movie reviews

‘Rambo: Last Blood’ chooses violent fantasy over final word on tragic character

/ Ian Casselberry / 1 Comment

With the title Rambo: Last Blood, you get everything you need to know about this movie. It’s the last stand of John Rambo, a character who already received a fitting ending in 2008’s Rambo.

Sylvester Stallone should’ve just left Rambo on that Arizona ranch, training horses and repairing tractors for the rest of his life. His Vietnam veteran turned virtual superhero finally left war, service to his country, and his self-imposed exile in Thailand behind. But maybe Stallone saw Logan two years ago and thought Rambo could get a final story like that. 

Stallone should’ve left it alone, man. A better version of this story exists in Rambo: Last Blood, but Stallone and the other two writers credited who worked on this script, nor director Adrian Grunberg, aren’t interested in exploring how a man trained to be a weapon can’t escape violence, can’t truly find peace. Maybe he should’ve traveled to Neptune with Brad Pitt. 

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‘Ad Astra’ and its beautiful solitude in space create emotional clarity for Brad Pitt

/ Ian Casselberry / Leave a comment

Brad Pitt in space! Months ago, when I saw a sponsored post for an Ad Astra trailer pop up in my Twitter timeline, I thought Brad Pitt was doing a car commercial, making sure Matthew McConaughey didn’t own that territory. That misperception was quickly corrected once I clicked on the trailer. 

So Brad Pitt is doing his space movie. I forget who wrote this or where I read it, and I would love to give him — or her, but I’m pretty sure it was a “him” — credit for saying that every big actor has to do a space movie in his career. Because it sure seems true. 

George Clooney did Solaris, then Gravity. (Hell, let’s give Sandra Bullock her space movie here too.) Matt Damon had The Martian. McConaughey did Interstellar. Tom Hanks did Apollo 13. Ryan Gosling was in the criminally overlooked First Man last year. (Seriously, what happened there? How is that film not more acclaimed?) 

Can we put Hugh Jackman in The Fountain in this category? Does Mark Wahlberg in Planet of the Apes count? Will Smith in Independence Day?

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Unfortunately, the new ‘Hellboy’ is noise and gore signifying nothing

/ Ian Casselberry / Leave a comment

There’s a scene about midway through Hellboy in which a giant sword goes through a monster’s head, virtually splitting it in half, unleashing a reservoir of blood, and showing some of the soft tissue underneath the skull. While taking in that moment, I thought to myself, “I think that’s what watching this movie feels like.”

I was rooting for the 2019 reboot of Hellboy. It was going to be too easy to dismiss this movie and say Guillermo Del Toro and Ron Perlman did it better — twice — without even seeing this new version. But the wave of early reviews seemed to confirm what so many feared when this project was announced. Was there really any point to reviving Hellboy if there wasn’t anything new to offer?

Don’t misunderstand me: I don’t have a problem with remakes and reboots, even if they’re being made too often now. (Saying “Hollywood is out of ideas” is an opinion that’s run out of ideas.) Popular characters and franchises are always going to be mined for new movies and TV shows if a newer angle can be taken. And if new digital effects and moviemaking techniques can tell those stories better than their previous versions, it might just be worth doing.

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‘Shazam!’ stands out by embracing what makes the superhero fun

/ Ian Casselberry / 2 Comments

With one magic word, Shazam! keeps the fun train rolling for the DC cinematic universe. DC was already on the right track with the success of Wonder Woman and Aquaman, but taking a chance with a B-list (maybe even C-list) character who had a chance to reach a younger audience might have derailed that momentum.

Some fans and critics might feel like DC’s big-screen product won’t be fully established until the big names like Batman and Superman have been restored, and the cinematic universe is on a path to getting the band together in another Justice League film. But Marvel seized the superhero movie pedestal with lesser characters and by creating a slow build that stoked anticipation for a big payoff.

Another reason that Marvel has succeeded while so many other studios and franchises have failed in trying to build a cinematic universe is its realization that many different types of stories and genres could be featured within a superhero universe. Movies like Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man resonated with audiences because they were comedies as much as blockbuster spectacles. Humor has always been the honeypot for these movies.

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‘Us’ will creep you out and is packed with ideas, but lacks satisfying scares

/ Ian Casselberry / Leave a comment

Whether or not you consider Us a scary movie depends on your personal preferences. If “scary” means making you jump in your seat, shielding yourself with the person sitting next to you, or screaming out loud, you might be disappointed with Jordan Peele’s latest film.

But Us is most certainly creepy, with imagery that might live inside your head for a while and revisit when you close your eyes. The broken mirror doubles that a family suddenly encounters are chilling, a credit to make-up and costuming as well some fantastic acting — both in a physical and psychological sense — from the cast.

Following Get Out, Peele has made another thinking person’s horror film. No, Us probably won’t resonate the way his first effort did. And the story’s resolution doesn’t feel as satisfying. That might compel some fans and critics to use terms like “sophomore slump” in critiquing this movie. But Peele deserves credit for not repeating himself here, something that surely would’ve been easy to do.

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