Henry Golding, seen here doing one of many unnecessary combat-adjacent poses in Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins. Earlier this year, I gave a tepid recommendation to Mortal Kombat‘s latest theatrical reboot. What I didn’t know at the time was how quickly I’d feel nostalgic for its quality and pacing. That’s how I felt after Snake […]
Natasha (Scarlett Johansson) and Yelena (Florence Pugh) meet after a long separation in this week’s Black Widow. [credit: Marvel Studios ] This week’s Black Widow may have put a new hit Marvel franchise in motion. It’s intimate, aggressive, funny, and brutal in every PG-13 sense possible. It’s an Eastern European Marvel superhero tale that gives […]
Veep‘s Sam Richardson stars as park ranger Finn Wheeler in the comedy/horror/whodunnit Werewolves Within. After so many years of zombies dominating the horror genre, it’s nice to see the classic werewolf making a comeback. Last year’s sleeper indie film The Wolf of Snow Hollow was a wry, clever take that mixed elements of Fargo, Scooby-Doo, and the lesser-known 1981 […]
Every Fast & Furious film has at least one stand-out car-brand showdown, and in Fast 9, that honor goes to Dodge (left) versus Ford (right). [credit: Universal Pictures ] A few months ago, ahead of this week’s launch of Fast 9, I began pulling myself out of the wreckage that was the COVID-19 pandemic by […]
Ryan Reynolds, Samuel Jackson, and Salma Hayek reunite for more madcap hijinks in The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard. It took a little while for Ryan Reynolds to find his true cinematic niche—one that makes good use of his rare combination of leading-man looks, self-deprecating amiability, and smartly sardonic sense of humor. He was sheer perfection in […]
Emily Blunt and Cillian Murphy star in A Quiet Place Part 2, John Krasinski’s sequel to the 2018 sci-fi/horror hit film. It’s been a long road for Paramount’s A Quiet Place Part 2, the much-anticipated sequel to 2018’s surprise sci-fi/horror hit A Quiet Place. Originally slated to hit theaters last March, the sequel even had an […]
Three friends trying to create their own RPG game about getting away with murder get more than they bargained for in the new black comedy, Murder Bury Win. Three friends get more than they bargained for when they think they are about to hit the gaming big-time in Murder Bury Win, a charming black comedy […]
You can probably hear the title being screamed upon seeing this image. [credit: WarnerMedia ] Mortal Kombat‘s third live-action movie, launching this week after over two decades of cinematic silence, is a weird one. It’s not good. You wouldn’t mistake this for a classic action or martial arts film, and it borrows clumsily from genre giants […]
Recently, I’ve heard the phrase “pandemic fatigue” come up in terms of people getting antsy about returning to “normal.” I don’t know how long we have left to go (though Ars has plenty of articles on the topic), but I can say that even through my vigilance about safety and health, my own patience sometimes […]
Danielle Kummer and Lucy Harvey produced and directed the charming documentary Alien on Stage. Imagine if your amateur high school theatrical production was suddenly asked to perform on Broadway, with just a few weeks to prepare. That’s the kind of thing that typically provides fodder for anxiety dreams. But in Alien on Stage, a group of […]