Enlarge / Unsurprisingly, things get strange in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. (credit: Marvel Studios) On paper, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is a formulaic Marvel Studios superhero romp. Its plot beats read like sticky notes slapped onto an overpaid executive’s wall: A superhero arrives, seems all-powerful, then runs into an unstoppable […]
Enlarge / Knuckles and Sonic. (credit: Paramount / Sega) Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is the snappy, fun-for-everyone film that the first live-action Sonic film should have been. It’s allegiant to the source games and comics without getting hamstrung by reverence. Its best laughs are earned. Its cheesiest laughs are easy to shrug off. And while […]
Enlarge / Tom Holland stars as Indi—er, as Nathan Drake in Columbia Pictures’ Uncharted. (credit: Columbia Pictures) Imagine a video game sequel where pretty much everything fans liked about the original was gone. Less action; simpler puzzles; boring environments; plot holes big enough to drive the “Hog Wild” seaplane through; and perhaps worst of all, […]
Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson) When it comes to films in 2021, Ars Technica readers have been more likely to express their feelings about the logistics of seeing new offerings this year than about the films in question. We get it. The past year-plus of world-shaking change has been a stern reminder that some stuff works […]
Enlarge / MJ and Peter Parker, dropping in one more time. (credit: Sony Pictures / Marvel Studios) My latest challenge: after seeing Spider-Man: No Way Home, the third Tom Holland live-action film in the series, I’m befuddled. How do I fully convey its quality without spoiling even a smidge of its contents? As I left […]
Eternals, assemble! (l-r) Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani), Makkari (Lauren Ridloff), Gilgamesh (Don Lee), Thena (Angelina Jolie), Ikaris (Richard Madden), Ajak (Salma Hayek), Sersi (Gemma Chan), Sprite (Lia McHugh), and Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry). [credit: YouTube/Marvel Studios ] For much of Marvel’s Eternals‘ 2 hour 37 minute runtime, I found my consciousness floating out of my body, […]
Enlarge / Denis Villeneuve’s vision of Dune appears to be heated not by scorching desert suns but by a ton of Hollywood hotties. That’s one way to get the spice to flow. (credit: Warner Bros.) I left my first screening of Dune (2021) convinced that I would watch it again soon. For a film that […]
Kasady/Carnage vs. Brock/Venom: a comic book matchup for the ages… or so we’d hoped, up until we actually saw the film. [credit: Sony ] My favorite parts of underwhelming films come when on-screen characters say the insulting things we, the audience, are all thinking. Out of all the modern comic book-iverse characters to hand these […]
Debuting exclusively in theaters on September 3, 2021. [credit: Marvel Studios ] If you want to know what direction Marvel’s post- Avengers superhero films are going, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is a pretty clear indicator—and it’s an optimistic one at that. I had a blast watching Shang-Chi , which arrives exclusively […]
Guy (Ryan Reynolds) discovers that things inside his world look a lot different when you have special sunglasses. [credit: 20th Century Studios ] In video games and computer graphics, the concept of the “uncanny valley” can emerge once something approaches visual realism. The more a virtual character looks like a human, the more our brains […]