204 Best Releases From the Genre Action (Page 4)
Hypnotic
There's at once too much, and somehow not enough, of the whimsical DIY spirit of writer-director Robert Rodriguez in his latest film, the shaky B-thriller Hypnotic. The Austin native made his name in the halcyon days of '90s indie filmmaking, shooting his first feature (El Mariachi) for a mere $7,000 at the tender age of 23. Since then, he's leveraged that inventiveness into a cottage industry of his own based out of his hometown of Austin, Texas, whether it's kid-friendly fare (Spy Kids), big-budget CGI blockbusters (Alita: Battle Angel), moody noirs (Sin City) or grindhouse splatterfests (Planet Terror, From Dusk Till Dawn). Hypnotic is all and none of those things, a chintzy lo-fi Christopher Nolan riff that doesn't have nearly enough life to work. And yet, there are just enough charming elements to save it from outright dismissal. Continue Reading →
Crater
SimilarThe Hit (1984),
Studio21 Laps Entertainment, Walt Disney Pictures,
Crater begins centuries into the future in an era where man has colonized the Moon. Rather than being home to thriving cities, though, Earth’s only natural satellite is the site of a run-down mining colony. People toil away, hoping to make it to another luxurious planet known as Omega. This is where Caleb Channing (Isaiah Russell-Bailey) lives. It’s also where he receives the news that his miner father (Scott Mescudi) has died. As part of his death benefits, Caleb will be transferred, via 75 years of traveling, to the bustling world of Omega. Continue Reading →
The Best Man
“Just brang ma baby girl back alive!” Continue Reading →
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
SimilarAladdin (1992), Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002), Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999),
Die Hard 2 (1990) Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995) F9 (2021), Free Willy (1993), Godzilla Raids Again (1955), Hellboy (2004),
Live Free or Die Hard (2007) Night at the Museum (2006),
Shrek 2 (2004) Shrek the Third (2007) Superman Returns (2006), The Legend of Zorro (2005),
StarringDave Bautista, Dee Bradley Baker,
A lot's happened since we last saw the Guardians of the Galaxy (well, besides their brief cameo in Thor: Love and Thunder). Writer/director James Gunn was fired from Marvel in 2018 after some problematic tweets joking about pedophilia were unearthed, in one of the few instances of a successful cancellation from the right wing. Of course, it didn't last long, considering how thin the ground was for said cancellation in the first place; and in the interim, he swanned off to DC, made the fantastic The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker, and eventually found himself sharing the throne of a newly-revamped DC movie universe. Continue Reading →
John Wick: Chapter 4
The John Wick films are, simply put, the standard-bearer for American action in the 21st century. When the first came out in 2014, it shook the foundations of what we felt was possible in a Hollywood action landscape predominantly concerned with CGI energy blasts: It put stuntwork front and center, crafted labyrinthine mythology as dense and unnecessary as it was innately compelling in its flavor, and -- most importantly -- brought Keanu Reeves back to the public consciousness in a big way. Basically, it's some of the few times American action movies can even hope to compete with what comes out of Eastern Europe and Asia. And now, that saga comes to a close with John Wick: Chapter 4, a film that took two years after completion to come out, and feels like a final exhale of relief after hours of unrelenting, inventive action. Continue Reading →
Shazam! Fury of the Gods
SimilarBring It On (2000) Hellboy (2004), Night at the Museum (2006), Superman Returns (2006), The Illusionist (2006), The Legend of Zorro (2005),
StudioDC Films, New Line Cinema,
If only there were a word I could scream that would turn me into a superhero. I wouldn’t fight crime or fly in the heavens above. Instead, I would run really fast until time went backward. Then I would sprint into the DC Film offices circa 2020 and yell, “Please do not make Shazam! Fury of the Gods. Nobody needs this!” Alas, I have no such power. So, here we are. Continue Reading →
65
SimilarIce Age (2002), King Kong (1933), King Kong (2005),
StudioBron Studios, Columbia Pictures, TSG Entertainment,
If nothing else, 65 proves that Adam Driver plays a marvelous survival hero. After his ship crash-lands on an uncharted world, his Mills is dazed and wounded—but not to the point that he does not remember what to do in an emergency. He's got a checklist memorized, and he can follow it until he's back together. As Mills treats his wound, catalogs the damage to his ship, and ultimately dons an environment suit to survey his crash site, Driver's body language shifts. Wooziness gives way to groundedness, and halting movements become smooth. Driver makes it clear that even when despairing and terrified, Mills knows what he's doing. Continue Reading →
Unicorn Wars
SimilarBorat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006),
Watch afterBlack Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022),
Director Alberto Vazquez has said his latest work of animated annihilation, Unicorn Wars, is inspired by three tentpole texts: Apocalypse Now, Bambi, and the Bible. We rarely see a film that’s such a clear summation of its sources. Vazquez has taken these familiar stories and ran them through an organ grinder made of rainbow-colored steel. Continue Reading →
Creed III
StudioMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer,
Round three of twelve. Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan)—the fresh-out-of-retirement undisputed heavyweight champion of the world—faces Damian "Diamond Dame" Anderson (Jonathan Majors)—the ruthless-came-from-eighteen-years-in-prison reigning champ. Growing up in a group home, Adonis and Damian were brothers—united by care for one another in a callous system and a shared love of the sweet science. Continue Reading →
「鬼滅の刃」上弦集結、そして刀鍛冶の里へ
A year before The Village’s release, a copy of the script was stolen and distributed to sites with zero compunction about reviewing stolen materials. If you were on the internet in the naughty aughties and a fan of movies, you know exactly the type. The flurry of reviews that followed riled up readers of such sites. It reached the point that, by the film’s 2004 release, a considerable legion of film nerds already stood poised to carve up a movie they were certain would be a turkey. Continue Reading →
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
StarringOwen Wilson, Tom Hiddleston,
As the Marvel Cinematic Universe got bigger and bigger and bigger, it was downright refreshing to see something as fittingly small and low-stakes as the Ant-Man films break up all the universe-ending tension. It was nice; after watching the Avengers punch through an exhausting sea of robotic baddies and set up a bunch of Infinity Stone dross, along came Paul Rudd as a smirking, kinda-dumb thief who lucked his way into a shrinking suit he used on a tech heist. After Thanos snapped half the universe away, we flashed back to good ol' Scott Lang on a caper to bring his mentor Hank Pym's (Michael Douglas) wife Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) back from the Quantum Realm. They were lighter, more carefree, a much-needed sitcom wing of the MCU. Continue Reading →
Shotgun Wedding
The market for romantic comedies surrounding weddings is right up Jennifer Lopez's avenue. Last year it was Marry Me. Before that, it was The Wedding Planner. But whether she was piercing hearts with her eyes in Out of Sight, or turning up the heat with her performance in Hustlers, Lopez continues to surprise us with her versatility. Shotgun Wedding is more com than rom, allowing Lopez to exercise her killer comedic timing, along with an all-star cast present for a destination wedding that goes sideways. Continue Reading →
Watch afterBlack Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022),
What a stupid title for a movie. It’s only one letter short from the straight-to-DVD Cars spinoff, Planes. At least that made sense, though, since small children who are really into airplanes were its key demo. Continue Reading →
The Poseidon Adventure
Catastrophe strikes about half an hour into The Poseidon Adventure, in a sequence that remains ingenious and exhilarating to this day. Slammed on New Year’s Eve by a tsunami caused by an underwater earthquake, the ocean liner SS Poseidon capsizes in swift, spectacular fashion. The bridge is first to go, instantly obliterated by the brunt of the wave, before death and destruction spread to the ballroom where the passengers have gathered to celebrate. Furniture slides and then tumbles, pianos plummet in an avalanche of ivory, pulverized glass commingles with confetti in an ominous flurry, partygoers are hurled like ragdolls and brutally crushed, with the last to fall clinging hopelessly to the floor (now the ceiling) before gravity inexorably claims them. Continue Reading →
The Getaway
When people sit down to analyze the career of maverick filmmaker Sam Peckinpah, his 1972 thriller The Getaway is usually found wanting, and remembered mainly for the scandalous affair that developed between co-stars Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw. Coming smack in the middle of a filmmaking stretch that was preceded by the highly controversial The Wild Bunch (1969) and Straw Dogs (1971), and followed by the wildly idiosyncratic Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973) and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974), it feels like an exercise in playing it safe from a director not exactly famous for doing such things. Despite that, it still works as a solid crime thriller that demonstrated that Peckinpah could play by Hollywood’s rules if he wanted to do so. Continue Reading →
Avatar: The Deep Dive - A Special Edition of 20/20
"Avatar has no cultural relevance." "It's just Dances With Wolves with blue cat people." We've all heard the digs ever since James Cameron's 2009 opus hit theaters more than a dozen years ago, made all the money, and gobsmacked the Academy into giving it a Best Picture nomination. But even though it didn't immediately launch a franchise and give people (apart from a select few who took Pandora way too seriously) Avatar Fever, its impact was more subtle and quiet. Sure, it launched a mini-3D boom that leaked out into the early 2010s, but its most noticeable ripples came in its normalizing of a new suite of CG technology, radical motion capture and worldbuilding, and fully-formed digital environments that could genuinely transport viewers to another place. Continue Reading →
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
Watch afterBlack Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022),
As Puss in Boots: The Last Wish begins, it’s evident that this movie is aiming for a different vibe compared to not only the first Puss in Boots but the greater Shrek series as a whole. A visual aesthetic that evokes hand-drawn animation and rapid-fire editing summons memories of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse or fellow 2022 DreamWorks Animation project The Bad Guys rather than Shrek the Third. Even the handful of pop culture references are more specific and idiosyncratic—Nicolas Cage’s take on The Wicker Man, for instance—than the very broad references the original Shrek movies became famous for. Continue Reading →
Violent Night
Watch afterBlack Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022), Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022),
It’s Christmas time, and a man at the breaking point finds himself at the wrong place at the wrong time. But he isn’t retired cop John McClane this time. Instead, it’s Saint Nick with a sledgehammer he’d like to swing into your bowl full of jelly. The premise of Violent Night is simple (Die Hard but with Santa), and the filmmakers mostly pull off the kill-fest thanks to some game performers and one inspired sequence. Continue Reading →
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
How do we move on from a devastating loss? A close friend, a family member, a spouse -- or, in the case of Wakanda Forever, the twin losses of both Chadwick Boseman (who died unexpectedly in 2020 of colon cancer) and the character of T'Challa, King of Wakanda and the reigning Black Panther. But rather than recast T'Challa for the sequel (a movement that has itself garnered quite a lot of attention leading up to this), writer/director Ryan Coogler chose the harder, more innately interesting path: Follow a world, a people, a family without the nucleus around which they orbited. See what the world of Black Panther does without its central figure, and watch the mighty ensemble of Black women around him scramble to pick up the pieces of their lives and figure out what to do next. Continue Reading →
Black Adam
StudioDC Films, New Line Cinema,
We’re officially in the third decade of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson being a movie star. The former WWE legend made his cinema debut in the forgettable sequel to The Mummy, where he’s introduced as the dreaded Scorpion King, one of the most infamous early CGI debacles. Special effects have since improved, along with Johnson’s abilities as an actor and charismatic leading man. However, it feels like now we’ve come full circle with DC’s Black Adam. Continue Reading →