cut that is ten minutes shorter than the version that premiered at the 2017 Toronto Film Festival. (He spoke about the experience with Deadline.) I have not seen that cut, so this review is based solely on “The Director’s Cut.”
I’m by no means a huge history buff, but that doesn’t mean an anti-history buff. So I’m at least open to the possibility of being entranced by stories from the past, and cinemas certainly has the power to do that entrancing. The war of the currents would seem like an ideal subject to be powerful in just that way – it is about electricity after all! In the late nineteenth century, Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse were jockeying for position to be the providers of electric energy to the burgeoning United States power grid, with Nikola Tesla popping in to alternately work for both of them. There is plenty of energy and spirit to these characters, but overall The Current War is a little more subdued than might be expected.
CREDIT: Dean Rogers/101 Studios
Much of The Current War follows this formula: the principal players head to meetings, buoyed along by the invigorating score by Dustin O’Halloran and Hauschka. Then they sit down … and the music peters out. That sense of the oomph escaping is a major issue. You get the feeling that Edison and Westinghouse don’t really want to be enemies. True, they have a major fundamental disagreement: Edison advocates for direct current, believing that alternating current is way too potentially lethal, while Westinghouse thinks that alternating is the only option powerful enough to get this project on a country-wide scale. But by the end, you get to a sense of “what was all that fuss about?”
As individuals, these men are fascinating to witness. Benedict Cumberbatch’s Edison is given to bombastic statements like making this counteroffer during a negotiation: “I give you nothing you want, and you give me everything I want,” while Michael Shannon’s Westinghouse is certainly hungry for victory, but he is also mellowed by an anti-materialist streak, noting of his company’s AC, “It’s not my electricity. It’s electricity.” That offers plenty to chew over, and there’s also a fantastic bit of filmmaking set at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago that achieves a bit of transcendence. Maybe if we could have literally spent some time in the heads of Edison, Westinghouse, or Nicholas Hoult’s Tesla instead of the snatches of subjectivity that we do get, then we could have truly been electrocuted.
The Current War is Recommended If You Like: Watching clashing egos duke it out
Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Horses
June 5, 2019
jmunney
Cinema, Movie Reviews
Alexandra Shipp, Ato Essandoh, Dark Phoenix, Evan Peters, james mcavoy, Jean Grey, Jennifer Lawrence, Jessica Chastain, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Michael Fassbender, Nicholas Hoult, Scott Shepherd, Simon Kinberg, Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, X-Men, X-Men: Dark Phoenix
CREDIT: Twentieth Century Fox
Starring: Sophie Turner, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Jessica Chastain, Tye Sheridan, Evan Peters, Alexandra Shipp, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Scott Shepherd, Ato Essandoh
Director: Simon Kinberg
Running Time: 114 Minute
Rating: PG-13 for Getting Suddenly Violently Tossed About by Telekinesis
Release Date: June 7, 2019
I love the X-Men. They’re my favorite superhero team, and still, through it all, my favorite superhero movie franchise. They’ve delivered some dizzying cinematic heights but also some flicks that have driven me batty. So it pains me to say that Dark Phoenix did not make me feel much in the way of any strong emotions.
Some say that the X-Men series is burdened by tangled, contradictory continuity. I say it’s bolstered by it. Whereas other cinematic universes are careful to keep every little thread in line for the health of a sturdy timeline, the Merry Mutants traverse decades willy-nilly, tossing off whatever plotlines just aren’t working and cruising along with whatever’s exciting and vibrant, paradoxes be damned! Dark Phoenix doesn’t reject that approach, but it doesn’t embrace it either. It’s mostly content to tell a straightforward story, while occasionally throwing out some half-baked ideas. It’s a movie unstuck in time, instead of proudly giving the middle finger to any temporal concepts.
Dark Phoenix is clearly a labor of love. It’s the directorial debut of Simon Kinberg, who’s been with the franchise for over a decade, and it’s based on one of the most beloved comics storylines, in which telepathic telekinetic Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) bonds with a super-hot cosmic force to become the most powerful creature on the planet, perhaps the whole universe. It’s a huge climactic big screen culmination that’s been promised to us for quite some time, but after seeing how it’s turned out, I mainly want to say: we would have been okay without this movie. Or maybe now just wasn’t the right time for it. It’s arriving hot on the heels of an X-Men movie whose title literally referred to the end of the world and another that said a fitting goodbye to a pair of iconic X-characters.
But it shouldn’t have been impossible for Dark Phoenix to be another rousing, revolutionary statement so soon after those conclusive paradigm changes. In fact, it would have totally been in keeping with this franchise’s always-moving-forward ethos. But that’s not going to happen when a climactic battle scene takes place in some random New York hotel or when Professor X and Magneto run through the same old rigamarole of bickering and then making a temporary peace. When the stakes are this high, you have to go for broke.
Dark Phoenix is Recommended If You Like: X-Men completism, if you gotta
Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Firebirds
May 7, 2019
jmunney
Cinema, Movie Reviews
Anthony Boyle, Colm Meaney, Craig Roberts, Derek Jacobi, Dome Karukoski, J.R.R. Tolkien, Lily Collins, Nicholas Hoult, Patrick Gibson, Tolkien, Tom Glynne-Carney
CREDIT: Fox Searchlight Pictures
Starring: Nicholas Hoult, Lily Collins, Colm Meaney, Derek Jacobi, Anthony Boyle, Patrick Gibson, Tom Glynne-Carney, Craig Roberts
Director: Dome Karukoski
Running Time: 111 Minutes
Rating: PG-13 for Flashes of World War I
Release Date: May 10, 2019
Would you be intrigued to know that some of the elements of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s actual life? The biopic Tolkien is counting on it, although it is not especially committed to that idea. The legendary English fantasy writer (as played dutifully by Nicholas Hoult) is haunted by memories of World War I with rather dragon-esque fire in the sky, and he has a tight group of schoolmates that one might call a fellowship. But beyond those (easily identifiable, not particularly cinematic) connections, this is a fairly straightforward story about a boy of modest, tragic (Dickensian, even) origins who made good. It is a life well-lived, but not necessarily captivating at every little moment. But at least his romance with his future wife Edith (Lily Collins) is compelling, built as it is on mutual respect and fascination. The emotions in their declarations of love are not atypical for the genre, but the language is unique and heartfelt. Focusing the whole movie on this intimate love story might have been a more inspired choice.
Tolkien is Recommended If You Like: Tolkien completism, The less interesting story behind the story
Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Cellar Doors
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