Ian Thomas Malone Ian Thomas Malone

Monday

11

August 2025

Classic Film: Summertime

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews

Summer vacation possesses one allure that looms large over all the rest. Whether you travel to an exotic location like Venice, or even plant your feet up in your backyard for a few days off at home, summer provides the one thing we all need from time to time. What’s life without a little escapism? The 1955 film Summertime examines the life of a woman who perhaps waited a little too long for some release from her otherwise mundane existence.

Jane Hudson (Katharine Hepburn) is a single middle-aged woman traveling alone to Venice, Italy. A dream trip that she saved up years to go on, Jane is an upbeat woman who wears her emotions on her sleeves. She bonds quickly with the fellow guests at her pensione, but grows lonely when they all head out for their own adventures, leaving Jane to take in the marvelous city by herself, occasionally joined by a young street urchin Mauro (Gaetano Autiero).

Jane stumbles into an antiques shop, where she purchases a red goblet. Renato (Rosano Brazzi), the shopkeeper, quickly takes a fancy to Jane. Jane spends much of the next day infatuated with the thought of Renato, who returns her affection later that evening with a visit to her pensione. Jane quickly falls in love with Renato, though a conversation with his nephew reveals that Renato is a married man, estranged from his wife. Rather than express remorse for the deception, Renato attempts to flip the script, claiming that Italy operates by a different set of rules, chastising Jane for resisting lowering her standards.

Based on the stage play The Time of the Cuckoo, director David Lean shows off his penchant for epic cinematography, later displayed in his classics The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia, with his awe-inspiring depiction of Venice. Venice is essentially its own character in the film, an intoxicating playground for the disaffected in search of something to break the mundanity of life. Making great use of the city, Lean’s depiction of Venice looks breathtaking in Technicolor.

Hepburn carries the rather clunky screenplay, co-authored by Lean and H.E. Bates. Jane has an understated complexity to her character, a social butterfly who can’t shake the feeling that time has passed her by. While her obvious star power radiates in every scene, Hepburn elicits great sympathy for Jane through the subtle moments of profound sadness, the immutable sting of loneliness still resonating seventy years later.

The story starts to unravel by the third act. Renato is a mess. Brazzi plays him competently, but the sleaziness of the deception and his pitiful defense of his actions leave a bad taste that Lean does little to wash away. The 100-minute runtime overstays its welcome, though it’s hard to tire of the beautiful Venetian scenery. The subject matter is probably a little too complex for the remnants of the Hays Code era. 1955 was not exactly the best time to try to make the case for an adulterous summer fling.

At one point, Jane remarks that it’s better to leave a party before it ends. However true that may be, Renato is not much of a party. Summertime is a bit of a mixed bag. Lean’s filmmaking is always a sight to behold, and Hepburn is in peak form. The film is practically worth watching for those reasons alone. If only the story at the heart of the narrative received as much care as Lean gave to his gorgeous depiction of the city.

Tuesday

5

August 2025

0

COMMENTS

Classic Film: Pump Up the Volume

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog

There’s never been an easier time for disaffected people to make their voices heard. Social media and podcasts provide outlets for anyone to amass large followings spouting vagaries against the system, irrespective of the merit of any of their arguments. As we’ve seen with the right-wing echo chamber known as the “manosphere,” having a large platform does not instill a sense of responsibility to be careful with such power and influence.

The 1990 film Pump Up the Volume often plays like a stereotypical Gen X high school film, rife with angst towards the previous generations that stifle their individuality. Mark Hunter (Christian Slater) is a high school student who recently moved to a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona for his father’s job. Mark is a socially awkward loner with little social contact throughout the day. At night, he broadcasts a pirate FM radio show under the pseudonym “Hard Harry,” playing music and raging against the machine that is his local high school.

Mark’s show attracts little notice at first, rising in popularity as students at his school sell bootlegs of his show. The faculty starts to take an interest after a student commits suicide shortly after appearing on Mark’s show. Another student, Nora De Niro (Samantha Mathis), discovers Mark’s identity, urging him to use his voice to lead his fellow students in protesting the school, whose principal, Lorretta Creswood (Annie Ross), is doing her best to manipulate test scores to secure additional funding.

Slater showcases a remarkable range as Mark, who often plays like a clueless rebel without a cause. Much of Hard Harry’s musings are generic fluff without much substance, carrying the same level of intellectualism as high school freshmen getting stoned in their parents’ basement for the first time. The film doesn’t put much weight behind the school’s “problems” until late in the third act, a half-baked premise that frequently undercuts its own message.

What sets Mark apart from the shock jocks he tries to emulate is the sin for which he’d be cast out from the manosphere if the film were made today. Mark cares about the ramifications of his words. Mark’s show radicalizes his fellow students to take action against the school. While people like Nora encourage him to keep going, Mark pauses to consider the implications of his power.

Mark is also quite different from many leading bad boys of his time. Mark lacks the effortless cool factor that defined the likes of John Bender and Ferris Bueller, only coming out of his shell behind the comforts of anonymity provided by his show, where he uses a harmonizer to mask his voice. It takes Nora embodying peak manic pixie dream girl to break through his anti-social security blanket, Mathis commanding every scene she’s in, often through mere facial expressions.

Writer/director Allan Moyle’s work takes itself too seriously at times, consistently bailed out by Slater’s mesmerizing performance and an exceptional soundtrack anchored by Leonard Cohen. The chemistry between Slater and Mathis is the most interesting dynamic in the film, but Moyle rarely gives them the runway. The character work constantly plays second fiddle to the atmosphere, much to the film’s detriment.

Social media often makes a person feel like they’re screaming into the void, irrespective of follower count. Engagement-driven algorithms seek to teach us that nothing is worth saying unless somebody is listening. You’re meant to believe that if you don’t get likes, you are not liked.

Despite a lackluster screenplay, Pump Up The Volume stands out from its contemporaries through its earnest sincerity. Disaffected youth don’t want to hear that it gets better. Slater found a way to reach them anyway. The film is hardly Gen X’s greatest cinematic triumph, but one that remains particularly relevant in today’s uncertain times.

Friday

25

July 2025

0

COMMENTS

‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ review: Marvel plays it safe with one of its best movies of the post-Endgame era

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Reviews

For all the talk of comic books having a steep learning curve, the editors at publishers like Marvel and DC take great care to make sure that readers can follow along with the story, no matter if they missed the last issue, or if they’re reading the book for the first time. Spider-Man: Homecoming was the first MCU film to follow this rubric, eschewing a traditional origin story in acknowledgement of one simple truth. Some heroes need no introduction.

The Fantastic Four have had a rocky on-screen history. After a 1994 low-budget adaptation went unreleased, two further efforts were made to introduce Marvel’s First Family to the general public on screen. While the two entries of the Ioan Gruffudd-led team in the 00s have a certain charm, an attempted 2015 reboot landed with a grimdark thud, a strong contender for the worst superhero movie of the 2010s.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps assumes that most of its audience is familiar with the basics of the family of space explorers who gained their powers after exposure to cosmic rays. Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn), and The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) need little introduction, but the film does a good job presenting the fundamentals to any newcomers to the theater. The film takes place in a retro-futuristic 1960s on Earth-828, the only heroes on their planet in the multiverse.

Four years into their superhuman careers, the team has found a solid work/life balance, which meets a curveball in the form of Sue’s unplanned pregnancy. While Reed frantically works to explore every possible outcome for their newborn child, and the potential complications from their abilities, Galactus (Ralph Ineson), the Devourer of Planets, sends the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner, playing the Shalla-Bal version of the character) to notify Earth that he plans to gobble it whole. When The Fantastic Four arrive on Galactus’ spaceship to parlay, Galactus takes a special interest in the unborn child.

Director Matt Shakman moves quickly through a relatively brisk 114-minute runtime. There’s never a dull moment in First Steps, though the film’s frantic pacing often forgets to breathe. The eager cast rarely get a chance to truly define their roles. Pascal is patient and thoughtful, even when anxious, bringing a lot of depth to Reed, something that eschews the comics when Mr. Fantastic leans too heavily into his mad scientist trope.

Kirby is the real core of the film, though the narrative often dulls the shine of the Invisible Woman. There’s a core dilemma in the story that presents about as dark a portrayal of the general proletariat as we’ve seen in the MCU. Rather than letting Kirby fully lean into a mother’s understandable rage, Shakman pivots to a wishy-washy sense of optimism that robs his work of its own humanity. We’re given slices of something interesting, but never enough to forget that at the end of the day, the MCU doesn’t want to stray too far from the comforts of safe corporate content. The humor is mostly out of place and terrible. The film’s sets are absolutely gorgeous, with some of the best set design in the franchise’s long history.

Garner carves out a nice niche for herself as the film’s secondary villain, doing fine work with the relatively blank metal palette that is Shalla-Bal. Galactus is a bit of a mixed bag. Ineson does his best with the apathetic apex predator, but the Devourer of Planet is not the most compelling major villain in the Marvel stable. He’s certainly a smart choice to be the big bad for The Fantastic Four’s MCU debut, but plenty of other superhero movies have handled what plays out on screen like a glorified kaiju.

Moss-Bachrach and Quinn make the most out of limited opportunities. The whole family dynamic is so interesting that it’s easy to question the extent to which Shakman handed over the runtime to the fairly paint-by-numbers story. First Steps is a lot of fun, and a very solid MCU debut for the Fantastic Four. It’s hard to shake the feeling that this film came close to being something great, if only its pieces had been arranged a little better

Friday

11

July 2025

0

COMMENTS

‘Superman’ review: James Gunn fixes most of DC Comic’s cinematic woes, a fun, light-hearted adventure

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture, Reviews

For all the talk of shared universes, DC has spent the past 15 years grappling with one core issue. Aside from a few bright spots, movies based on its comics haven’t been very good. The grimdark nature of the Snyderverse hardly bred corporate synergy for the brand’s other properties. Somewhere along the way, people forgot that the S that Superman wears on his chest stands for hope.

James Gunn kicked off his new DC Universe with Superman, an earnest film that eschews origin stories that everyone is familiar with by now in favor of something simpler. There’s no need to rehash the destruction of Krypton, or the arrival of its last son to Smallville, Kansas in a spaceship bassinet to be raised by a couple of farmers. Gunn throws his audience right into the action, quickly taking aim at the myth that Kal-El is just a tad too powerful to be relatable.

The film starts off with Kal-El (David Corenswet) suffering his first defeat, three years into his journey as Superman. After interfering with a war between two fictional nations, Boravia and Jarhanpur, Superman gets a whooping at the hands of the “Hammer of Boravia” back in Metropolis. Rescued by his rambunctious canine friend Krypto, Superman takes solace in the Fortress of Solitude, while Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) is fast on his tail.

Luthor spends much of the film trying to get the government to sanction his crusade Superman, while secretly putting his thumb on the scale in the Boravia/Jarhanpur war. If domestic imperialism didn’t hit too close to home, Luthor also wields the media against Superman, quickly turning the masses against the Man of Steel by releasing the longform message that his Kryptonian parents left before their death. Having only previously seen a fragment of his birth parents’ last wishes, Clark is horrified by the urging to conquer Earth. To make matters worse for Clark, Lex Luthor has a secret weapon, “Ultraman,” that he can control remotely, having compiled a database with all of Superman’s moves in a battle of brains versus brawn.

Gunn, known for his humor, was the perfect counterweight to the self-indulgent sense of seriousness that defined most of DC’s output for the past 15 years. Superman isn’t necessarily a barrel of laughs, but the film doesn’t take itself too seriously either. Corenswet is a calm, grounded Clark, still trying to find himself three years into his mission. Rachel Brosnahan shines as Lois Lane, ever-ready to challenge Clark’s perception of the world, and Superman’s obligations to it. Clark and Lois butt heads frequently, a refreshing change of pace from the “boy scout” accusations that often circle their corner of the DC universe.

As Luthor, Hoult rearranges the gravitational force of the film to center around him, not Superman. Channeling his inner Elon Musk, Hoult brings an “I alone can fix this,” mentality that makes him both effective and instantly detestable as the villain. Billionaires are not meant to be empathized with. Gunn does skirt some corners on Luthor’s overall characterization, an issue that does recur throughout the brisk 129-runtime.

Though franchise-building is far from Superman’s mind, Gunn does throw in three fun B-list heroes, Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), a Green Lantern than many in the audience would be unfamiliar with, Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), and Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi), who form a group known as the “Justice Gang.” Fillion brings fantastic jerk energy to Gardner, a fan favorite with perhaps the worst haircut in the history of comics. Gathegi is the film’s secret weapon, stealing every scene that he’s in, even when Mister Terrific isn’t the focus, the only hero unfazed by the film’s universe-shattering stakes.

The film does occasionally forget to breathe. Gunn is thoughtful in his effort to give each of the cast their moment to shine, sometimes coming at the expense of the principals. Audience familiarity with Kent, Luthor, and Lane, is not irrelevant, but the film does lean on knowledge of these characters to such a degree that it leaves Corenswet, Brosnahan, and Hoult with fewer opportunities to make their marks.

Gunn is perhaps too preoccupied with showcasing Superman’s vulnerability. Corenswet sells Clark’s natural charm that draws in everyone around him, but there’s a layer to the character that doesn’t really get pulled back with all the nonstop action going around him. Too often, Superman feels like the object of the film, not its primary driver.

The film does present a thorough case for the value of immigration and America’s role on the world stage, earning accusations of “wokeness” from far-right media despite leaving the character’s origin story largely unchanged since his debut in 1938, hardly the most progressive era in our nation’s history. Less can be said of journalism as a profession. Gunn tackles the ethical dilemma at play when Superman interviews himself. Lane takes a well-intentioned stab at the same conflict of interest, though failing to escape the optics of what some might reasonably refer to as fake news.

Gunn has plenty of confidence throughout the film, particularly in its third act, which lands well despite some pacing issues that undercut the drama at hand. There remains the sense that these characters are better suited for a follow-up story that fully allows them to dispel with any obligations toward being the first entry in the new DC Universe. But for now, it’s a fantastic start.

Tuesday

8

July 2025

0

COMMENTS

Classic Film: Summer with Monika

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

The promise of summer is often as fleeting as a cool breeze on a hundred-degree day. The season offers plenty of natural escapism for those who want a break from their monotonous realities. The beach doesn’t exactly provide any answers for people in need of more permanent solutions for their broader sense of dread, a dynamic that Ingmar Bergman’s 1953 film Summer with Monika (original Swedish title: Sommaren med Monika) centers its narrative around.

The film starts off with the chance encounter between Harry (Lars Ekborg), an errand boy at a factory, and Monika (Harriet Andersson), a grocery store clerk. Harry quickly falls for the carefree Monika, who invites him to take her out for a movie. Sick of the abuse from her alcoholic father in their home full of kids, Monika urges Harry to help her run away. The two take shelter in Harry’s father’s boat, spending the summer camping around the Swedish Archipelago.

Their bliss starts to sour as the two return home, with Monika pregnant. The promise of summer wears off for Harry, who takes his work and studies more seriously in an effort to provide for Monika and their child. Monika does not find fulfilment from being a mother or a homemaker, wishing to resume her breezy existence and skirt her growing responsibilities.

Bergman does an excellent job using light to contrast the cold, stuffy nature of Stockholm City with the seemingly limitless escapism offered by the Archipelago. All of us are supposed to grow up at some point or another, but Monika certainly doesn’t want to. Andersson rarely plays Monika for sympathy, but you can understand her claustrophobia toward her dreary monotony when juxtaposed against the ephemeral nature of summer.

Harry and Monika are hardly a match made in heaven, but Ekborg and Andersson have the kind of natural chemistry that makes you understand how the two were a good fit for a season. Considered scandalous at the time, Bergman includes a few shots of Andersson’s bare buttocks while swimming, adding a layer of eroticism to Monika’s insatiable quest for fulfilment.

The viewer’s natural sympathies drift toward Harry, the only one taking life seriously, but Monika carries an uncomfortable sense of realism that contributes to the film’s lasting appeal. It’s easy to dismiss Monika as selfish, until you consider her perpetual lack of agency. The inevitability of summer, its perpetual annual presence, cannot be clung to, for summer is finite. We all have to go back to the cruel world eventually. Reluctance to do so doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person, it just makes you human.

Monday

7

July 2025

0

COMMENTS

‘Jurassic World Rebirth’ review: a fun, highly derivative romp that entertains where it fails to impress

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews

For all the ways that Jurassic Park changed the way we look at blockbuster filmmaking, the series hasn’t evolved much from its original premise. The whole formula can be pretty much boiled down to dinosaurs, moral quandaries, some comedy, and people being eaten. Some people might find the franchise stale after more than thirty years, but the success and failures of the series through seven cinematic entries mostly ebbs and flows with the execution of each individual film, not whether it actually brought anything new to the table.

Jurassic World Rebirth is not much of a rebirth. The plot is fairly simple. A covert team lands on an island full of dinosaurs to retrieve biomaterial samples that can potentially cure heart disease. Organized by the shady Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend), the team also includes Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson), a former military operative looking for a big payday to retire from being a mercenary, Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey), a paleontologist upset that people don’t seem to care about dinosaurs anymore, and Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali), the team leader and a friend of Nora.

Given the scummy nature of the core group, Rebirth throws in a family out on a sailing expedition for good measure. Father Reuben Delgado (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), daughters Teresa (Luna Blaise) and Isabella (Audrina Miranda), and Teresa’s boyfriend Xavier (David Iacano) were traveling around the island of Ile Saint-Hubert when their boat was shipwrecked by a mosasaurus. After some arguing among the mercenaries, Duncan rescues the civilians, bringing them along for the dangerous ride.

Director Gareth Edwards does an excellent job of pacing the paint-by-numbers thriller through all its expected twists and turns. The previous World movies borrowed heavily from the original Jurassic Park and its first sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, but left the final piece of the first trilogy largely alone. Though initially critically reviled, Jurassic Park III laid out a fairly solid guidebook for future installments with its standalone story that prioritized thrills over ethics.

Rebirth takes much of its cues from III, interjecting some philosophical quandaries into the equation as Bennett and Loomis clash with Krebs’ capitalistic intentions for their findings on the island. Original JP screenwriter David Koepp puts forth a competent script with a brisk runtime of 133-minutes, which unfortunately leaves little time for character development. Johansson has great chemistry with Bailey and Ali, but none of them are fully fleshed out characters.

Jurassic World Dominion similarly struggled with a bloated cast, juggling the cast of the new trilogy with the trio of returnees. Rebirth handles this dynamic better than Dominion, largely by streamlining all human interaction into a collection of easily digestible cliches. Its methodology is a little rudimentary at times, but the results deliver more than any of the entries of the new trilogy.

Koepp’s script struggles with its awkward humor. The movie isn’t funny at all, but the cast does a great job selling the idea that you’re supposed to care about these people, aside from the obvious dinosaur fodder. Miranda, the youngest member of the cast, shines with her relationship with a baby Dilophosaurus she named Dolores.

Edwards delivers with the action sequences. Water was famously a challenge for the original film’s production thirty years ago. Rebirth supplies plenty of genuinely thrilling water scenes that mostly make you forget how generic this whole experience is. The new bioengineered dinosaurs are a little cartoonish, but that’s also to be expected by now in this franchise.

Jurassic World Rebirth brings nothing new to the table, but Edwards’ competent direction steers the ship away from familiar criticisms. People have been saying that the franchise is played out since The Lost World. The constant presence of John Williams’ score hardly helps, reminding the audience of better days when these movies had something new to say. The original movie already masterfully covered the ethical dilemmas at play in every subsequent installment. This film is great fun for people who thought III got a bad rap.

While there doesn’t appear to be any great intellectualism left to be mined from this franchise, Rebirth is solid popcorn entertainment. The paint-by-numbers approach won’t appeal to many Spielberg fans, but there’s a lot of fun to be had watching one-dimensional people run away from CGI abominations. The dinosaurs and the audience deserve better than this corporate content masquerading as cinema, but it’s far from the worst way to spend an evening.

Thursday

5

June 2025

2

COMMENTS

‘Ballerina’ review: excellent choreography proves there’s life left in the John Wick franchise

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

The John Wick franchise has relied on a fairly simple premise that has become quite convoluted with each passing entry. “All this over a dog,” has become short form for the ethos of the whole series. And for the most part, it’s worked, aided greatly by superb choreography and Keanu Reeves’ dedication to his craft.

From the World of John Wick: Ballerina tests the series’ formula in a major way. What is John Wick without John Wick? Set during the events of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, the film tries to gently ease its audience into its world without its major hero at the helm.

The plot is quite perfunctory. Eva Macarro (Ana de Armas, replacing Unity Phelan, who portrayed the character in Parabellum) seeks revenge on The Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne), who killed her father, Javier (David Castañeda). Eva is a student at the Ruska Roma organization under the tutelage of the Director (Anjelica Huston). Eva goes rogue after the Chancellor, pitting titans of the High Table against each other.

De Armas brings a lot of charm to a largely empty role. Eva’s only substantive relationship in the movie is with the Director, limiting the effectiveness of Byrne as the villain. Franchise mainstays Winston Scott (Ian McShane) and Charon (Lance Reddick, making his final on-screen appearance since his 2023) provide limited mentorship in crowd-pleaser roles.

At times, the movie feels pieced together from various strands of plot. Norman Reedus makes a limited appearance that seems more destined for another spinoff. Catalina Sandino Moreno’s role as one of The Chancellor’s bodyguards contains more complexity than was needed for such a small role. Veteran director Len Wiseman seems more than aware that his film lacks much heart at the center, but he never really commits to a vision beyond the boilerplate revenge tale.

The film does deliver on the action. Not all of the sequences are up to John Wick standards, but there are a few genuine standouts amidst the lean 125-minute runtime. The film never shakes the sense that it could have produced a better product with a few more passes at the script, but aside from a few janky special effects sequences, Ballerina manages to deliver a satisfying experience for fans of the franchise. The action is fun. There are too many flamethrowers and grenades, but many of the stunts are a joy to behold on the big screen.

Keanu Reeves is also effectively deployed. This isn’t his movie, but John Wick gets a little bit more to do than just a standard cameo. The film manages to give him a few moments without leaving its audience desperate that he doesn’t play a bigger role.

Ballerina is not a great movie, which is a shame, because the pieces are certainly there. The story just isn’t strong enough to deliver an experience on par with the mainline franchise. The film is leaps above the terrible Peacock prequel, The Continental. It’s an enjoyable time at the theater. The franchise hasn’t completely figured out the formula to thrive without Reeves, but it’s a worthy start.

Tuesday

3

June 2025

0

COMMENTS

‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’ review: a satisfying, underwhelming conclusion to a franchise that deserved better

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

The Mission: Impossible franchise has defied all Hollywood conventions for the past thirty years, the rare television adaptation to vastly outshine its source material’s cultural staying power. From the franchise’s fourth entry, Ghost Protocol, onward, Tom Cruise’s passion project has grown from a bankable action series into one of the world’s biggest franchises. Cruise’s obsession with topping himself in defiance of all aging norms is practically worth the cost of admission.

There has been a mission along the way that Cruise has not exactly chosen to accept while continuing Ethan Hunt’s adventures into his sixties. Part of the charm of the original series was its ensemble nature. Each mission needed a team. The team mattered.

The Mission film series has always had its ensemble somewhat baked into its DNA, with Ving Rhames’ Luther Stickell aiding Hunt in every iteration of the franchise (though he was limited to a cameo in Ghost Protocol). The franchise has invested more heavily in its supporting bench as it’s rolled along, most notably Simon Pegg’s Benji, who first joined the team as a minor played in Mission: Impossible III. The latest release, Final Reckoning, purportedly claims to be the final entry, containing numerous callbacks to every one of its seven predecessors.

Final Reckoning has two glaring issues that it struggles to overcome. Mission has always been Cruise’s vehicle, but the supporting cast is nearly irrelevant, leaving Hunt on his own for much of the exceedingly bloated 170-minute runtime. The supporting cast is greatly expanded even as the film finds relatively little for any of them to do. Only Hayley Atwell’s Grace truly rises above the label of window dressing. The film does carve out an attempt at a special moment for one key player, falling short due to the ridiculous nature of the narrative.

While the film is a direct follow-up to Dead Reckoning Part One, Final Reckoning takes the franchise’s lore way too seriously. There are far too many clips of previous films that bog the first act down in exposition. There’s certainly middle ground to be had between the relative stand-alone nature of the early entries and its greater lore it has built over the first two installments.

At times, Final Reckoning’s plot borders on incoherent, rarely aided by the extremes that director Christopher McQuarrie goes to explain the stunts. Cruise’s other recent big tentpole Top Gun: Maverick spent a lot of time diligently explaining its mission. The implausibility of Ethan’s stunts here are not really helped by the extent to which the film decided to educate its audience on every rule he was naturally bound to ignore. Here, Mission: Implausible gives way to Mission: Farcical.

The Entity continues to be an empty shell of a villain. The method to combat the all-powerful AI hardly passes any kind of smell test. The Entity’s human ally, Gabriel (Esai Morales), receives little character development beyond his meager introduction in Dead Reckoning Part One. This film has a weird way of simultaneously having too much going on and dragging its feet toward an inevitable end.

There are some redeeming qualities. While the stunts represent Cruise’s insatiable need to top his own absurdity, there’s no denying that the results are top-tier blockbuster entertainment. The film’s sloppy execution undercuts its suspense, but it’s still a sight to behold on the big screen.

A certain sense of suspension of disbelief is required to enjoy a franchise like Mission: Impossible. Responsibility for maintaining that balance falls on the film more than the audience. The longer Final Reckoning meanders, the more you’re bound to question the sheer nonsense that lies at the heart of an AI program that’s powerful enough to take over the world’s nuclear arsenal, that can only be stopped by a 60-year-old man and a few of his versatile buddies. This film doesn’t play to its character’s strengths at all.

The film’s saving grace lies in its ability to wrap up a franchise with relative grace. Thirty years in, Mission: Impossible is showing its age. There is ample entertainment value to be had here, but Final Reckoning is not a particularly good movie.

Saturday

3

May 2025

0

COMMENTS

‘Thunderbolts*’ review: the MCU plays small ball, delivering its best film in years

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

The MCU has often looked lost in the six years since Avengers: Endgame. There’s a lot of different directions to point fingers, whether it’s the sheer volume of content, the haphazardly presented multiverse, or the unclear status of the Avengers team that nominally ties all the heroes together. 2021’s Black Widow displayed many of the inherent issues with this current era of Marvel, looking backwards at a time when everyone wondered what was next, a humorous façade to cover up the lack of purpose at the core of its narrative.

Too often, the MCU has felt like homework without any real payoff. In the old days, the A-list stars would rarely take more than a year off between appearances. Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, and Avengers: Infinity War all premiered within a four-year window, the same amount of time that has lapsed since Black Widow’s release. Three of its characters play major roles in Thunderbolts*, with only Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova popping up in the MCU since 2021, making an appearance in a single episode of Hawkeye.

In theory, Thunderbolts* should represent everything currently wrong with the MCU, a cast of B-tier heroes from a scattered MCU offering. Yelena is joined by her Black Widow costars, father Red Guardian (David Harbour) and villain turned hero Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko). The team also includes Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), last seen in 2018’s Ant-Man and the Wasp, John Walker (Wyatt Russell), last seen in 2021’s television show Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and the Winter Solider himself (Sebastian Stan), the film’s closest thing to a front tier star. Anyone looking at the spread from which Thunderbolts* draws its cast might roll their eyes at the amount of homework required to comprehend this expansive web.

To the film’s immense credit, Thunderbolts* follows one of the key pillars of comic books in maintaining accessibility for members of the audience who are bound to struggle to keep up with where they’ve last seen everyone. February’s Captain America: Brave New World leaned heavily on 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, the MCU’s second entry, a bizarre narrative choice that functioned like an anchor strangling the entire film. Building off much newer material, Thunderbolts* rarely finds itself bogged down with canon.

The film largely centers its narrative around a botched mission planned by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who’s popped up in Black Widow, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the latter appearance having been much derided by yours truly) that aimed to get rid of her troublesome assets by sending them to kill each other. The team quickly discovers her plan in a remote base, along with Bob (Lewis Pullman), who’s unaware of his identity as the highly unstable split personality of The Sentry and The Void, essentially a version of Superman with severe mental illness.

Director Jake Schreier keeps things rolling through its relatively brisk 126-minute runtime. There’s a lot of signature MCU humor, mostly building off the strong rapport between Pugh and Harbour from Black Widow, along with plenty of jokes about the team’s underpowered nature. After mostly pulling villain duties in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Russell brings a lot of levity to John Walker. Stan is somewhat underutilized around the peripherals of the team, letting the newer players take the reins.

The action sequences are well-choreographed. None of the fight scenes are jaw-dropping, but it’s also refreshing not to see every MCU battle devolve into everyone firing light beams at each other. The third act hits a few pacing snags, but shows a lot of restraint as far as typical blockbusters go. Thunderbolts* drama is remarkably human, the product of well-crafted storytelling that actually puts in the legwork to deliver a satisfying resolution.

The film does have a few dull moments. Louis-Dreyfus is one of the finest actors currently working, but de Fontaine is a dud of a character through her four MCU appearances, existing at the center of a silly impeachment storyline that Wendell Pierce tries admirably to salvage. As far as shady heads of government agencies go, de Fontaine falls well short of Nick Fury and Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (whose nickname is coincidentally the same as this team’s name), the latter of whom would have been a good fit for this film had it not been for the events of Brave New World.

Thunderbolts*’s crowning achievement is the way it defies a lot of criticisms currently levied at the MCU. The film doesn’t shoot for the moon, but packs a punch with its smaller-scale entertainment. The film does benefit from a level of MCU knowledge that’s bound to be over the heads of many in the audience, but it doesn’t rely on references. Nobody would be lost if they didn’t have a great memory of what happened in Black Widow or Ant-Man and the Wasp.

Perhaps most impressive is the way the film answers the question that many have had on their mind since Endgame, namely, what the MCU is building toward. There are real, substantive answers here that don’t come at the expense of the narrative. Thunderbolts* builds toward the future without losing its footing in the present. This film is proof that the MCU doesn’t need to throw out its fascination with new characters or its web of connectivity. The MCU just needs to tell good stories.

Friday

11

April 2025

0

COMMENTS

‘On Swift Horses’ review: top-notch performances and stellar cinematography buoy a compelling, uneven queer narrative

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

Gambling has plenty of natural appeal to closeted members of the LGBTQ community. If you can’t be happy, if you have to live your life within society’s artificially constructed walls, if you have nothing to lose at all, why not bet it all? It’s hard to care very much about planning a future when there’s nothing in it worth looking forward to.

The film On Swift Horses centers its narrative on a few individuals with seemingly nothing to lose. Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones) resists the proposals of her boyfriend Lee (Will Poulter), seeing a kindred spirit in his brother Julius (Jacob Elordi), who’s just returned from the Korean War. The three make plans to leave their home in Kansas to build a new life in San Diego, taking advantage of the industrial boom of the 1950s.

While Muriel and Lee head west, Julius spurs their invitations, taking up residence in Las Vegas, where he works security at a casino. Julius quickly falls for Henry (Diego Calva), who shares his affection for cheating at cards, along with passionate nights in their motel room. Muriel, bored at her waitressing job and desperate for some spice in her life, takes up gambling on horse races using information she eavesdrops from her customers to develop an edge. A chance encounter at a race gives Muriel a taste of the river of Sapphos, leading her to an infatuation with their neighbor Sandra (Sasha Calle), who hosts a “book club” for fellow lesbians.

Based on the 2019 novel of the same name by Shannon Pufahl, On Swift Horses is a narrative that’s less concerned with telling a story than showcasing all the steamy parts along the way. Director Daniel Minahan crafts an intimate 1950s landscape for cinematographer Luc Montpellier to play around in. The film goes to certain extremes with its “show don’t tell” approach, throwing most character development out the window in favor of steamy romantic sequences between the pairings of Elordi and Calva, and Edgar-Jones and Calle.

The film largely splits its focus between Muriel and Julius, the former being far more compelling than the latter. Edgar-Jones brings a lot of nuance to Muriel, whose characterization is mostly defined through the audience’s understanding of the lack of agency that women had in the era. Subterfuge is her only way of exerting power, an already complicated dynamic on top of her closeted homosexuality.

There are certain frustrations that the audience might have toward Muriel’s lack of outlet to vocalize some of her angst, but that’s also kind of the point of Minahan’s work. Gay people rarely possessed access to anything that wasn’t in the shadows. Repression warps the mind toward unhealthy outcomes.

The film possesses a lot of maturity to its characters. Poulter is on an island of his own for much of the film, stuck in a loveless marriage while the other four principals have their fun with each other. The narrative resists the urge to vilify Lee, an attractive, simple man with an honest dream, possessing a charming, if not slightly unrealistic level of tolerance toward his brother’s obvious differences. There’s a lot of subtle humor that helps endear the characters that the screenplay mostly keeps at arm’s length.

The 117-minute runtime often struggles with the weight of both Muriel and Julius’ story, an issue compounded by Minihan’s breezy approach to pacing that puts a lot of strain on the third act when the time comes to arrange the many luscious sex scenes into a more compelling tapestry. Muriel’s arc is much more detached from her relationship with Sandra than Julius’ is with Henry. In certain ways, it’s nice to see what Edgar-Jones does with the space afforded to explore Muriel on her own, honing in on the loneliness that often defines the queer quest for love, but Calle is such a delight in every single scene that you can’t help feeling like their relationship got the short end of the stick when it comes to screen time.

Minahan does avoid one potential pitfall for his narrative. Audiences in 2025 do not need to be told that it was hard to be gay in the 1950s. On Swift Horses is a film about closeted people that dedicates little time to the exploration of the closet itself, a welcome departure from many narratives centered on the queer experience, especially from a historical sense. Edgar-Jones masterfully captures the innate struggle of trying to find happiness in a world diametrically opposed to queer joy. Without excusing its narrative shortcomings, the film does manage to synchronize its flaws to the broader reality that this era hardly possessed happiness that was not itself quite messy.

A lot of queer films fall into the trap of trying to be everything to everyone, reflecting the challenges that LGBTQ narratives have in trying to appeal to audiences both inside the community and those who know little about the broader Rainbow Empire. With that in mind, it’s quite refreshing to see a film like On Swift Horses so content to march to the beat of its own drum. The film very much understands the gamble that all queer people struggle with, to make the hardest gamble of them all, to bet on oneself.

It doesn’t always work. The narrative isn’t focused enough to give all five of its primary characters enough to do. From the actors to the talent behind the scenes, it’s clear that everyone showed up eager to play. It’s not perfect, but there’s a lot of beauty to be found in the way that this sprawling piece of work came together, a worthwhile inclusion to the queer canon.

← Older Entries

Newer Entries →