Author: crunchonthis

Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton

Week of October 4, 2021

No Time To Die
Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action, brief strong language, some disturbing images and some suggestive material
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 83%
In Theaters
We’ve had to wait for almost two years to see this latest James Bond flick as Covid was very unkind to the original release dates, but this long-awaited project is finally seeing the light of day (or darkened theater in this case) in what is being rumored as Daniel Craig’s last outing as 007. After a flashback sequence and a heartbreaking and heart-stopping rollercoaster ride that finds Bond breaking up with his sweetheart (Lea Seydoux), we find Bond hiding out in Jamaica years later, in no hurry to return to the spy game. But when his CIA friend Felix (Jeffrey Wright) asks him to help find a missing scientist, he finds himself deeply connected to a sinister plot, led by a strangely calm maniac (Rami Malek) that could kill off most of the planet. But at the same time he is trying to save the world, his own personal universe starts to interfere when he discovers an important secret being hidden from him. While not all of Craig’s Bond films have been stellar, they have certainly exhibited stronger scripts and better acting than any of the previous films in the franchise. While 2015’s Spectre was a low point, this one quickly makes you forget about the problems of the past. The script here is complex and deep, allowing for Craig to deliver a performance much more similar to Skyfall than his other outings. In fact, I’d put this at the top of his run. There is a different look and feel to this Bond and I for one like it. I also need to mention the fantastic reenvisioning of the iconic music from composer Hans Zimmer who delivers here one of the best scores of the year. If there is a weak point in the movie its in the villain played by Rami Malek, who is creepy and dangerous, but we really don’t get a sense of what he’s trying to accomplish and why so many android-like minions blindly follow him. I guess that makes him a typical Bond villain, but I think they could have done better. Regardless, this new outing is worth the wait and definitely worth sitting in the theater for almost three hours wearing a mask. A-

The Many Saints of Newark
Rated R for sexual content, pervasive language, some nudity and strong violence
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 75%
In theaters and streaming on HBO Max
This highly-anticipated prequel to HBO’s iconic television series The Sopranos follows the early years of Tony Soprano, both as a kid and a teenager, as he tries to figure himself out in the volatile climate of 60’s and 70’s New Jersey. Rather than trying to emulate his harsh father, he gravitates towards his uncle (also mafia) and you begin to see the forces that shape him into the man we know so well from the series. While there is a well-known cast present with Vera Farmiga, Jon Bernthal, Leslie Odom Jr. and Ray Liotta, most of the cast is relatively unknown but hold their own well. James Gandolfini’s real life son Michael is probably the most talked-about aspect of the film, and justifiably so, but Alessandro Nivola puts in a star-making turn as Anthony’s anti-hero uncle, a man that seems decent most of the time, except for all that murder and crime stuff. The problem with the film is its relevance. It’s been almost too long since The Sopranos controlled our water cooler talk and much has been forgotten. As a stand-alone film it almost works, but it is not a stand-alone film. If you haven’t seen the show, you might enjoy much of the movie, but you will be a little confused at references and thoughts that are meant to be floating around your head. If you have seen the show, it will probably also confuse you because you should have remembered everything, in detail. It would have been an Emmy-winning, memorable two-episode flashback series if it had aired in 2005, but now it becomes a game of “which character is that” and “what did he do again” as you spend an equal amount of time looking at your phone researching as you do watching the actual movie. That doesn’t mean its bad, but it sure is distracting. Overall, the plot is fascinating and it is certainly a well-conceived mafia movie, but it is at least a decade out of place. Perhaps if you take the time to revisit those fantastic six seasons of the show, this might hold its own as canon and help define what follows for Tony and family years later. B

Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton

Week of September 27, 2021

Venom: Let There Be Carnage
Rated PG-13 for disturbing material, action, intense sequences of violence, some strong language and suggestive references
In Theaters
The first Venom film was deeply disappointing, and frankly not worthy of a sequel. But Sony was invested and even teased a next chapter with Woody Harrelson as the promised villain at the end of the movie. So here we are with the next in the series and Harrelson plays a murderous psychopath named Cletus Kasady who is destined for lethal injection. But first he wants the good alien Venom’s owner, Eddie Brock (again played by Tom Hardy) to tell his story in the newspaper. But when an altercation takes place with Eddie in prison, Cletus gains Venom’s powers and becomes Carnage, a giant red alien parasite. Breaking out of prison and wreaking havoc around the city, Eddie and Venom must find a way to stop the new baddie Carnage before things get more out of hand. Here’s the good news, the movie isn’t nearly as crappy as the original and actually manages to provide some decent entertainment. My synopsis above sounds like some serious sci-fi horror, but, in actuality, the film almost makes for a better comedy than it does any other genre. Sony made some smart changes for this film with a giant infusion of humor as well as a cast which looks like its having fun with the ridiculous material. I’m guessing part of the fun is having Andy Serkis as director. As you’ll recall, Serkis played Gollum in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies and is a master of CG multiple personalities, which I can only assume helped this project make more sense. Also he does a great job keeping the storytelling fast-paced and thrilling, not allowing you to think too much on the problems, which are many. But even though the script is weak and the project is frivolous, it manages to be surprisingly fun at times. Not to give away any spoilers, but the one thing that people will be talking about the most with this film takes place after the initial post credits. So stick around for a few minutes after they start rolling. B

Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton

Week of September 20, 2021

Dear Evan Hansen
Rated PG-13 for some suggestive references, brief strong language, suicide and thematic material
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 43% at time of writing
In Theaters
Based on the smash Tony-winning Broadway musical, Dear Evan Hansen follows a high-schooler (Ben Platt, revising his stage role) whose anonymity is compromised when he falsely becomes associated with a fellow high schooler who commits suicide. As he pretends to have been part of the young man’s life, he finds his way into the kid’s family and gains popularity amongst his school and beyond. While this synopsis makes the story feel cold and mean, it is actually quite a moving narrative as Hansen doesn’t want the notoriety, but he is drawn into it when it begins to meet his needs for love and friendship. And with songs by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the team behind La La Land and The Greatest Showman, the music couldn’t be more addictive and powerful. Having seen the stage production twice on Broadway (but not with Platt), I was concerned that the big screen wasn’t the place for this, but it does work here, to a point. It helps to have an amazing cast including Amy Adams, Julianne Moore and Kaitlyn Dever, along with a great director in Stephen Chbosky (Beauty and the Beast) who has pulled this off before. Part of me does think that Platt might be a bit too old to play a high schooler, but honestly, it wasn’t as noticeable as I thought it would be and by the end I was grateful to have finally seen him perform the role. The movie’s biggest fault is that it isn’t perfect, or at least as good as what you get to see on stage. Some terrific songs were cut and the new songs are merely only okay, but I also found the movie not to be as emotionally draining. Maybe that’s a good thing. On Broadway I embarrassed myself with my crying while the movie only had me wiping away a couple of tears. Overall, it’s a good enough endeavor and should win some fans, even if the critics seem to be piling on, probably in order to gain attention on social media, ironically. B

Cry Macho
Rated PG-13 for thematic elements and language
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 54%
In Theaters and Streaming on HBO Max
In Clint Eastwood’s latest acting/directing adventure, he plays a ranch hand who is sent to Mexico from Texas in order to bring back his boss’s teenage son. Forced to take back roads in order to get past the law and the boy’s mother’s henchmen, the two become friends as they risk their lives to get back to America. As I write that synopsis, I realize that there is some potential in that story. It actually sounds good. But the execution here is awful. The biggest problem is the casting. Eastwood is a legend, but he is all wrong for this part and it is hard to watch. The boy is also not great in the role, although it’s entirely possible that he was just not well-directed. The whole project feels sloppy and rushed and not in the least believable. My advice – watch the trailer and it will give you the perfect rundown and allow you to save two valuable hours. C-

Zola
Rated R for language throughout, graphic nudity, a sexual assault, strong sexual content and violence
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 88%
Available on Disc and Streaming
This dark comedy is based on a true story about two strippers who make a road trip to Florida that goes wrong when one of the girls decides to prostitute herself halfway through the outing. The movie tries to prepare its audience for a crazy, disastrous road trip that will burn a bad memory into your brain, and if there’s one disappointment here, it is that it never lives up to that promise. It is, however, an interesting story with some terrific performances by a very talented cast. I was actually convinced that the actors came from that world and were just making a documentary-like film, as they seemed almost too perfect in their parts. But when you dig into their IMDB pages, you start to realize that these are some big pros with impressive resumes and one of the girls (Riley Keough) is actually Elvis Presley’s granddaughter. I was also really impressed with director Janicza Bravo’s tremendous sense of style and flair in a film where that is truly unexpected. B

Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton

Week of September 6, 2021

Come From Away
Unrated
Streaming on Apple TV+
With the twentieth anniversary of the 9-11 attack this week, a couple of high-profile projects are hitting the small screen. The first is this recording of the uber-popular Broadway show, Come From Away. Earlier this year, over a year after Broadway closed its doors for the pandemic, the original cast put on this performance in front of a socially distanced crowd in the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre in New York, which will premiere on Apple TV+ on September 10. The story is set in the small town of Gander, Newfoundland on 9-11 as 38 airliners were diverted to their airport until the skies were once again cleared for travel and the folks on board could get to their original destinations. Playing the parts of the townsfolk, the passengers and the crews, all at the same time, the musical is full of wonderful tales about people coming together in the most desperate of moments, allowing their humanity to overcome their fears. It is remarkable that anyone would even come up with such an ambitious idea, yet alone green-light it, fund it and pull it off. This was the first Broadway show I was supposed to see before the lights went dark, so I was grateful to be able to take it in, even on a television set. And now that I’ve seen it this way, I’m even more excited to see it live in October when the North American tour swings back into gear. We’ve been so lucky to have so much terrific theater available to us during Covid, and Come From Away truly stands among the recent greats like Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen and In the Heights. A

Worth
Rated PG-13 for some strong language and thematic elements
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 78%
Streaming on Netflix
The other high-profile 9-11 project this week follows Michael Keaton playing Ken Feinberg, the attorney responsible for setting up the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund which was developed to keep the airlines from being bankrupted by a class-action lawsuit after the attack. As a professor of law, he was brought into the project due to his unparalleled knowledge of what a person is worth when they are killed in a tragedy. But stepping into this role, with thousands of lives lost, the movie tries to show what a monumental task it was and how the formula could never be perfect. With only 2 hours, the movie oversimplifies everything, and it shows. It attempts to bring in a few family members who lost loved ones in order to represent the thousands of other stories out there, but the storytelling just doesn’t match up to the ambition and weight of the project. That being said, Stanley Tucci is excellent as the husband of a wife who died that day, and manages to make a little more sense of the overwhelming task that was the fund. Ultimately, there might have been a more complex and relevant story to tell here that Netflix managed to fit into a relatively short watch that just gets the basic points across. B-

Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton

Week of August 30, 2021

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action, and for language
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%
In Theaters
I grew up a huge Marvel comic book fan, accumulating a rather large (and retrospectively rather worthless) collection that brought me hours and hours of enjoyment at the cost of doing dishes, mowing lawns and whatever else it took to keep buying more. For the first 3 phases (everything up to Spider-Man: Far From Home) I was very familiar with the heroes and their villains and the last two decades have been rather nostalgic and awe-inspiring with the amazing attention to quality and art from the MSA. But now we are entering Phase 4 and I have to admit, my familiarity is waning, especially with this new hero, Shang-Chi. I’ve actually never even heard of him. If he appeared in any of my comics, his memory has faded. So I was shocked to hear of this major tent-pole release. And to make it more intriguing, they were hiring an unknown actor, Simu Liu, with Awkwafina, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Yeoh and Benedict Wong as the only familiar faces on the screen. The audacity. I only point this out because it just shows that faith in overlord Kevin Feige and his vision is very well-placed. Shang-Chi is just a seemingly simple San Franciscan who, along with his best friend Katy (Awkwafina), valet cars for a living. But when his past is forced into the light, he must finally face his family and his destiny, ultimately revealing his amazing powers to the world. This film works on so many levels. As a superhero film, it is an excellent and vibrant origin story, setting up a new narrative that we can’t wait to see play out. As a martial arts picture it has spectacular fighting and beautifully choreographed sequences that look like they belong in a Zhang Yimou film instead of the MCU. While I’m sure Feige can take some of the credit for this, its writer/director Destin Daniel Cretton who really delivers. Destin’s 2013 Short Term 12 (starring Captain Marvel’s Brie Larson in the role that made her a star) was one of the best films of that year and proof that he is a great visual storyteller. But with a big budget, he has assumingly made Disney proud with such a stellar accomplishment as this. It is a complex and memorable story, stunningly told by a top-notch production team and an impressive cast of actors who I can’t wait to see again in their next adventures. A

Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 72%
Streaming on Netflix
Former The Joy of Painting icon Bob Ross seems to be everywhere these days, as his image almost neutralizes negativity and bad thoughts when there is so much of it floating around, pervading the very air we breathe. But now, of course, someone is possibly trying to taint that icon slightly with this documentary about the artist and his legacy. Before you jump in, if you don’t want your image of him to be tarnished in your mind, then you will still probably be okay. The film will make you sad as you learn about his private life, and more importantly, his death and after-math, but he is largely still the same lovely man at the end as he was in the beginning. The drama comes from his business partners, the Kowalski’s and how they basically screwed his biological son, Steve Ross, out of his birthright. It’s essentially a one-sided hit piece on them, that could all be true, but only a few parties were willing to elaborate and corroborate because apparently everyone they tried to get on the doc were afraid to get sued by the old couple. Again, that might be true, but we might never know. What truths we do get to learn about are the happy and sad times that surrounded Bob Ross and that 26 years after his tragic death, he is still bringing his joy to people world-wide, and I do hope that doesn’t end anytime soon. B-

Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton

Week of August 23, 2021

Candyman
Rated R for language, bloody horror violence and some sexual references
In theaters
On the surface this looks like a remake of the original 1992 slasher pic about a man with a hook and a swarm of bees who pops out to kill you if you say his name five times in a mirror. And if you want, this can be just that. But look further and you’ll see that this is no ordinary horror film. Written and produced by Jordan Peele (Get Out, Us) and directed by newcomer Nia DaCosta (who has already been assigned to direct the next two Captain Marvel films), the legend of Candyman takes on new meaning and context, with a deep dive into systemic racism in America in a style that has never been used before to do so. What is most interesting about this project, is that once you can start to tell that the meaning is largely symbolic, the film becomes far less scary and just plain good. I had a similar experience while watching Peele’s previous film Us. While I was slightly disappointed that the film wasn’t the nightmare-inducing pic I expected, I was more fascinated at the brilliance behind it. But not only was the story on point, but the production was top-notch as well. It is quick to see why DaCosta has been enlisted as a top director, but even things like cinematography and sound design pop boldly off the screen, giving the film a real sense of art, rather than just genre. And while the stars aren’t huge names yet, you have no doubt that one day they will be. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Aquaman, Us) and Teyonah Parris (If Beale Street Could Talk, Wandavision) really shine on screen, giving us lead characters that we really care about in a story that would normally not provide this kind of attention. A

Vacation Friends
Rated R for crude sexual references, language throughout and drug content
Streaming on Hulu
One of the things I love most about going on vacation as a couple are the friends we meet and sometimes even hang on to. But taking this to an extreme is the subject of this newest comedy from Hulu that very much took me by surprise. Here Lil Rel Howery and Yvonne Orji are a young couple looking forward to their intimate little beach-front resort getaway when they unwillingly become connected to John Cena and his girlfriend Meredith Hagner. While they have no interest in the new friendship, they go along with it any way and manage to have fun. But after the vacation, they want to pretend it never happened, only to find that their new friends won’t have any of that. This project kind of came out of nowhere for me. I had never heard of it before last week and honestly, if I wasn’t low on material to cover, I would have ignored it. But I remembered that one of my favorite movies of last year (Palm Springs) was a Hulu original and maybe I should give this a chance. And I’m glad I did as I found myself laughing out loud throughout. Especially great was John Cena, who just keeps on impressing me with his comedy chops. The dude is way funnier than he gets credit for. While some of the plot points and jokes don’t exactly work, the film manages to keep finding a way to sneak up on you with unexpected humor. What most surprised me is that I enjoyed this film sober. With an old fashioned or two in me, I might have missed a major chunk of dialog from my own laughter. B

Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins
Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence and brief strong language
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 36%
Available on Disc and Streaming
As a child I loved the Hasbro action figures and the corresponding Saturday morning cartoon, but as an adult I had trouble making sense of the world of G.I. Joe and the various movies over the years failed to rectify this. And now the prequel that no one asked for is hitting home theaters. Replacing Ray Park in the role of Snake Eyes is Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) who does an admirable job of holding this thing together but it is quick to see that this is overall a low-quality production with a lousy script, worse directing and ultimately an attempt to make a cash grab due to its familiarity. By the credits you will have already forgotten the movie, or at least wish you had. D

Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton

Week of August 16, 2021

The Suicide Squad
Rated R for drug use, brief graphic nudity, language throughout, some sexual references, strong violence and gore
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 91%
In Theaters and on HBO Max
In 2106, The Suicide Squad was met with a critical and audience thud, delivering a great concept with lousy execution and a completely mediocre product. Now five years later, they are kind of rebooting with some of the same cast, a completely different vibe and Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn in the captain’s chair. Gone is Will Smith and Jared Leto and returning are Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman and Viola Davis, with Idris Elba and John Cena coming along for the ride. The story is similar enough. The U.S. government needs an expendable army with super powers to take care of a bunch of dirty work, so they recruit imprisoned super villains who want to wipe a few years off their sentence. In this case, they are sent into a fictitious South American country in order to infiltrate a secret project which poses a risk to the world. But this time out, the movie doesn’t work because of the plot, which is way better than the last one, but rather because of the outrageous sense of humor that pervades the entire movie. From the opening seconds, it becomes clear that it will be rather difficult to stop laughing. I know I couldn’t. Much like Deadpool, which I’m assuming was a major influence, the movie works more as a comedy but is enhanced with some serious action, and in this case even some sci-fi. It helps to have a talented cast that looks like it is having a blast with the material. For pure entertainment value – you can’t beat it. A

Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard
Rated R for some sexual content, pervasive language and strong bloody violence
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 25%
Available on Disc and Streaming
In 2017, The Hitman’s Bodyguard didn’t exactly win over critics (it scored a 43% Rotten Tomatoes score), but it managed to eke out enough box office to greenlight a sequel. This time out, Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson and Salma Hayek add in Morgan Freeman and Antonio Banderas to the mix as everyone double-crosses their way through an ultra-violent adventure with roughly the same lame jokes as the first outing and a completely inconsequential plot. Like Suicide Squad, this new adventure tries to match its action with humor, but the humor is nowhere near strong enough and all you are left with is a charismatic cast making a movie that turns out to be more tedious than fun. It does have its moments where you think there is potential, but those moments are fleeting and ultimately forgettable. C-

Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton

Week of July 26, 2021

Jungle Cruise
Rated PG-13 for adventure violence
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 70% at time of writing
In Theaters and on Disney + Premium
As Disney looks find content by giving a backstory to more of their old rides, Jungle Cruise seems to be an obvious choice for a fun and rollicking adventure. For this tale, Emily Blunt plays an early 20th century archeologist who recruits Dwayne Johnson, a cheesy river boat captain, to take her to a hidden spot in the Amazon to search for a mysterious tree with miraculous healing powers. But hot on their trail is a wealthy Eastern European baddie in a submarine (Jesse Plemons) who wants to also find the tree and set loose some evil conquistadors who have been trapped in the jungle for hundreds of years. For years, various iterations and ideas of a jungle cruise movie have gone into production, but until now, none have graced the screen. Going in I wasn’t even remotely enthusiastic about watching, after all, from the trailer it looks like pretty much like every other film that Disney has put out like this, but I have to admit that I was completely on board once it started. Blunt and Johnson are both so uniquely charismatic that they give the film a strong and crazy energy that helps you forget about the films’ many flaws and instead allows you to be whisked away on their nonsensical journey without a care in the world. The film is one fun set piece after another with a little romance thrown in for good measure. Yes its a formulaic Disney film meant to capitalize on a theme park ride, but more than that – it is as entertaining a film as you will see this year, and it’s even kid-friendly. If you miss films like The African Queen or Romancing the Stone, this should bring back happy memories and maybe even give you a new one. A-

Old
Rated PG-13 for disturbing images, brief strong language, partial nudity, strong violence and suggestive content
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 51%
In Theaters
M. Night Shyamalan’s newest twisty psychological thriller stars Gael Garcia Bernal and Vicky Krieps as a couple who take their young kids on a vacation to a secluded beach resort, only to find out that the secret beach they are taken to forces them to age their entire lives in a single day. Much of this plot you quickly ascertain from the trailer, but thankfully, once you get into the meat of the picture, it develops into a strange but thoughtful expose on human relationships, aging, disease, and love. The story evolves in ways both expected and not, and even manages to throw in a big surprise or two. As a big ensemble piece, the acting is strong enough to carry the plot through, and when the twist actually happens, it doesn’t exactly hit you like some of his other films, but rather finds a way to nicely layer itself into a tale that simply needs to make more sense. By the end it manages to be a satisfying narrative worthy of the two hours spent watching it. B

Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton

Week of July 19, 2021

Pig
Rated R for language and some violence
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%
In Theaters
In this quiet little drama, Nicolas Cage plays a reclusive truffle hunter in Oregon who lives a life of solitude with just his truffle pig to keep him company. The only human contact he has or abides is with his truffle dealer, Alex Wolff, and even that is limited. But when someone breaks into his house to steal his pig one night, he forces his dealer to help him uncover the trail that might lead to getting his only friend back. There was a time when Cage was red hot, and then his career suffered as his filmography took a drastic turn for the worse. Aside from a few indie gems, the last fifteen years or so has been a rough go, critically, with very little evidence of the shining star he was. In Pig, he plays a once-brilliant chef who turned away from society, and you could say the same is true with his career, making this film seem not just personal, but darn-near autobiographical. And on that note, it is a gentle masterpiece. Rather than the revenge-fueled caper the trailer suggests, the film is merely about a desperate man who wants the one thing back that gives him peace in the world. And the detective work to make this happen is absolutely fascinating and quite riveting. Equal credit here goes to relative newcomer Michael Sarnoski whose writing and directing tell a tight little story with fantastic ambience and terrific pacing. While it might not win over the biggest box office of the year, it is sure to take Cage off the list of forgotten actors and give old fans, and new, a memorable journey to absorb. A

Roadrunner: A Film about Anthony Bourdain
Rated R for language throughout
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93%
In Theaters
In his latest documentary, Oscar-winner Morgan Neville (Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, 20 Feet From Stardom) takes on the rise and fall of rock-star chef and TV personality Anthony Bourdain, showing how he made it famous and how his world came tragically to an end with his suicide in 2018. Although we’ve had some very high-profile deaths over the last several years, none has hit me as hard as Bourdain’s, as I followed him and his adventures closely for many years. He was highly influential to my own personal food tastes and when I traveled around the world, going to the places he went, I loved following in his tracks, making sure to book the same restaurants and visit the same sites. Making sense of his demise though is the hardest part about his life and legacy, and this documentary does a great job of not only helping explain why people came to love him but also what brought him to his ultimate act of helplessness. More than that it doesn’t worship him but rather shows us his imperfections and the animosity left behind by his friends for committing such a selfish and horrible act. And while it really makes a strong case for blaming his recent girlfriend, Asia Argento, for ultimately causing the pain that brought him down, the one bit of controversy is that the documentary doesn’t exactly give Argento a chance to defend herself from what will look like to the audience as just a hard truth. A-

Space Jam: A New Legacy
Rated PG for some language and some cartoon violence
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 32%
In Theaters and on HBO Max
25 years after basketball legend Michael Jordan starred in the first Space Jam, current superstar LeBron James joins forces with Bugs Bunny and the Loony Tunes to play a basketball game within a computer simulation in order to get his son back from an evil presence that lies within the Warner Bros servers. While the special effects are decent enough, the film is a jumbled mess with a contrived and ridiculous plot. On top of that the game itself doesn’t make a lick of sense and every minute spent on it drags the film down. I like LeBron and Bugs a lot, but this is a mediocre kids film that does more to embarrass than to inspire. C-

Wrath of Man
Rated R for strong violence throughout, pervasive language, and some sexual references
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 66%
On Disc and Streaming
With the exception of his amazing live-action version of Aladdin, writer/director Guy Ritchie is best known for his edgy, highly-stylized crime dramas, and his latest is true to form. Here, Jason Statham is a new employee at a an armored car company who proves to be a fearless warrior when anyone attempts to rob them. But of course he has a hidden motive and we learn it as the film evolves into a revenge thriller. It may not be as good as his recent “The Gentlemen” or his first films “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” or “Snatch,” but it is a decent all-out action film with unique storytelling and definitely worth checking out if you are a Ritchie or Statham fan. B-

Spiral: From the Book of Saw
Rated R for grisly bloody violence/brief drug use, pervasive language, some sexual references and torture
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 37%
On Disc and Streaming
Chris Rock is a cop who is put in charge of a serial murder case when a killer copycats the famous Jigsaw murders from the original franchise, but this time with just cops. Normally I skip these kinds of films as I hate torture porn and this most definitely fits that category. But with a cast including Rock, Samuel L. Jackson and Max Minghella, I assumed the pedigree would overcome the content, but alas it did not and the film is just a messy, gruesome mediocre horror pic, and while the plot is interesting, the poor acting and the violence you have to suffer through to get through it are not worth the journey. C-

Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton

Week of June 28, 2021

The Boss Baby: Family Business
Rated PG for rude humor, mild language and some action
In theaters and streaming on Peacock
Taking place years after the events of the first Boss Baby, Tim (voice of James Marsden) and his little brother Ted (Alec Baldwin) are now adults who have drifted away from each other. Tim now has a young family and Ted is a lonely billionaire (as expected). But when adults become endangered by the whims of a maniacal school master (Jeff Goldblum) the brothers combine forces (having been magically converted to their original young selves) in order to take on the threat. Honestly, I expected so much less from this project. I found the original rather dumb with only an occasional clever reference, and the basic premise just didn’t make enough sense. Luckily, the story here is much more universal, and although the plot, and much of its points, are absolutely ridiculous, due to its crazy frenetic energy and pure confidence in its own silly directive, the movie finds a way to work without being overly irritating to the adults in the room. B

The Forever Purge
Rated R for strong, bloody violence and language throughout
In theaters
This 5th movie in The Purge franchise goes to Texas where we find two families who both find a way to survive the night of The Purge (where murder is legal once a year for twelve hours), only to discover that the purgers have developed an underground coalition to keep reaping havoc across America, long after it is no longer legal. In order to survive further, the two families have to come together to protect each other and possible make it to Mexico where the Mexican government is allowing American asylum seekers. Just like the other major release this week, Boss Baby, I expected so much less than what we got here. Immediately it becomes easy to be impressed by the cast, featuring Josh Lucas, Ana de la Regular and Will Patton, who all do an admirable job given this material. And while there are plenty of cheap scares and scenes of overly-gratuitous violence, it is far more of a political commentary than torture porn flick, which makes the film way more interesting than it deserves to be. All of the films have had that edge to them to date, but this one takes it in a much more real-feeling scenario as tensions within America are hotter than ever. That being said, I’m not sure this kind of film is what we need to bring people together. It might have quite the opposite effect as it is easy to see who the monsters are in the plot, and I’m betting that will cause more anger from the right rather than the desired fear of what they might become if things don’t calm down. C+