Movies directed by Darren Aronofsky have won 3 Oscars and been nominated for 11 more, but his latest movie Caught Stealing is a dramatic change of pace and genre. For people who enjoy action or thriller movies over awards-bait dramas, that'll certainly be a well-received shift, but fans of Black Swan, The Whale or Mother! will have to temper their expectations.

Based on a 2004 novel by Charlie Huston, who also wrote the screenplay, Caught Stealing is a gritty crime drama set in New York City's underbelly. It's the kind of premise that many first-time directors turn to, but Aronofsky brings the expertise of a storied career (and the budget to match).

Elvis star Austin Butler leads the cast as Hank Thompson, a former high school baseball player, now a bartender, stuck in the past and unable to move on from one bad decision many years prior. When his neighbor skips town in a hurry, a motley crew of gangers and corrupt cops begin hunting for the figure, and as Hank is caught in the crossfire, he quickly gets in over his head.

Butler does great work as a tortured bartender and he's not alone; along his journey he's joined by Zoë Kravitz as his 'fling who could be more' Yvonne, Matt Smith as neighbor and British punk rocker Russ, Regina King as police detective Roman and Liev Schreiber, Vincent D'Onofrio and Carol Kane as members of a crime family after Russ.

Sadly, the surprisingly large cast means that we don't get that much time with any of the supporting cast, perhaps save for Roman. Scant time is spent exploring the motivations of Hank's antagonists, or even his allies, and some characters are snuffed out surprisingly early (though I won't say who for fear of spoilers).

Perhaps the standout role of the movie is Russ' cat, which Hank has to look after throughout the movie; it veers between adorable, funny and nasty enough to easily promote it into the pantheon of best movie cats.

There's no getting away from the fact that Caught Stealing is a fairly formulaic crime drama; we've probably all seen stories of young everymen dragged into dangerous plots and attempting to get out with their lives. Elevating Caught Stealing is not only the great performances across the board but also the higher budget than these movies normally get, which facilitates some fun action sequences including a visceral foot chase through a food market and a car chase through Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

A humorous undercurrent also helps the movie along the way; it's not a laugh-out-loud action comedy by any means, but it's not taking itself as seriously as some of the dry crime thrillers that overload streaming services.

Darren Aronofsky's movies often deal with psychological themes, and although his exploration of Hank's past traumas works neatly, there's a hole in the movie where a more cohesive character drama or some meaningful depth should sit. Hank doesn't seem to learn much through his adventures, and he's not affected nearly as much as you'd expect from the plot he finds himself in (or a shocking death mid-way through the story). As previously mentioned, there isn't enough exploration of the motivation of other characters, or much of a commentary of any kind, to point to any real meaning or message in the movie.

So don't go into Caught Stealing expecting your standard Aronofsky drama, and it's no insult to the film to say it isn't angling for any Oscars. It's simply a fun action-thriller movie elevated by its performances.

Caught Stealing is coming to theaters on Friday, August 29.

The horror genre has truly become a director’s showcase. Robert Eggers (The Witch, Nosferatu), Osgood Perkins (Longlegs, The Monkey), Ari Aster (Hereditary, Midsommar), Jordan Peele (Get Out, Us) and Zach Cregger, whose 2022 horror movie Barbarian put him on the map. Cregger has returned with his follow-up to Barbarian, Weapons, an eerie and entertaining addition to the horror canon.

In addition to directing, Cregger wrote the script for Weapons, which tells the story of a town where all but one student in an elementary school class mysteriously disappear one night. Suspicions are immediately raised around their teacher, Justine (Julia Garner), as parents, including Archer (Josh Brolin), desperately search for answers. Alden Ehrenreich, Benedict Wong, Austin Abrams, Cary Christopher and Amy Madigan also star.

Weapons is completely defined by Cregger’s storytelling and direction, as it overshadows just about everything else, including the performances of his notable cast (with one exception).

Let’s start with the story. Cregger plays around with structure, telling the story in chapters that focus primarily on specific characters, with some overlap or bleeding into one another. This slowly reveals the secrets of the movie, doling out answers and key info bit by bit until the third act and the whole picture comes into view. It’s similar to his jump cuts in Barbarian, but here it is more about slowly stringing the audience along. While it definitely is a slow burn, this strategy works to keep the audience actively engaged.

Supporting that is Cregger’s directing style, particularly his mastery of creating tone. For all two hours of the movie there is an undeniable sense of dread hovering over everything. But Cregger doesn’t achieve that with overt stylistic choices (outside of a couple of dream sequences), it’s his tracking of characters, lingering on certain things, letting his scariest moments play out slowly rather than with jump scares and the blending darker elements with touches of humor that give the movie its unique sensibility.

Having said that, I do have a couple of small gripes. One that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense is that characters are affected by something at different parts of the movie but we never get an effective answer as to how or why that happens; the movie’s big reveals don’t give a satisfying answer to this.

Also, the movie’s message isn’t particularly clear, at least on first viewing. When I watched Barbarian I could quickly get what Cregger was going for with his story, as well as simply being entertained by what’s unfolding on screen. With Weapons, the story itself is interesting, but what exactly I should be taking away from it is muddled at best. Sometimes you don’t need an obvious message, but it can make the difference between a good and great movie; in this case it has me liking Barbarian a little bit better than Weapons.

With Weapons being the Cregger show, it relegates most of his ensemble as mostly forgettable. That’s not to say that Julia Garner or Josh Brolin are bad; their characters are perfectly fine subjects for us to follow as the mystery is unraveled. But we’re not as interested in what’s going on specifically with them as we are with the overall mystery of the story.

The one exception in the cast is Amy Madigan. Best known for her work in the 1980s, particularly in the classic Field of Dreams and her Oscar-nominated role in Twice in a Lifetime, Madigan has her best role in years in Weapons and she makes the most of it, stealing every scene she’s in. The role she has definitely is designed to draw our attention, but what she does with her performance is exceptional.

Weapons is a very good horror movie, but it’s not one just for the horror diehards (I definitely don’t consider myself as such). Because the movie relies more on tone than things like jump scares (though there are a couple snuck in there) it should be more accessible to a broader audience. Basically, if you’re interested in good filmmaking and a story that will keep you fully invested, then Cregger’s Weapons is worth watching.

Weapons releases exclusively in movie theaters in the US, UK and around the world on August 8.

Remember when The Martian won Best Comedy/Musical at the Golden Globes, or the continued classification of The Bear as a comedy despite a lot of evidence to the contrary? Well there’s no such confusion with Liam Neeson’s The Naked Gun — it’s a comedy to its core, and a pretty solid one at that.

A refresh of the Leslie Nielsen police comedies of the late 1980s and early 1990s, The Naked Gun is absolutely absurd and splendidly stupid, which is exactly what you’d expect from this franchise. Neeson takes over the role of Detective Frank Drebin (Jr.) and, along with Pamela Anderson, director Akiva Schaffer and producer Seth MacFarlane, they create a comedy that shoots off jokes first and worries about everything else later.

In the movie, Neeson’s Frank investigates the murder of a computer engineer in his own rogue style, but with help from his allies in Police Squad and the sister of the victim, Beth Davenport (Anderson), they eventually discover that a tech mogul is behind it all, with a sinister plan that will have consequences on a global scale.

Let’s just get it out of the way, this plot is a blatant rip off of Kingsman: The Secret Service. If they had taken a more generic murder mystery plot or corruption angle I don’t think I would have cared as much, but the fact that they took such a distinct idea that is so easily identifiable (at least for me; I love Kingsman) was a bit disappointing. The good news is that the plot is not important in enjoying The Naked Gun’s primary purpose — getting you to laugh.

In that department, the movie succeeds much more than it fails. Not every joke is going to land for everyone, but you won’t go more than a minute or two without some kind of joke or Easter egg, and a good majority of them will break through to at least earn a chuckle, while a solid number earned true laugh out loud moments for me (I particularly enjoyed the sequence when Neeson and Anderson have a weekend away at a winter cabin).

With a runtime of just 85 minutes, The Naked Gun doesn’t overstay its welcome. That being said, the jokes in the final act of the movie aren’t as consistently strong (there are a few gems in there) as it puts a little more focus on action and making sure the thin plot gets wrapped up.

A supporting cast that includes Paul Walter Hauser, CCH Pounder and Danny Huston are solid, but The Naked Gun is truly a showcase for Neeson and Anderson’s comedic abilities, and both are very good.

Though he’s best known for his roles in Taken and other action franchises, Neeson perfectly blends his tough guy persona with the inherent silliness of the character and script, reminding us that he is an underrated comedy star (a cameo in Ted 2 and a voice performance in The Lego Movie are past standouts). That being said, it’s a near-impossible task for anyone to take the mantle from Nielsen, whose deadpan delivery and pseudo-seriousness were perfect for these movies. Neeson does about as good as anyone could, though.

The true breakout of the movie, though, is Anderson, playing a comedic femme fatale. After earning strong reviews for her dramatic performance in 2024’s The Last Showgirl, Anderson reveals her best path forward in her second act may be as a comedic actress. She is great opposite Neeson and, with all due respect to Priscilla Presley (who makes a cameo appearance in the 2025 new movie), is one of the few things in the reboot I think exceeds the original trilogy.

Fans of the original Naked Gun franchise should thoroughly enjoy this movie, which follows the playbook to satisfying results, and a new generation should have fun with the outrageous, mile-a-minute pace. Without question, The Naked Gun is reloaded and a strong bit of summer entertainment.

The Naked Gun premieres exclusively in movie theaters worldwide on August 1.

As someone who has seen his fair share of projects surrounding the dark history of the African slave trade, I was admittedly on the fence heading into Washington Black.

On one hand, it has the backing of Emmy-winning Sterling K. Brown, who both stars in and produces the new drama. I’ve been a fan of his since Lifetime’s Army Wives, and from that point on, he’s seldom disappointed in the projects he attaches himself to. His drama Paradise was released earlier this year and was a smash hit.

I was also intrigued by Washington Black because of the whimsical elements of science and imagination at the heart of George Washington Black’s world. It seemed rather nuanced in this present landscape of TV.

However, I wasn't sure I was prepared to revisit the dreadful cruelty of humanity's past. The journey there is often not comfortable to examine and carries with it a certain amount of heaviness.

But, having finally watched Washington Black, I'm ready to say the series is a must-watch.

For those who also may be a bit apprehensive about watching a series with the backdrop of the 19th-century slave trade, allow me to reassure you that the fantastical life story of George Washington Black (aka Wash) outweighs the darkness of the slavery component represented.

Although Wash’s journey starts off on a sugar plantation in Barbados, once he meets his mentor (which is fairly early on), it’s off to the races as he lets his imagination and intelligence serve as a passport into the world of scientific exploration. During some moments in the series, it's as if I were watching a live-action, yet antiquated, version of The Magic School Bus.

Then there's the acting. Brown may be the big name to draw viewers into the series, and he certainly delivered another phenomenal performance, but it’s Eddie Karanja and Ernest Kingsley Junior as Wash at different stages in life that really serve as the standouts of the series.

The duo does a remarkable job of capturing the complexities of someone growing up with a gifted mind, but constantly being told there are unfair limitations to how far he can go. There’s a certain “origin story” quality to Wash’s maturity into adulthood that is remarkably captivating, like watching a superhero coming into their own.

Zeroing in on Wash as a teen/young adult, it was rather enchanting to watch his burgeoning romance with Tanna (Iola Evans). It can always prove interesting to watch “forbidden” love develop, and the dynamic between these two provided some more softer sides for the series. Although the duo lacked some of the instantaneous chemistry early on that many may desire in a drama, the two found their groove eventually and made me believe.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t also applaud the work of the set and costume designers behind Washington Black. Sometimes it’s easy to overlook their contributions if the writing and acting in a project is as alluring as that of Washington Black; but, it would be a disservice to viewers if they don’t take the time to appreciate the visuals of each scene as one moves from one beat to the next.

Again, Washington Black is a new series I highly recommend. Although many will understandably be prone to venture outside to enjoy the limited time of summer, it’s worth dedicating some moments to powering through the eight-episode series.

Washington Black streams on Hulu in the US and on Disney Plus in the UK.

2025 officially marks the return of the superhero movie. After Marvel was in a multi-year slump post Avengers: Endgame and DC Studios was reconfiguring its identity under James Gunn, the big screen output of both studios this year showed signs of life.

Though Captain America: Brave New World was a rough start to the year, Thunderbolts* was a fun and surprisingly deep story about some Marvel side characters getting the chance to shine for the first time. Superman, meanwhile, even if I wasn’t as big of a fan, offered something different and got people excited about the future of DC’s comic book adaptations. But the best of the bunch is The Fantastic Four: First Steps.

The third attempt at bringing Marvel’s iconic family of superheroes to the big screen is the charm. The core four of stars have great chemistry; the director brings a fresh feel to the proceedings; and an epic score helps to elevate it all. That all results in not only one of the best Marvel movies of all time, but one of the best movies I’ve seen this year.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps feels different in large part because it is different from all of the movies we’ve seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The movie is set in a different dimension from the main story of the MCU we’ve been following for nearly 20 years, specifically Earth 828 (the main MCU storyline has been set on Earth 199999, for reference).

This world is a blend of 1960s and futuristic styles, where The Fantastic Four — Reed/Mr. Fantastic (Pedro Pascal), Sue/The Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny/The Hunan Torch (Joseph Quinn) and Ben/The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) — are beloved heroes and things are going great, with Sue and Reed set to welcome their first child. However, when a being with the capability to devour Earth demands the ultimate sacrifice to save the planet, the Fantastic Four put their brains and mettle to figuring out a plan.

That all leads to a practically perfect superhero movie. It relies on telling the story of a family as much as the galactic threat hanging over them.

While together, the quartet of Pascal, Kirby, Quinn and Moss-Bacrach are fantastic, they each shine individually as well. Pascal’s brainy Reed is a competent, confident leader for the public, while more of an awkward nerd with his family (no one is having a better summer than Pascal between this, Materialists and Eddington). Kirby’s Sue is the emotional heart of the group and movie; a bad-ass mother who won’t stop protecting all that she cares about. Quinn nails the comedic relief role but there’s a sincerity and earnestness to his Johnny that makes him more than a joke machine. And Moss-Bachrach brings a softness and calm to the rock (physically and emotionally) Ben.

Elsewhere, Julia Garner’s Silver Surfer/Shalla-Bal and Ralph Ineson’s Galactus are imposing antagonists that make the most of their screen time. Paul Walter Hauser also has a great bit as Mole Man. And of course, can’t forget to mention Herbie, the heroes robot assistant, who could easily have been a childish marketing ploy, but is handled with enough care and given enough to do that he never feels gimmicky.

The fact that The Fantastic Four: First Step could create such rich characters, tell an engaging and thrilling story and introduce a brand new world within the MCU all under two hours (movie has a runtime of one hour and 55 minutes with credits), is a testament to director Matt Shakman.

Though Shakman only had one feature directing credit to his name prior to The Fantastic Four: First Step, he had plenty of experience directing some of the biggest TV shows of the last decade, including the Marvel and Disney Plus original series WandaVision. With how well made WandaVision was, perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that Shakman nailed The Fantastic Four, but he definitely deserves a good amount of credit for reviving what prior to 2025 had become a stale playbook. He, along with screenwriters Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan and Ian Springer, was even able to pull off making the trademark Marvel sky beam feel less played out.

Supporting all of this was the brilliant work by composer Michael Giacchino. While no stranger to the MCU and superheroes — he previously scored Doctor Strange, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man movies, Thor: Love and Thunder and The Batman — Giacchino outdid himself this time. His Fantastic Four theme is instantly iconic, while his epic score perfectly blends and accentuates both the movie’s action scenes and its quieter moments. I hope an Oscar nomination is in line for Giacchino’s score; one of many potentially award-worthy elements from the movie.

Kevin Feige recently talked about Marvel’s recent ups and downs, including the argument that the studio has been choosing quantity over quality in recent years. Time will tell whether The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a blip on the radar or a turning point, but it certainly feels like quality is the dominant theme in this movie. As a result, The Fantastic Four: First Steps may have just saved the MCU and helped to usher in a new era of superhero movies.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps premieres exclusively in movie theaters worldwide on July 25.

Ari Aster is known for dealing in the surreal, whether it be a cursed family in Hereditary, a bonkers cultural rite in Midsommar, or however you want to describe Beau Is Afraid. In Eddington, Aster takes it to the surreal time of May 2020, when pandemic lockdowns and racial justice battles combined to create a hectic summer.

Set in the fictional town of Eddington, N.M., the movie follows county sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) and his battle with the mayor, Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), over what is the right way to lead their town amidst the turbulent times of early pandemic, where any act can be made to look politically motivated and blown out of proportion.

The movie takes some of the classic Western ideas and turns them on their head for this modern story. For most of the movie, it works to create a gripping, off-kilter take on the western genre that has its fair share of things to say about the issues of today. Though it does become too big for its britches, especially in the third act, overall Aster’s ambitious filmmaking pays off enough for a successful endeavor.

The big idea at the center of Eddington that Aster appears to be getting across is that certain individuals will attempt to hijack positions and ideals for their own benefit, playing into the extremes on both sides. This is present in Joe as he embraces conspiracy theories as he runs for mayor against Ted, but also in the characters like Eric (Matt Gomez Hidaka) and Brian (Cameron Mann), who get involved in protests as they pursue a girl, then later switch ideals when the other side better suits them.

While this idea remains throughout the movie, the thread starts to get lost when the focus of the plot turns to something else beyond the political battle between Joe and Ted, instead opting for a bigger, more action-packed third act. Bigger is not always better, especially in this case. All that contributes to a run-time that nears the two-and-a-half-hour mark, which is hard for the movie to sustain.

Where Eddington is at its best is the standoffs between Phoenix and Pascal’s characters. Though rather than having a shootout at dawn, phones are often the weapon of choice in Eddington (guns do get drawn eventually, though). Aster is clear that what we share and read on our devices can be damaging and dangerous in their own unique way.

Considering their star power, it may seem odd that I haven’t mentioned either Emma Stone or Austin Butler yet, but that’s because their impact on the story is minimal. While some backstory surrounding Stone’s character Louise is a motivating factor between the rivalry between Joe and Ted, we don’t get enough of her interacting with everyone else to feel her true weight on the story. Then Butler is basically here for a cameo in one of the stranger scenes in the movie. I won’t judge either of their performances because there isn’t really enough to go on as they’re here for a minute and then basically non factors.

Aster is not interested in a John Wayne-type hero riding into town and saving Eddington. Instead he chooses to investigate the fallacies and dangers of both extremes and how they can be manipulated. It mostly works and is done in a smart and even at times humorous way. Where the movie struggles is not knowing when to rein itself in. I wouldn’t put Eddington ahead of Midsommar of Hereditary in the lineup of Aster’s work, but it’s another big swing from the director that is worth a watch.

Eddington is now playing in US movie theaters; releases in the UK on August 22.

DC needed a hero to save the day after the collapse of the Snyderverse and its various offshoots. So in flew James Gunn, who provided a rare bright spot in the previous iteration of DC movies in The Suicide Squad and its TV spinoff Peacemaker. To launch this new era of DC Studios movies, Gunn went with the obvious choice, Superman.

Superman, starring David Corenswet, marks the third iteration of the Man of Steel in the last 20 years (following Brandon Routh’s Superman Returns in 2006, and Henry Cavil’s tenure as the character from 2013 to 2022). Gunn makes sure to put his stamp on the proceedings, creating a world that is about as different from Zack Snyder’s take as can be. While it has echoes of Christopher Reeve’s iconic portrayal, Gunn and company include a number of aspects that add interesting and timely themes to the story, while nailing a number of key casting choices.

Specifically, Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane and Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor. Brosnahan is stellar as Lois; with all due respect to Margot Kidder, Amy Adams and Kate Bosworth, this may be my favorite interpretation of the character. As for Hoult, he’s fantastically ruthless and maniacal as Luthor.

Yet, as strong as those elements are, they struggle to outweigh a string of characters, plotlines and action sequences that, while many will likely find entertaining, are ultimately superfluous and make the movie too busy for its own good. And unfortunately Corenswet is a bit inconsistent as Superman; great as a reflective Superman, but struggles to bring the majestic aura of the hero when called to action.

The Superman plot does not actively tell the origin story of how a baby Supes was sent to Earth, raised as Clark Kent, discovered his powers and began his double life as a Daily Planet reporter and savior of Metropolis (that old chestnut). That info is still quickly touched on if anyone needs a quick refresher, but kudos to Gunn for having the confidence to dive right in on these characters’ relationships, which allow for some interesting aspects.

Most notably that of Superman and Lois. The fact that these two have known each other for years already and have a history leads to a sharp and excellent scene where Lois interviews Superman on a decision he makes early on in the movie. Honestly, this is one of my favorite scenes in a movie this year, as Brosnahan’s Lois pulls no punches in her questions on just how much authority Superman should have and Corenswet attempts to defend his moral high ground. It's the type of scene we've never really seen in a Superman movie.

Unfortunately, we only really get one more scene between the two of them the rest of the way and the ideas they touch on don’t get the focus they deserve. And the movie suffers for it.

Instead Gunn swings for the fences by infusing the movie with a plethora of characters and situations that showcase his clear love of comics. Among the inclusions are Krypto (Superman’s dog), the Justice Gang (Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner, Isabela Merced’s Hawkgirl and Edi Gathegi’s Mr. Terrific), Anthony Carrigan as Metamorpho and a pocket universe. All have their moments, but there are stretches where they either offer little of actual value or are too big of a piece that it actually lessens Superman’s impacts (Metamorpho may be the lone exception).

Combine that with the movie’s two climatic events and there’s a lot going on that would have been a herculean task for anyone to bring together. Gunn’s ambition is admirable, and things never get too far off the rails, but it’s fair to wonder if the movie wouldn’t have been better served by simplifying things a little.

Superman offers more than its fair share of moments for audiences to be enthralled with, so it won’t be a surprise if movie fans leave on a high. But while Gunn clearly had a blast playing in this sandbox, a greater exploration of the ideas to help define this new iteration of Superman got a little overshadowed. Whether that is enough to deter your enjoyment of the movie will vary; for me it keeps Superman from soaring to its highest heights.

Superman plays exclusively in movie theaters worldwide starting July 11.

Roku Streaming Stick (2025) quick review

One of the biggest names in streaming hardware is Californian company Roku, which sets itself apart not by offering its own streaming service, but by releasing products at a really competitive price point.

That's certainly true of the Roku Streaming Stick, a new release for 2025 (which the name wouldn't give away) which comes as the most affordable streaming stick in the company's portfolio. It's designed for people who want an affordable and easy-to-use dongle that doesn't feel like a major investment.

Its price and feature set puts the Roku Streaming Stick as a major rival to the Amazon Fire TV Stick HD, from Roku's big rival, and there's more about the stick that makes this a tempting option for cost-savers. Take, for example, The Roku Channel, a free streaming service available to users of devices like the Streaming Stick. This has a library of free movies and TV shows for you to stream, and there are plenty of other free streaming services available using the dongle.

Not only is it cheap, but the Roku Streaming Stick is easy to set up and use, having a non-frills setup process, letting you control your entire TV with its remote and maintaining a clean interface that doesn't bombard you with commercials or suggestions. If you're a technophobe then you'll appreciate the way it works.

But you won't like the Roku Streaming Service if you're looking for something advanced. It doesn't support 4K video streaming which will rule it out as an option for many prospective buyers, and it also misses on some top-end features that other Rokus and Fire TV sticks offer.

I also found it a little slow to use and navigate with, having often to press directional arrows multiple times before the input was registered. That's par for the course for cheap gadgetry like this though so you can't be too surprised.

Roku Streaming Stick (2025) price information

The Roku Streaming Stick was announced in May 2025 and was released then in the US, while UK buyers had to wait until June to pick it up.

You have to pay $29.99 / £29.99 for the device which makes it basically the cheapest streaming stick you can buy (discounting cheapie knock-offs you'll find online).

Bear in mind that this up-front cost doesn't include any monthly fees you pay for the best streaming services, so you could end up paying more, although there are various free streaming services available too.

Amazon's rival Fire TV Stick HD costs $5 / £10 more while the more premium Roku Streaming Stick Plus is $10 / £10 more.

Roku Streaming Stick (2025) set-up

It's pretty simple to set up the Roku Streaming Stick. You'll just need a TV, projector or monitor with an HDMI slot and USB port free, as well as Wi-Fi you can use.

It's a very easy process which involves following on-screen instructions, and took me at most ten minutes. I've written an entire guide on how to set up a Roku player which might help you.

A Roku account is required and you can create this ahead of time or during the set-up process.

Once you've set up the streaming stick itself you'll need to set up any individual app you want to use, a process which takes about a minute per app if you use your phone with the app already logged in, or longer if you sign in manually.

Roku Streaming Stick (2025) day-to-day use

Like other devices from the company, the Roku Streaming Stick uses Roku OS as its operating system, made by the company.

Immediately looking at the software, you can see that it's quite barebones and simple. Some might consider it unappealing, but I personally liked how clean and restricted it was, compared to Amazon's equivalent which bombards you with commercials and trailers for shows you could watch.

As you can see in the picture above, the right of the menu offers you a list of the apps you have available. Lots of these come pre-installed, and others can be added via the Streaming Store on the left.

The Streaming Store has a fair selection of apps and extras, all the expected faces (which vary by your region, of course). I found it pretty quick to download new platforms but it'll depend on your region.

One thing to note is that the Roku Streaming Stick can be a little slow to navigate, sometimes stuttering or jumping around. It wasn't more pronounced than on other budget devices I've used in the past, both streaming sticks and phones, tablets and wearables, but it's something to note if you like a quick clean use process.

Roku Streaming Stick (2025) remote

The Roku Voice Remote comes included in the box with the Roku Streaming Stick. This takes two AAA batteries and your first two are pre-installed in the remote.

It's not a huge remote, noticeably smaller than Amazon's equivalent or your average TV remote, and it's got some quirky differences to those examples too.

I'm talking here about the fact that the volume and mute buttons are on the right edge of the remote. This position makes it easily-reachable with your thumb (if you're holding it in your right hand) or fingers (if in the left hand) so I can see the thinking, however I actually found this positioning made it harder to change volume when the remote was down on a surface. On another remote you can press the volume buttons without picking up the remote but doing so here means you just push the remote sideways instead of pressing the button.

On the front of the remote you've got the power button, home button and back button below, the latter two used for navigating the Roku software, and below that is a directional button for the same.

At the bottom of the remote are four app shortcut buttons, which are standard in streaming remotes, and between them are a few more expected buttons: play/pause, forward and backwards and options. There's also a button to bring up the voice controls, which is always useful, and an Instant replay button which does what you'd expect.

On most TVs, the Roku Voice Remote also lets you control the set itself, so the power button will turn on the TV and volume buttons will change the volume. In theory you can ditch your TV's main set, but that's only true if you don't need any of your TVs other features like changing HDMI input to a games console, for example, or display features.

Roku Streaming Stick (2025) video and audio quality

The Roku Streaming Stick can output video at 1080p or Full HD, which is the definition that most streaming services offer on their basic tiers. HD TVs used to be the most commonly-used sets until recently so if you have a 4K TV then you won't make the most of that high resolution here.

The dongle also upscales footage from 720p to 1080p, which can be useful for older movies or YouTube videos, for example.

Unlike on Roku's more expensive streaming sticks, this model doesn't offer any Dolby feature like Atmos or Audio, so you'll miss these surround-sound features.

But that's replaced with a unique feature which worked quite well: the software will automatically reduce the volume of commercials to bring them in line with the video you're watching. In a world where most streaming services have ads in their default tiers, this is really useful, and I barely noticed it which is a testament to how useful it actually was.

Is the Roku Streaming Stick (2025) worth buying?

I'd recommend buying the Roku Streaming Stick if you're not constantly glued to your TV. It's not for people who want high-res video, who spend lots of money on streaming services, for those with fancy TV sets.

Instead it's for people who want something easy to use and affordable for the brief times they do use their TV. Technophobes, people who want streaming services without buying a smart TV, those on a budget.

Competition

• The Roku Streaming Stick Plus is what you should buy if you like the sound of the Roku Streaming Stick, but want to watch your video in 4K instead of FHD.
• The Amazon Fire TV Stick HD is Amazon's equivalent to the Streaming Stick. It has the same resolution and costs a little bit more but offers better integration with other services.
• The Roku Express is the device that the Streaming Stick replaces. Its feature set is similar but since it's older, you might be able to find it at a discount now.
• The Google Chromecast is another streaming stick with the same resolution as the Roku. It's a little pricier than the Streaming Stick and is much more dependent on your smartphone or tablet for controls with a very barebones remote.

More on Roku streaming sticks

• What you need to know about The Roku Channel
• Roku Express vs Amazon Fire TV Stick HD
• How to watch The Roku Channel on Roku

How I tested the Roku Streaming Stick

I reviewed the Roku Streaming Stick using a Toshiba TV, outputting at 1080p resolution, matching the stick's. You can see it in some of the pictures. The stick was reviewed at the same time as the Roku Streaming Stick Plus, which released at the same time.

I tested on a variety of apps used include Roku Channel, Netflix, Prime Video, Plex and Apple TV Plus.

Most of the set-up process was done using my smartphone, but I tended to use the remote instead of my phone for navigation and using the stick.

I've been a stalwart fan of the Jurassic World revival of the Jurassic Park franchise, even if the quality took a tumble towards the end. So when visionary director Gareth Edwards was announced to helm a continuation of the franchise, one which would double down on the horrifying concept of mutant dinos, I was fully in.

Unfortunately, the resulting movie Jurassic World Rebirth doesn't live up to the hype. It's overlong, frustrating and lacking in thrills, so much so that I look back at the widely-panned Jurassic World Dominion fondly in comparison.

Jurassic World Rebirth is set several years on from Dominion, and sees an expedition of mercenaries travel to a remote island to collect DNA from isolated dinos, only to have their plans scuppered when the dinosaurs start to attack them. Who would've thought that would happen?

• Here's how to watch the Jurassic Park movies in order

At the same time we follow a family on a sailing trip who likewise are attacked by a dinosaur, and have to find refuge on this dangerous island. In its opening text crawl, the movie sweeps under the rug the Fallen Kingdom-introduced idea of dinos joining the Earth's ecosystem in a permanent and disappointingly-limiting way, keeping action limited to one island.

The team consists of Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend and some future dino fodder, while Manuel Garcia-Rulfo is the patriarch of the family. None of the characters are given much to work with, but props go to Audrina Miranda for playing perhaps the most convincing child of the Jurassic Park franchise.

The plot is driven along by a series of coincidences, contrivances and bizarre logic, and you'll want to scream at the screen for how infuriatingly little sense any of it makes. The premise for the island, the reason the original base there shut down, the relationship between the stranded family members, an unending string of hair-pullingly idiotic decisions by characters; all of these make it impossible to get engaged with the movie, though serve as fodder to complain about to friends over a beer later. The more you think about it, the more you wonder: "why is there a gas station selling tourist tat on a remote island which ever only housed a scientific research base, and has no roads?"

There's a lot more that's frustrating for how it's not addressed. Two of the main characters have traumas they describe during one laborious conversation scene and barely bring up again; most of the other characters have "arc"' that are either resolved the scene after they're brought up or are completely forgotten. You don't watch Jurassic movies for their characters, but at least you get a sense of who Ian Malcolm, Ellie Sattler, Alan Grant, or the World characers actually are.

Clocking in at 2 hours and 14 minutes, Rebirth is the second-longest movie of the franchise, despite its simple plot. It feels long too, with a sluggish first half that spends far too much time at sea, and a stop-start pace once characters get to the island; the story rarely instills a sense of excitement or danger. A few punchier scenes, like the brief appearance of a T-Rex and an attack by the aquatic Mosasaurus, are so prevalent in the trailers that they lose their impact, too.

The movie is surprisingly bloodless and kid-friendly, more so than past entries. Almost all dino kills are out of view, with the creatures dragging victims off-camera at every opportunity (maybe they're just shy eaters), and the child character befriends a baby dinosaur that proceeds to travel around in her backpack like we're watching a Disney film (admittedly this dino, Dolores, was the highlight of the movie to some people I spoke to). Fans who loved the harrowing dino disaster and brutality of past Jurassic World movies will find it toothless.

This is despite Rebirth being marketed as a horror movie. The new big bad Distortus Rex is only creepy in its first scene, then disappears for the vast majority of the movie, and when it re-enters at the eleventh hour it's nonthreatening and looks daft. In fact the premise of the island being home to an ecosystem of mutant dinos only manifests in the D-Rex and one other creature, which you'd think was just a normal dino if not for a quick dialogue aside.

Instead of blood, Rebirth is chock-full of "jokes", however, the vast majority land with a resounding 'thud' (more of a 'thud' than the footsteps of the lumbering behemoths, that characters inexplicably fail to hear throughout the movie). I smiled at one line near the beginning, but the further the film goes on, the more the incessant attempts at humor deflate any atmosphere the movie has created.

Dino fans will appreciate the appearance of some big-name debuts to the franchise like Quetzalcoatlus and Titanosaurus, but if you don't know your Stegasaurus from your Triceratops, then all these new dinos will do is remind you of scenes from the original trilogy, which Rebirth is clearly aping.

Despite not following Dominion's footsteps by bringing back the original cast, Rebirth plays on nostalgia even more than the reboot trilogy. I liked the use of Jurassic Park's color scheme, but there are too many shots lifted wholesale from the original, and the classic score is dropped in at baffling points. The original theme, evoking wonder and excitement, is used when one character is telling another of their PTSD!

Universal has dubbed Jurassic World Rebirth a stand-alone movie, rather than the start of a new trilogy, but it's hard to see where the franchise can go from here given the status of dinos within the movie. Out of the movie, Rebirth has squandered my enthusiasm for future installments, and it feels like a hiatus is well due (reports suggest a new movie will come in 2028, but one can dream!).

Watch Jurassic World Rebirth exclusively in movie theaters; it releases on Wednesday, July 2.

Formula 1 is not one of the sports that I typically follow, as I never found it all that compelling to watch on TV. Watching F1: The Movie on the big screen though (in my case on an IMAX screen), yeah, I was riveted by the on-the-track action as the movie places you right in the driver’s seat.

That’s a similar strategy that F1: The Movie director Joseph Kosinski took with his previous movie, Top Gun: Maverick, and it works again here. The director and his team filmed during real F1 events, allowing them to authentically capture what it’s like to compete in one of the fastest sports in the world; and for extra authenticity to do so among so many of F1’s actual competitors and personalities.

On the track, F1: The Movie is an absolute winner. When we’re not focused on the racing is when a few bumps in the road come up. And it’s not that the story or the all-star cast led by Brad Pitt are bad, they just don’t elevate the movie in any notable way. Still, none of that is enough to keep F1: The Movie from being one a worthy summer blockbuster.

F1: The Movie follows Sonny Hayes (Pitt), a nomadic racer-for-hire whose F1 dreams were dashed years ago after a horrific crash. He gets another shot when an old friend (Javier Bardem) wants him to help save his struggling F1 team. Forced to contend with a hot-shot rookie driver (Damson Idris) and to redesign a car that can effectively compete with the top teams with their technical director (Kerry Condon), Sonny puts everything on the line for a last shot at redemption.

If you’re like me and barely know anything about F1 racing, the movie does a good job guiding you along with key aspects so you can effectively understand the stakes and the strategies of the races. The movie could very well be a primer for a new wave of F1 fans, which was certainly one of its goals with F1 legend Lewis Hamilton and the racing league itself helping to produce the movie.

At the same time, it’s not a dumbed down version of the sport. I watched the movie with one of my friends who is a major F1 fan and he had a blast seeing real-life F1 figures make appearances, their personalities and racing styles being effectively captured on screen. And even if there are instances of movie magic/convenience, to paraphrase, he said any inaccuracies were small enough it didn’t prevent him from enjoying the movie.

So credit to Kosinski, who once again proves he is a master of putting audiences in high-octane positions that make for great entertainment on the big screen.

While the main attraction is the racing, the overall story of Sonny and his team isn’t bad, it just has a hard time keeping up the highs we get from the track. Notably, the relationship between Sonny and Joshua, the rookie driver, has a weird flow to it; a plot line revolving around Sonny’s injury history proves inconsequential; and the movie has some struggles bringing the ending in for a landing, dragging on longer than it needs to.

Still, Pitt brings the swagger of a wily, wildcard driver, having good chemistry with Idris, Bardem and Condon, who are all solid.

There are probably better movies about why people would choose to risk their lives driving cars at such speeds and the cost of those pursuits, but I don’t know if there’s been a movie to date that has captured the actual feel of the sport as well as F1: The Movie. I’m not sure I’ll be an F1 convert after it, but I definitely have a greater appreciation for the sport.

F1: The Movie is now playing exclusively in movie theaters.

Just about any list of the greatest zombie movies of all time is sure to include Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s 28 Days Later. So naturally there was a lot of excitement around the two returning for the latest sequel in the series, 28 Years Later. But does the 2025 new movie live up to its predecessor?

Meh. 28 Years Later is an up and down experience. It features some of the gruesome zombie action that many fans likely desire, as well as a handful of sincerely beautiful moments. However the movie's highs don’t quite reach the same level of the original movie, while some of the lows are either a bit boring or outright baffling (the ending being the biggest evidence of the latter).

28 Years Later takes place nearly three decades after the outbreak depicted in the first movie, focusing on an entirely new set of characters (rumors that Cillian Murphy would appear in this one were shot down, though he is reportedly set to appear in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, coming out in 2026). In this one, 12-year-old Spike (Alfie Williams), who has spent his entire life on an island protected from the infected, makes his first trip to the UK mainland with his dad (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). When Spike learns that a mysterious doctor (Ralph Fiennes) is close, he decides to take his ailing mother (Jodie Comer) to see if he can help; if they can survive the infected first.

Williams’ Hollywood debut is a memorable one, as the young actor steals the movie as Spike. It’s an effective choice to reintroduce this world through the eyes of a child, with Williams’ effectively portraying Spike’s growth as he comes to understand real horrors and hard truths.

Fiennes also gives a good, supporting performance, bringing the emotional heart of the movie. Comer has a few touching moments, but I wouldn’t rank this among her best.

In terms of the movie’s action, those who want to see gore will get a good bit of it in 28 Years Later, both humans killing zombies and zombies killing humans. Boyle and his editors also kept some of that gritty, hectic style for the action that the first movie had. Though in some instances, they may have taken it too far.

Mostly relevant in the movie’s first half, there are editing choices (both visually and audially) that don’t make a whole lot of sense. They add a creepy, unsettling element to the movie, sure, but they don’t fit naturally with the story that we are seeing unfold, or are unnecessary, jarring jumps that take you somewhat out of the moment.

And if we’re talking about being taken out of the moment, the ending is the chief culprit. I won’t get into the details, but the movie feels like it is settling on a natural and generally satisfying conclusion before it introduces something completely off the wall that is wholly inconsistent with what we’ve just watched. It left me scratching my head as I was leaving the theater.

28 Years Later has the basis of a solid story and characters, with a few standouts in Williams and Fiennes. But the movie only reaches its highest potential in a few moments, while a number of the stylistic choices from Boyle are more curious oddities than compelling features. All in all, 28 Years Later opens the door for a potentially interesting story to be continued with its set follow-up and a potential third movie, but judging just on its own, it’s a middling start.

28 Years Later opens exclusively in movie theaters on June 20.

After one of the best directorial debuts in recent memory with Past Lives, what does writer/director Celine Song have up her sleeves for her second movie, Materialists? How about a sophisticated take down on modern dating that also doubles as a sincere rallying cry for the value of love in our lives that will win you over with its charm.

Materialists centers on Lucy (Dakota Johnson), a professional matchmaker in New York City. She sees relationships as a numbers game/business — what traits are non-negotiables and how many boxes does someone check off for one of her clients. One day, she meets Harry (Pedro Pascal), a unicorn — the type of partner that has the whole package just about everyone would want, including Lucy. The two start to date, but the picture gets a little complicated when Lucy’s ex-boyfriend John (Chris Evans) pops back up in her life.

You can guess what happens from there — a love triangle where Lucy must pick which guy she thinks would be the better potential partner to spend the rest of her life with. However, where Materialists succeeds is that its romantic rivalry isn’t easy to call. Neither Pascal’s Harry or Evan’s John are unlikeable characters; they both truly seem to care for Lucy. The question then is what is more important to Lucy, the fact that someone like Harry is a perfect match, or the natural connection she has with John?

Helping the love triangle are the great performances by Pascal and Evans. Two of pop culture’s biggest crushes, Materialists is only going to solidify their appeal. Pascal plays Harry suave but sincere; he’s calculating, but a reveal later on shows why, in a scene Pascal plays well. Evans’ John, meanwhile, is a mess, but the actor gives John an affable quality; he also nails a pivotal scene that could become quotable among romance fans for years to come.

The weak link in the triangle is Johnson, but I’m having a hard time figuring out if it’s her performance or a rare weakness in Song’s script. Johnson plays Lucy a bit flat and detached for a lot of the movie, though there are moments where she adds a spark of sincerity to the character. However, Lucy’s character is meant to be cold and calculating — she literally describes herself that way at times. Did Johnson play that aspect of her character too much or did Song not give us enough of Lucy outside of her relationships/work to really get to know her? It’s one of the few elements of the movie that isn't firing on all cylinders.

What makes it more complex is that the calculations that these characters are doing is part of what makes the movie work. Lucy treats relationships like a business deal, to the extent that one of the best scenes of the movie features Lucy and Harry discussing why they like each other in terms of material assets that can be traded on the stock market. That may sound cold and unnaturalistic but, in addition to the demands that Lucy’s clients give her in cutaway scenes throughout the movie, is it all that different from the dating app culture, where people make decisions to swipe right or left based on things like height?

Yet, while we can see the connections to our own lives, setting the movie amongst the elite society of six-figure earners that could afford such personalized matchmaking services gives the movie a distance that makes it feel like a fairytale for the adult crowd.

While Materialists definitely has more of a Hollywood feel to it than Past Lives, Song is still able to portray mature, honest feelings about love and relationships that make it stand out from contemporary Hollywood romances. So while it may not check every box, Materialists is a movie worth falling for.

Materialists is playing exclusively in movie theaters starting June 13 in the US; it premieres on August 15 in the UK.

Paranormal romance has arrived on Passionflix with the debut of Black Dagger Brotherhood. Based on JR Ward's bestselling novels, the inaugural season of the series follows the events of the first book, Dark Lover, and its vampire protagonist Wrath (Robert Maaser, From the World of John Wick: Ballerina) and Beth (Olivia Applegate, Love & Death), the woman he's sworn to protect. What to Watch previewed the first episode and the vampire series manages to sink its teeth from the very start.

Wrath is the last pureblooded vampire and leader of the clan of warrior vampires known as the Black Dagger Brotherhood. An old friend asks him to watch over his half-human daughter, Beth, who has no idea that she's not fully human. Wrath doesn't want to accept the job but as soon as he meets Beth he's drawn to her. Beth's life is in danger, but thankfully she has the most powerful vampire around to protect her.

The rest of the cast is made up of Joel Cederberg, Michael Roark (The Young and the Restless), Alex Cubis, Andrew Biernat (Wait with Me), Sia Zami and Victory Van Tuyl.

It's important to note that Passionflix is committed to bringing several books to life (Ward has written over 20 books in the BDB series thus far) and the actors have signed on to be part of this world for about 15 years and however many seasons of the story they can put together. The characters they play show up in various ways in each book, so you'll be seeing a lot from these actors in the future.

Black Dagger Brotherhood's strength is that the story and dialogue have been faithfully translated from page to screen, as is the Passionflix way. In that regard, it's going to be a massive hit for Ward's fans who love the stories and want to see them come to life as authentically as possible. (In case you're wondering what Ward thought of the casting, you can watch her reaction to the first time seeing Maaser as Wrath below)

The show's strength is also a potential weakness, though; if you're not a fan of the books, then the series may not be your cup of O-negative. (Then again, there have been several instances where I have not cared for the book version but ended up loving the Passionflix adaptation.)

Admittedly, I'm a newcomer to Ward's BDB world. I didn't read Dark Lover until Passionflix optioned the series so I wasn't entirely sure what to expect going into the series. I didn't have a vision of what the characters needed to look like but I trusted Passionflix to deliver the same top-level casting that fans have come to expect. I wasn't disappointed.

I was drawn into the story from the start. I don't recall all of the details from the book so there were lots of elements I didn't understand, but I know that everything will be explained in time. For the uninitiated, patience will be key, as there is a lot of world-building that has to happen in order for Ward's world to come to life.

I can't say enough about the scope and magnitude of this series. Though I've only seen one episode, every detail of Ward's world has been recreated faithfully and in loving detail. It's a thrilling start to what's about to be a very long relationship.

New episodes of Black Dagger Brotherhood stream on Thursdays on Passionflix.

The John Wick franchise has become one of the most popular and successful action franchises of the last decade, with the titular assassin turning into an iconic role for Keanu Reeves. With Ballerina (official title From the World of John Wick: Ballerina), for the first time we get to see this world on the big screen from another character’s perspective, a young assassin named Eve played by Ana de Armas (in actuality this is the second John Wick spinoff, though The Continental was a TV series).

The result: thanks to action sequences that are similarly creative and well choreographed as ones from John Wick and a solid performance from de Armas, Ballerina punches, kicks and shoots its way to being an entertaining movie, even as its story and antagonists are just barely passable.

Ballerina takes place between the events of John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum and John Wick: Chapter 4. It focuses on Eve, who has been training with the Ruska Roma tribe, led by Anjelica Huston’s The Director, since she was a child after her father was murdered by a secretive and dangerous cult. Once her training is complete, Eve seeks out the cult to avenge her father’s death.

It’s the basic formula that got the John Wick franchise going, where a trained killer is driven by a deep personal desire for revenge. However, what is different is that John Wick began with a simple plot and target for Wick’s (and the audiences’) anger. Ballerina, on the other hand, attempts to drop us deep into a complicated history, but one that is not nearly developed enough to be fully satisfying.

But before I get more into that, let’s start off with the positive, because despite any of its flaws, John Wick and action movies fans are going to have a blast with Ballerina. Director Len Wiseman has handled big action movies before with the likes of Underworld, Live Free or Die Hard and Total Recall (2012), and he adeptly meets expectations with the fight scenes here.

A big part of the draw of the John Wick movies are the creative ways that Wick has to dispatch enemies (see our list of the best John Wick kills for examples). Eve gets to a slew of her own ridiculous kills, with some memorable fights involving a TV remote, dinner plates and a flamethrower. The fight scenes are what really make this movie work.

At least some credit for that has to go to de Armas. She’s already proved she has the action chops in movies like No Time to Die and Ghosted, but she raises her physical game up for Ballerina and it pays off. Her actual acting, meanwhile, carries the movie perfectly well; she may not have the most emotionally challenging role, but she gives Eve an intensity and drive that make her a character that’s easy to follow on this journey.

All that is enough to make Ballerina a fun watch. What keeps it from being great, though, is everything else around the action is half-baked, particularly the lore and threat of the villains at its center.

We’re told that the movie's villains are a dangerous, evil group, but what we get doesn’t live up to the hype. They’re a well-armed enemy for Eve to take on, for sure, but evil? The movie sets up so much with this group and then completely drops the ball in paying any of it off. Then when they try pay something off, they don’t let it have any real impact.

It’s similar with the main theme of the movie, which centers around whether or not life is determined by fate or if we actually make choices. That idea is brought up constantly, but it’s just words, it’s not effectively developed or presented as a strong moral quandary for Eve.

You may be asking do the main John Wick movies really have any deep themes? I would say yes. The first movie deals with grief, and then the subsequent sequels primarily focus on Wick trying to reconcile with his desire to leave his life of violence behind, but the only way to do that is by enacting more violence. Ballerina is trying to work in that same area, but it doesn’t do it nearly as well.

Yet that did not deter my ultimate enjoyment of Ballerina. In terms of butt-kicking, Ballerina is everything you could want from an action movie. That’s enough in this case.

Ballerina premieres exclusively in movie theaters worldwide on June 6.

Whether or not Wes Anderson is truly thinking about his legacy at this point of his career, the singular director’s 12th movie, The Phoenician Scheme, definitely is. Amid the traditional Anderson dry wit, specific tempo and meticulous crafting, The Phoenician Scheme is one of Anderson’s funnier and more entertaining movies in the last few years, but the emotional heart falls short of his best work.

The Phoenician Scheme stars Benicio Del Toro as Zsa-Zsa Korda, a wealthy, scheming businessman who, along with his only daughter Liesl — a nun-in-training played by Mia Threapleton — embarks on a journey to secure a business deal that will make him even more wealthy and cement his legacy. However, rivals are hellbent on stopping him, including deploying assassins.

In addition to Del Toro and Threapleton, The Phoenician Scheme cast consists of past Anderson collaborators like Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Rupert Friend, Mathieu Amalric, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Hope Davis, Willem Dafoe, F. Murray Abraham and Billy Murray, as well as new additions to his troupe like Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed and Richard Ayode.

After really playing around with the story-in-a-story-in-a-story structure in Asteroid City and vignettes in The French Dispatch, it was nice to see Anderson return to a more straightforward narrative with The Phoenician Scheme. The details of the plot itself are a bit confusing, as the basics are quickly and dryly delivered early on, but eventually you get the sense of it all and are able to enjoy the journey that is unfolding.

Helping with that is one of the funnier West Anderson movies, perhaps since The Grand Budapest Hotel. There are plenty of jokes shot off in rapid fire and delivered with a deadpan that play up their absurdity, as well as a handful of visual gags that work well within Anderson’s style.

Yet despite the likes of Del Toro, Threapleton and others effectively getting the humor out with their dry deliveries, I wouldn’t say there are many standout performances in the movie. With Del Toro and Threapleton, their characters have a baseline of emotion that never changes even as their characters are supposedly doing so, creating a disconnect. As for much of the supporting cast, in most cases they are all there for too short of a time to make a real impact.

There are a couple of near exceptions. Ahmed and Amalric’s business associates of Korda feel both of Anderson’s world but also that they could exist in our own (what I think is the defining quality of the best Anderson performances, i.e. Ralph Fiennes in The Grand Budapest Hotel, Frances McDormand in Moonrise Kingdom, Gene Hackman in The Royal Tenenbaums). Then there’s Cera, who gives a great and hilarious performance as Korda and Liesl’s tutor for half the movie, then something changes and it becomes more bland.

While I will not call any of the performances bad, without a standout — particularly among Del Toro or Threapleton — there is a lack of humanity that prevents The Phoenician Scheme from effectively hitting on its themes and having the emotional resonance of the best Wes Anderson movies.

Even so, the traditional Anderson-style (along with a handful of new visual tricks) and the humor of the movie will make The Phoenician Scheme one that most fans of the Oscar-winning director will enjoy.

The Phoenician Scheme is now playing in select movie theaters in the US, opening nationwide on June 6. Also now playing in the UK.

After 30 years of death-defying stunts, thrilling missions and various hair styles, Tom Cruise has shepherded one of the most recognizable movie franchises in Hollywood history and accomplished his mission of keeping audiences entertained. The same can be said for Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, the expected last entry in the franchise, as it ultimately grabs you and will have you anxiously waiting to see how Cruise’s Ethan Hunt saves the day, but there are some pretty significant bumps along the way.

A continuation of the storyline from Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, The Final Reckoning continues Ethan’s mission of trying to prevent the dangerous artificial intelligence system known as The Entity from total world domination. That actually has turned into world annihilation, as its task in this movie is to gain control of all the world’s nuclear missiles and wipe out humanity and start fresh. Ethan and his team are determined to destroy The Entity, while others are attempting to gain control over it to empower themselves.

If that all sounds straightforward enough, that’s really only thanks to the endless amount of exposition the movie dumps on us to make sure we can keep up with its plot, which you're just barely able to make sense of in the moment. Of course, that description can be attributed to just about every Mission: Impossible movie, though it feels especially true here. Thankfully, what makes this series work are the spectacular stunts and action sequences, and there are enough of those to outweigh the lackluster narrative interspersed between each set piece.

Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie (who has directed every Mission: Impossible movie since Rogue Nation) know how to create something that will maximize the potential of the big screen (including the biggest screen, as a lot of the movie was filmed in IMAX and plays well in the format). Their execution of these sequences is nearly flawless and so much fun to watch — while Cruise’s stunt of hanging off the propeller planes has been getting a lot of the attention, my favorite stunt from the movie is a tense underwater sub sequence.

The physical commitment from Cruise does a lot of the heavy lifting in the franchise, but it’s worth mentioning his seemingly effortless charisma as Ethan Hunt. While it’s hard to fully see where Cruise ends and Hunt begins, especially in these latter movies, Cruise has given Hunt an entertainingly manic quality that adds some humor to the role, but also helps him stand out from other iconic, more cool-headed movie spies like James Bond and Jason Bourne.

But I was most impressed with the performances from members of the supporting cast. Particularly Simon Pegg’s Benji, Ethan’s long-time tech guru, who gets some of his most substantial work to date in the series, and Pom Klementieff’s Paris, a new ally that doesn’t talk much (and when she does it’s in French), but has a magnetism and wildness to her that always keeps you transfixed on what she’s going to do next. Then Severance’s Tramell Tillman shows up for just a minute, but gives a stand-out performance that makes the most of his screen time.

There’s also a supporting performance that I loved that is a callback to the very beginnings of the franchise, but I don’t want to spoil it here so you all can enjoy it in the movie.

Unfortunately, The Final Reckoning is overly reliant on callbacks, which is ironic considering McQuarrie called “fan service” poison in a Hollywood Reporter article on May 19. And aside from the one I allude to above, none of them really add anything of value to the movie, they are just there to show that all these movies are in fact all connected by a few story threads (except for Mission: Impossible II apparently, which gets no real mention).

That’s just part of what bogs down The Final Reckoning. In fact the movie is slow out of the gate as it has to set up what has happened in the two months between the end of Dead Reckoning, the basics of the plot and a quick “best-of” clip from the franchise before things really get going.

The person most impacted by all that is Angela Bassett, who reprises her role as Erika Sloane from Mission: Impossible — Fallout but has the actual impossible task of trying to make the most of scenes that are primarily exposition dumps. Outside of one necessary plot point, they could have been lifted out of the movie and nothing of value would have been lost. I can’t blame Bassett, or any of the notable actors assigned to these eye-rolling scenes, they had next to nothing to work with.

Taking another step back, the intended message of the movie — from what I was able to guess a combination of the dangers of misinformation/trusting AI, a global need recognize that we’re all humans and not necessarily enemies and that no one person can be trusted with immense power — gets drowned out by the action.

Taking all this into account makes you realize that this might not actually be all that well-written of a script.

Yet the action is the point of Cruise and McQuarrie’s Mission: Impossible movies, as these are entertainment-first projects. So while the parts of Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning may be among the weakest in the franchise, the total sum of it all is still a big, ultimately satisfying blockbuster.

Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning is now playing exclusively in movie theaters worldwide.

Once upon a time, Alexander Skarsgård played a powerful Norse vampire in True Blood whose disdain for humans was only tempered by the delight he took in feeding from them. In Murderbot, Skarsgård channels Eric Northman as a security robot who would rather be watching soap operas than minding the tiresome humans he's supposed to protect. But as with everything in life, it's complicated.

The new Apple TV Plus sci-fi comedy is a delightfully mischievous and wildly entertaining series that delivers laughs, thrills and heart.

Murderbot, based on the novel All Systems Red by Martha Wells, is the story of a futuristic society where humans are working in the far reaches of the galaxy and they rely on security robots, referred to as SecUnits, for protection. Skarsgård plays a SecUnit who manages to hack his governance system, essentially freeing himself from the government's control. He chooses the name Murderbot, but despite his newfound freedom he has to maintain the appearance of being a fully compliant SecUnit or risk being melted down.

Murderbot is selected to accompany a group of free-spirited scientists on a research mission to a dangerous region. Newly liberated Murderbot has since hacked into the galaxy's vast entertainment system (think: every streaming service rolled into one) and would rather watch his beloved space soap opera than keep an eye on his hippyish new charges, but over time his disdain for them shifts as they treat him like one of their own instead of a machine.

Like most sci-fi entries, Murderbot spends time exploring the ethical dilemma that comes with robots being used as servants. In the pilot episode, Murderbot shows how his governance programming requires him to do whatever humans ask him to do, even when it leads to harm. Now that he's thrown off the controls, he doesn't want to put himself in danger (as he does feel pain) but failure to perform his duties put him at greater risk of being discovered.

Skarsgård is a fantastic actor who excels in dramatic roles, but he's really at his best when he can add wit and humor to his characters. Murderbot despises humans and makes it clear through his inner monologue, but Skarsgård's delivery is peppered with wit and biting humor that channels everything fans loved about his True Blood role.

Murderbot excels because the cast works so well together. The research team, comprised of Noma Dumezweni, David Dastmalchian, Sabrina Wu, Akshay Khanna, Tamara Podemski and Tattiawna Jones, is fun to watch. Each member of the team has some kind of quirk that hasn't escaped Murderbot's keen observation. In fact, it's those quirks that make him appreciate the research team because they resemble his soap operas.

With 10 roughly 30-minute episodes to the season that will release weekly on Apple TV Plus, Murderbot is easy to follow with a plot that doesn't get bogged down by its sci-fi identity, even though it is unmistakably a science fiction show set in outer space.

While I loved the story and the acting, my biggest criticism isn't necessarily reflected at the show so much as it's the larger issue of only giving fans just 10 episodes (which is generous compared to the six or eight episodes of other limited series). For a 30-minute show, the episodes fly by and though Murderbot will release new episodes weekly, it's a shame that the story couldn't have more time and space to develop.

All in all, though, Murderbot is the kind of sci-fi series that could (and should) easily develop a cult following. But thanks to Skarsgård's brilliance we can see it becoming a mainstream hit with a very bright future.

Murderbot premieres May 16 on Apple TV Plus.

When I finally watched The Accountant in preparation for reviewing The Accountant 2, my overall takeaway was that it was… fine. Mostly it felt like a chance for Ben Affleck to show some acting range, with a few decent action scenes sprinkled in amongst a plot that makes sense but offers little to the actual enjoyment of the movie.

The Accountant 2 has gone with the strategy of if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, as the same basic formula plays out in the sequel. However, there are a number of things The Accountant 2 does that raises it above its predecessor — most notably better action scenes and a great chemistry between Affleck and Jon Bernthal — which is enough to make it a solid watch. But once again a lackluster plot and inconsequential supporting characters keep it from being among better action movies.

The whole thing starts off well enough, with Ray King (J.K. Simmons), the semi-retired former federal agent from the first movie, being murdered as he investigates the whereabouts of a missing family. This causes Financial Crimes Deputy Director Marybeth Medinah (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) to seek out Christian Wolff (Affleck), asking him to help solve the puzzle that King was working on. Chris then brings in his brother Braxton (Bernthal) for some extra help.

Once Bernthal arrives on the scene the relationship between Chris and Braxton dominates the entire movie. Thankfully, Affleck and Bernthal work really well together, providing some good laughs as they get into brotherly arguments. But the puzzle that serves as the movie’s primary plot takes a back seat and mostly resolves itself through convenience.

Chris and his allies, led by Justine (Allison Robertson), are on the autism spectrum. Both The Accountant 2 and its predecessor make the point that being such is not necessarily a hindrance for the characters, but rather it can allow them to see things differently than others and perform certain actions at high levels. However, more often than not here it comes across as a near super power. Chris almost appears to instantly recognize the things that Medinah is missing from the clues King left behind, while Justine and her team can solve any challenge that the plot calls for from their computer. It’s all too easy.

As a result of that, there is almost never a sense of danger in the movie. Chris and Braxton never reach a dead end in their investigation or face any kind of seemingly insurmountable odds. They just casually mow through the bad guys and riff off one another.

The movie tries to raise the stakes for some of the supporting cast, but none of the characters are developed enough or given enough material to be anything more than an after though. Addai-Robinson’s Medinah could honestly be lifted out of this movie and little would be lost in terms of the overall story. Same goes for the main antagonist, who Chris and Braxton never have any interaction with or even seem to care about. The lone exception is the mysterious assassin Anaïs, played by Daniella Pineda, but she is under utilized.

All that being said, if you’re looking for a straight-forward, no-need-to-think about it action movie, you’ll get what you pay for with The Accountant 2. Its action is entertaining enough, it has a good mix of humor courtesy of Affleck and Bernthal and everything comes to a satisfying conclusion. Does it do anything overly different or interesting? No. But as a piece of entertainment, it checks the necessary boxes.

The Accountant 2 is now playing in movie theaters everywhere.

Let’s just dive right into it — Sinners is the first truly great movie of 2025. A fantastic blend of horror, action and grade-A storytelling that make it the kind of movie you have to see on the big screen (I recommend it in IMAX if you can). That was the hope as this is the latest collaboration between Michael B. Jordan, who stars, and writer/director/producer Ryan Coogler, and the pair knocked it out of the park once again; they are quickly becoming an iconic big screen duo.

Sinners takes place in the Mississippi Delta in the early 1930s. Twin brothers Smoke and Stack (both played by Jordan), return after years away in World War One and working the crime scene in Chicago to open up their own juke joint.

They plan to throw a big opening night filled with blues, booze and dancing, with the help of old friends and their young cousin, talented and aspiring blues player Sammie (Miles Caton). However, their party soon draws the attention of some mysterious, dark figures, who threaten not only the good time, but everyone’s lives.

This is such a well-written and well-performed movie. Exhibit A, the movie probably goes a good 40 minutes or more just setting up the characters and world that it takes place in before we get to the party that serves as the main set piece. Yet you will still be fully hooked as Smoke and Stack go about gathering their old friends and family to help them with the party. Coogler masterfully and meticulously portrays the world of the story, revealing the character’s history, motivations and teasing little secrets that will pay off later. That is a testament to Coogler’s writing and filmmaking, but also to the performances.

No surprise Jordan is superb, effectively playing the dual role of the twins. But the supporting cast has a number of standout performances as well, including Li Jun Li, Delory Lindo, Wunmi Mosaku and Jack O’Connell, the latter of which gives a great villain performance. Hailee Steinfeld, Jayme Lawson, Omar Benson Miller and Caton round out a strong ensemble cast.

Coogler also has an interesting theme running throughout on the power and connected history of music. An opening narration details the idea that music connects generations past and future, which is impressively shown in an extended one-shot sequence. However, the movie’s story also plays with the idea that it can beckon evil spirits, which ultimately leads to the climactic final act. It’s a fun idea well executed by Coogler.

There were only a couple of things that I wasn’t over the moon with in this movie. I can see what Coogler was trying to do with some sound design choices, but to me they actually were confusing and more of a distraction. Also, there are some heavy Southern accents, which at times can make things a bit hard to understand. But those are pittances in the grand scheme of it all, as Sinners is entertaining as hell.

Stepping back from the movie itself, special praise needs to go to Coogler and Jordan. In Hollywood history there are some actor-director pairings that just about always produced a good movie — Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart, Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, Spike Lee and Denzel Washington. We may very well be at the point that Coogler and Jordan belong among those legends.

The pair have worked together on Fruitvale Station, Creed and Black Panther (Jordan also had a cameo in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever). Sinners is another incredible entry to their creative collaboration. Take note Hollywood, if these two want to make a movie together, let them.

Movie fans, I plead with you, go see Sinners. This is the type of big, bold original filmmaking that we deserve, so let’s reward it with a strong box office showing. I promise you, you’ll be glad you took the opportunity to see it on the big screen.

Sinners is now playing exclusively in movie theaters worldwide.

Anyone who goes to spy films seeking vicarious thrills has to admit that it is something of a stretch to imagine ourselves as a dashing James Bond or daredevil Jason Bourne. But Rami Malek's Charlie Heller in The Amateur is possibly a more easily identifiable stand-in for us, the armchair heroes in the audience, even if he does have an IQ of over 170.

Charlie is an introverted, glasses-wearing desk jockey in the Decryption and Analysis section at the CIA’s Langley headquarters. "Just a nerdy feller who works on computers," is how one of the film’s other characters dismisses him. He is so much of a cautious stick-in-the-mud that he won’t even accompany his wife, Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan), when she takes a business trip to London.

But everything changes for him when Sarah is tragically killed in a terrorist attack in the city and the CIA reveals itself reluctant to pursue the perpetrators, forcing Charlie to blackmail his superiors into giving him the mission training to enable him to track down and kill them himself. He wants to look his wife’s murderers in the eyes and "balance the scales".

Ah, surely just a spot of instruction from Laurence Fisburne’s seasoned CIA veteran, Henderson, will be what it takes to turn Charlie (and by extension us) into a kick-ass field agent? Er, no. A session in the shooting range quickly shows that the puny Charlie can’t shoot to save his life. He would be hard pressed to hit a barn door from ten yards.

"I can’t make you into something you’re not," Henderson tells him. "You're not a killer." Henderson’s boss is even more dismissive of Charlie: "I don’t think you could beat a 90-year-old nun in an arm wrestling match."

But Charlie does have that genius IQ to fall back on. So, using his tech wizardry, he gives his CIA handlers the slip and sets off for Europe to hunt down the four people responsible for his wife’s death. Unfortunately, he doesn’t just have this lethal quartet to deal with. The CIA’s supremely dodgy Deputy Director (Holt McCallany) wants to keep a lid on the covert black ops he’s been running out of the agency and, unbeknownst to his new straight-arrow chief (Julianne Nicholson), issues the order to have Charlie killed.

For fans of the spy thriller genre, The Amateur boasts promising ingredients. Malek’s star-making role as the computer-hacker protagonist of Mr Robot makes him a good fit for the film’s hero, while director James Hawes demonstrated his espionage chops by helming the brilliant first series of Slow Horses. Fishburne is no lightweight, either, when it comes to purveying ambivalent menace. Yet the finished film still counts as a disappointment.

The Amateur is a remake of a 1981 Canadian film, which was based on a novel by American spy writer Robert Littell and starred John Heard, Christopher Plummer and Marthe Keller. (Incidentally, Keller also appears in the present film, although I have to admit that I only spotted her name in the end credits and didn’t notice her in the film itself.)

Back in 1981 the Cold War was still in progress, yet with its revenge-seeking hero the plot of the original The Amateur appeared to owe less to the espionage genre than to the cycle of vigilante thrillers started by 1974’s repellent Death Wish, which featured Charles Bronson as a similarly mild-mannered husband driven to violence by his wife’s murder. Times have changed - although today’s geopolitics are admittedly every bit as scary as they were in the 1970s and early 1980s — and Charlie’s mission of cold-blooded vengeance can’t help but make us uneasy now.

As viewers, we might have been able to overcome our qualms if we felt the full weight of Charlie’s loss, but he and his wife have barely exchanged a couple of “love yous” before she leaves for London and gets killed. Had Charlie and Sarah’s relationship had been more fleshed out at the start, we may have been more invested in him and his mission.

As for Charlie’s mission itself, it is arguably no more far-fetched than most other spy films. And, as the finer examples of the genre have shown, when the characters are engaging and the story is gripping we can forgive the most implausible of plots. It’s when these features are missing that we tend to dwell on improbabilities.

Here Charlie gets into peril often enough and, when the action arrives, it proves reasonably exciting, but Hawes fails to sustain the tension in between and Malek’s hero remains something of a cold fish throughout. The result is that we can’t help questioning how Charlie manages to move so easily from one country to another as he passes between Paris, Madrid, Istanbul and a port on Russia’s Baltic coast, how he manages to get so close to his targets, and how he manages to evade his CIA pursuers.

The lack of tension also meant that I couldn’t prevent my attention from straying to thoughts of other movies. Charlie’s situation reminded me of the plight of Robert Redford’s desk-bound CIA analyst in director Sydney Pollack’s 1975 film Three Days of the Condor, a classic example of the paranoid political thrillers of the Watergate era.

Another hero with no prior experience in the field and few others to trust, Redford’s protagonist uses his book-smart wits to evade both assassins for hire and rogue elements within the CIA. Like Charlie, he too has lost a loved one to a gunman’s bullet, but his subsequent actions are never driven by revenge. His first motive is to stay alive; his second is to expose his agency's murderous wrongdoing.

While watching The Amateur, my thoughts also wandered to a more recent film, 2020’s similarly globetrotting action thriller The Rhythm Section, which cast Blake Lively as a woman seeking payback for the deaths of her whole family in a terrorist airplane bombing. Again like Charlie, Lively’s heroine gets training from an expert spy — in her case Jude Law’s rogue ex-MI6 agent — and doesn’t immediately turn into an ultra-cool hit woman. She’s fumbling and petrified when she goes into action. For sure, the plot of The Rhythm Section doesn’t stack up, but director Reed Morano gave the action scenes that real sense of sweat, adrenaline and blurry panic I found missing from the exploits of Malek’s Charlie.

If The Amateur had made me feel the clammy fear conveyed by these other films, I would have liked it a whole lot more.

The Amateur is set to premiere exclusively in movie theaters worldwide on Friday, April 11, 2025. See what else is coming out with our full 2025 new movie release schedule.

After rock-bottom expectations following a string of disastrously received trailers, I'm pleasantly surprised to say that A Minecraft Movie is a lot more enjoyable than expected. It's not a great movie by any means, but it offers 100 minutes of entertainment for kids and some surprisingly amusing sequences for adults too.

This new family movie, inspired by the famous story-sparse adventure game Minecraft, always had an uphill battle: the game may be played by kids, but its biggest fan-base is adults (bearing in mind that it's been around for 14 years now). A Minecraft Movie doesn't care about these older fans, though; this is a family film through and through.

The story is about a cast of characters living in an Idaho company town who find their way to the fantastical "Overworld" (read: the Minecraft world), and need to embark on an adventure to get home while protecting an artifact from an evil sorceress. A pretty standard premise, but there's nothing wrong with that.

Cue a surprisingly quick-feeling jaunt which alternates between action setpieces and incessant expositional speeches which explain in unnecessary detail the entirety of how Minecraft works. It's an incredibly light plot by any standards, serving as a whistle-stop tour of Minecraft fans' favorite characters, locations and enemies, with only the occasional lip service paid to any kind of narrative message or character conflict.

The movie was a lot stronger at the beginning, when we're meeting the characters in a series of fun and fast-paced scenes in the real world, and I found myself disappointed when the introduction to the Overworld marked a drop in the energy of the film.

The story may sound anemic, but the younger audiences in my screening were constantly excited by the various references to the game, which A Minecraft Movie offers; young fans of the game will enjoy themselves. There was also a surprising amount of peril for a kids' film, with plenty of swords, arrows and explosions flying in the direction of the characters through progressive scenes. It's got a little more edge than most other kids' films, if only by a hair.

What might frighten kids, and could give the adults nightmares, is the cheap-looking CGI, obvious green-screen work and horrifying visual style of the Overworld. It's hard to feel a real sense of wonder for a world that looks like marzipan and seems to lack any humanity (or human actors).

If your kid doesn't like Minecraft, this film won't work as well, as you do require some knowledge of the game for the world to make any sense. I used to play pretty religiously in the early 2010s and some elements baffled even me.

It's also going to wash over older fans of the game, not just for its style or story, but by its reliance on 'new Minecraft' references over "classic Minecraft" ones (the video game has changed a lot in its 15-year history). If references to vindicators, vexes and evokers has you shrugging your shoulders, you'll be lost through parts of the story.

It feels like much of A Minecraft Movie is on the cutting-room floor, particularly with the sporadically addressed theme of youthful creativity versus adult cynicism, and two siblings' backstory which is only rarely addressed.

The issues are most felt when there are immediate contradictions between scenes — characters will resolve an argument at the end of one scene and then be at loggerheads by the start of the next, and one character remarked that they wished they'd heard another sing before... about 40 minutes after they had. I found myself scratching my head a few times, before reminding myself that this is a kids' film, where logic is second-place to creeper chain reactions.

Holding the movie together are Jack Black and Jason Momoa as two of the transplants, who constantly compete to out-silly each other in a way that only occasionally verges on annoying — their buddy-cop-style friendship is gently daft in an endearing way. The real standout for the adults in the audience though will be Jennifer Coolidge, who appears in a few scenes as a school teacher. She could reliably bring out a chuckle in the audience in my cinema with some surprising double entendres and one great pun, and it's a big shame she wasn't used more in the movie.

Rounding out the cast are Sebastian Hansen, who gives a passable performance in the closest thing to a lead role we get, and Emma Myers and Danielle Brooks as the two other humans dragged into the overworld — these two are given absolutely nothing to do for the whole plot. I'd put money on the inclusion of these characters being a studio-exec marketing decision, rather than a narrative one.

It's hard not to be muted, it's because it's no masterpiece, but it's a lot better than early trailers made it out to be, and at the end of the day it is a kids' film! Its target audience of young Minecraft fans will enjoy it and the adults accompanying them will have a few bones thrown their way too. It's no The Lego Movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it's not as painful to watch as The Super Mario Bros. Movie, despite attempts to imitate that movie (Black is given two short musical numbers that are evidently trying to recreate the viral success of Mario's "Peaches").

Watch A Minecraft Movie exclusively in movie theaters; it was released on Friday, April 4.

The 2024-2025 television season has been chock full of medical procedurals and some are better than the others. As The Pitt receives high praise as Max’s first foray into the medical drama space, all eyes have turned to Pulse, Netflix’s own original series. After watching the new medical drama, I can safely say Pulse is more Grey’s Anatomy than The Pitt, but it charts its own course in a crowded field of competition and the heavy drama is sure to raise viewers’ heart rates.

Pulse is the story of Dr. Danielle “Danny” Simms (Willa Fitzgerald), an ER doctor at Maguire. Not only is a hurricane bearing down on the area, forcing the staff to shelter in place with the patients as it sustains a direct hit, but mere hours beforehand the ER staff is rocked by news that their Chief Resident, Dr. Xander Phillips (Colin Woodell) is facing sexual harassment allegations. Not only is Danny named as Xander’s replacement, she’s also the one who filed the claim against him.

With tension at an all-time high, the hospital staff is forced to contend with a busload of soccer players who went over a bridge, injuries from the storm, pregnant women and just about everything else you can imagine. They’re low on power and facing a race against time to help as many people as possible as the conditions worsen.

Pulse’s strength lies in its character development and the relationships between the characters, which it establishes early on in the pilot by allowing the characters to essentially introduce themselves throughout the story. Viewers are not left wondering who these people are for long; the stories connecting them, and the pivotal plot points weaving the past and present together are slowly revealed throughout the season and they make for a richer viewing experience.

My biggest critique is that we find out the claims have been filed against Dr. Phillips early in the pilot episode, but it takes a while to establish what happened. Since we don’t know what happened, it’s hard to tell who to root for. The series cleverly uses the supporting cast to ask the questions as they talk amongst themselves because in their view, the charges don’t make sense; Dr. Phillips is hugely popular and no one wants to believe he did anything wrong. But Danny is very likeable, too, which only makes it harder to understand.

I really appreciated that the characters blended Spanish and English at times, lending credibility to Maguire's location in Miami-Dade County. I liked that not all of the staff members are best friends and that little microaggressions that are a natural part of a high-pressure work environment — like one member of the team dressing better than the rest — are mentioned in a very organic and realistic way.

As medical procedurals go, Pulse is highly watchable and will be an easy choice for Grey’s Anatomy fans looking for something new. In fact, having watched Grey’s for years and after seeing The Pitt, there’s no question that Netflix was aiming for a medical show that could be accessible for younger fans — if they’re watching Grey’s, they can watch Pulse with no problem — while keeping the older demographics happy, too. Netflix’s new medical show delivers plenty of heart-pounding drama to get pulses racing.

Pulse is available to stream now on Netflix.

Across the country, fans are flocking to ballparks to celebrate that springtime rite of passage known as Opening Day of Major League Baseball. However, there's nothing quite like the postseason. Fight for Glory: 2024 World Series takes fans behinds the scenes for the matchup that featured Shohei Ohtani and the Los Angeles Dodgers facing off against Aaron Judge and the New York Yankees.

The three-part documentary, premiering Friday, March 28 on Apple TV Plus, revolves around the World Series while taking time to highlight the unique paths the Dodgers and Yankees took to get there, including stories from the players and their families. Freddie Freeman and his family describe how his late season health struggles, coupled with his son's health scare, shaped the season.

Documentaries about the World Series and other major sporting events are nothing new, but what makes Fight for Glory so special is the unprecedented access that Emmy-winning director RJ Cutler and his crew had to the teams throughout the season and leading up to the main event.

The series follows along as the Dodgers and Yankees experience the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, culminating in the Dodgers' Game 5 victory against the Bronx Bombers. While the Dodgers came out to an early 3-0 lead, there were plenty of stories to tell as the Yankees rallied in Game 4 to pull off a win and live to play another day.

As a lifelong baseball fan, I've come to appreciate Apple TV Plus' MLB coverage. The first time I watched a San Diego Padres game on Friday Night Baseball, I was struck at how beautiful the game looked on the streamer. Thanks to the full measure of Apple TV Plus' vast arsenal of technology, baseball comes to life in a whole new way. It's no longer just a sporting event, it's cinematic. Seeing the World Series come to life in such a cinematic way is a real treat.

Fight for Glory has some heavy hitters behind it. In addition to Cutler, executive producers include Ron Howard, Brian Glazer and Derek Jeter. You can feel their love of the game in how they put the story together, weaving the two teams' journeys through the regular season and into the postseason. The story jumps from past to present and back again and is sprinkled with interviews and commentary from the players and their families, coaches, front office staffers and even fans.

I watched screeners of all three episodes and even though I watched the World Series live on television, Fight for Glory: 2024 World Series gave me a new appreciation not only for the event itself, but for the stories happening behind the scenes that fans have never been able to see until now. This was a labor of love by baseball fans, for baseball fans.

My sincere hope is that Major League Baseball and Apple TV Plus adopt Fight for Glory as an annual production. It's the new gold standard for baseball documentaries and it's a must-watch for baseball fans young and old.

I knew as soon as the characters in Mid-Century Modern broke out in a rendition of Salt-N-Pepa's "Whatta Man" while dancing around a charcuterie board-bedecked coffee table that this was a very special new show. And it keeps getting better and better from there. What to Watch screened the entire season of Hulu's new comedy series featuring Nathan Lane, Matt Bomer and Nathan Lee Graham and it's at the top of our must-watch list.

Lane, Bomer and Graham play Bunny, Jerry and Arthur, respectively. They're three longtime friends who are brought together after the sudden death of a dear friend. These "gay gentlemen of a certain age," per the logline, are inspired to start living at Bunny's Palm Springs house so that they can enjoy life together. Together, that is, with Bunny's mother, Sybil, played with panache by the late great Linda Lavin. "I can be unhappy anywhere," Arthur proclaims early on. "It might as well be in a heated pool."

Palm Springs, a town about two hours east of Los Angeles, is the perfect setting for Ryan Murphy's new comedy series from Will & Grace creators Max Mutchnick and David Kohan. It has always been known as a playground for the rich of famous (Sinatra and Elvis had homes there). It is also known as a gay mecca (Liberace was a longtime resident) that embraces the gay community. "Darling, it's Palm Springs," Lane's Bunny drawls, "This place is so gay even the trees are named Joshua."

The show doesn't hold back with the jokes and innuendo; I had to rewind several times because I was laughing so hard that I had to make sure I didn't miss anything. The jokes keep coming and nothing is off limits.

As soon as the pilot episode ended, I found myself thinking about Lane's brilliant performance. Lane's was a standout in 1996's The Birdcage, a movie about a gay couple that toed many lines with mid-90s viewers. Now, almost 30 years later, he's able to fully embrace Bunny's sexuality without holding back. Meanwhile Bomer and Graham are right there keeping pace.

Bunny has been living with his mother in Palm Springs for years to help her run the family business. Though he complains about it, there's no question he loves her a lot and he leans on her for support. Sybil loves her son, too, but as a traditional Jewish mother she has a lot of opinions about how he spends his time and wishes he'd settle down with a nice man.

Jerry, a flight attendant, is the youngest of the group of friends and while he has no trouble meeting guys, he's dealing with the challenge of being estranged from his daughter. Arthur recently lost his job in New York, so moving in with Bunny makes a lot of sense. Of the three, Jerry is clearly Sybil's favorite. Bomer is warm and affable, a perfect counter to Graham's aloof and charismatic Arthur. With Lane, the three actors have a synergy that's hard to match.

It's impossible to watch Mid-Century Modern without feeling bittersweet about Linda Lavin's incredible performance. Lavin, known for her portrayal of the titular character in the long-running comedy Alice, passed away in December 2024. No stranger to sitcoms and whip-smart comedic timing, Lavin's final performance is memorable and a perfect way to cap off a storied career.

In the series media kit, Mutchnick and Kohan sent along a statement about how Mid-Century Modern was "the most challenging production any of us have ever experienced." Navigating the fires in Los Angeles in early January 2025 on the heels of losing Lavin, "this was the most challenging production any of us have ever experienced." They went on to say, however, that the experience "galvanized" the cast and crew, and you can feel it.

There's no mistaking the love and dedication that went into bringing Mid-Century Modern to life. The writing is fantastic, the characters are dimensional and interesting and the actors bring them to life with so much enthusiasm that it's easy to root for them from the very start. These are some of the myriad reasons Mid-Century Modern is hands-down the best new comedy of the year.

Mid-Century Modern premieres Friday, March 28, on Hulu in the US and Disney Plus in the UK.

A popular saying is work smarter, not harder. I’m not sure A Working Man, Jason Statham’s new action movie, is doing much of either. A straight-forward, not-complicated action movie can often at least be entertaining, which definitely feels like what they were going for here. Some people may find bits of the movie just that, but for others (myself included) it’s hard to look past the lackadaisical vibe A Working Man gives off.

While I had no delusions of A Working Man competing for Oscars, perhaps my expectations were a little too high. I had seen and wasn’t a fan of director David Ayer and Statham’s 2024 movie The Beekeeper, but I thought the two, with the infusion of Sylvester Stallone as a writer and producer, could help elevate things. To my surprise, between A Working Man and The Beekeeper, I prefer The Beekeeper.

Based on the book Levon’s Trade by Chuck Dixon, A Working Man follows ex-Special Forces Levon Cade as he attempts to make a new life for himself working construction. But when his boss’ daughter Jenny (Arianna Rivas) is kidnapped, he will stop at nothing to rescue her and bring her back to the family that has been so generous to him. Even as that means barrelling through drug deals, human traffickers and the Russian mob.

There’s nothing else you really need to know about the plot, as it is so thin it feels like it could snap from scene to scene. While it technically all makes sense, you can tell that there are storylines that perhaps had larger parts in the book or that they would hope to expand on in future movies but are barely touched on or are referenced and quickly dropped and given no proper backstory or resolution. Even so, the storylines they do focus on feel underdeveloped or defy logic.

A lot of that can be overlooked if the action sequences are entertaining enough. Unfortunately A Working Man comes up short there as well. There are a couple of fights that will get action fans riled up, but most are pretty bland. Then there are long stretches with minimal action, with Statham’s Levon doing some investigative work. But that’s not what people are paying to see and the actual mystery isn’t interesting enough to make up for the lack of action.

Then there is Statham. One of the bigger action stars of the 21st century, A Working Man feels like he is just in cruise control, playing a stoic, blunt force simply meant to dole out punches. Even when they try to give him some deeper personal bonds — like the subplot involving his daughter — it feels like neither the script nor Statham knows how to make it feel natural or convincing.

What makes this really frustrating is that I’ve seen Statham be charming and entertaining numerous times. Go watch him in his early Guy Ritchie movies (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch) or movies like The Italian Job, The Bank Job, Spy and the Fast & Furious franchise; he often plays similarly tough men of fewer words, and yet he exudes a charisma that has been missing of late. Statham can be a fun action lead because we’ve seen it before, but these recent collabs with Ayer are not good examples of that.

Unfortunately, the only way I see A Working Man becoming a movie people revisit is if it enters the so-bad-it’s-good category. Others may see that right away, but right now I would classify it as in the bad-because-it’s-bad category.

A Working Man opens exclusively in movie theaters worldwide on March 28. See what else is coming out with our full 2025 new movie release schedule.

Hollywood loves to make TV shows and movies about itself, but Apple TV Plus' new 30-minute comedy series The Studio may go down as one of the best modern Hollywood-themed series of all time. More than that, though, it's undoubtedly the best Apple TV Plus show I've seen, and easily one of my favorite from the last few years.

The Studio stars Seth Rogen as Matt Remick, a lover of prestige movies who’s promoted to head exec of the fictional Continental Pictures. He straddles the line between trying to continue releasing money-grabbing yet artistically null blockbusters, and pursuing passion projects with artistic merit, while also keeping his staff, producers and stars happy.

• Here's how to watch The Studio
• Apple TV Plus free trials
• All the cameos in The Studio

Joining Rogen are Ike Barinholtz, Chase Sui Wonders and Kathryn Hahn as his creative executives and Catherine O’Hara as his mentor and a producer for Continental. Plus, each episode features a constantly-surprising revolving door of a-lister cameos.

Some knowledge of Hollywood is required when watching The Studio, if you want to understand every reference to "getting MGM'd" and how the movie business works. But for every dig and critique the show makes at the movie business, it finds two ways to remind us of the shared love we have of film (well, which I presume you have if you're interested in a series about the film industry!). It does a much better job of it than a similar show from 2024, The Franchise, which exhibits a total exhaustion to movies.

The real joy of the The Studio is that its comedy is both universal and incredibly witty in that "classical'" comedy way: we've got set-ups, pay-offs, reincorporation, the kind of thing you don't see much in modern comedies which define "humor" as "snippy one-liners that can be pulled for social media". Details set up early on in episodes are developed and returned in smart ways, and I was constantly being caught off-guard by where episodes would go and how topics would be resolved.

I can't recommend the show enough for fans of The Thick of It and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia due to The Studio's incredibly fast pace and barrage of jokes. The repeated use of long takes and constant drumming soundtrack adds to this, and I sometimes felt like I was watching a scene from Babylon, especially with how "cinematic" the series looks.

It's evident that The Studio is a passion project for Seth Rogen (who created the show alongside frequent collaborator Evan Goldberg as well as Peter Huyck, Alex Gregory and Frida Perez, and also directed each episode with Goldberg), letting him reflect on his decades-long career, underlying passion for cinema and the changing whims of the industry. It's fitting, then, that he's the mightiest player in the already-strong cast, maintaining his well-known comedic persona but with several new layers of depth: Remick's conflicts touch on mental health, the search for a glorified past and the importance of self-determination. The fact that Rogen can portray this nuanced character in a buffoon who creates his own troubles, is a testament to his performance.

The rest of the cast is also wonderful, especially Ike Barinholtz as your archetypal sleazy exec Sal and Chase Sui Wonders as Remick's young protégé Quinn, and the series manages to build interesting characters from both, although Kathryn Hahn's exuberant marketing exec Maya doesn't get as much screen time as she could.

The episode order may sometimes confuse — the second episode is a bottle episode that omits most of the cast before we've even come to meet them properly, and linking plot threads between episodes are dropped after the first one and only picked back up towards the end — but the main thing that made me sad about The Studio is that there wasn't more of it!

Given its quality, though, I'd be staggered if there didn't end up being The Studio season 2. The 10 episodes of the show are a whistle-stop tour of one season of Continental's existence but there's a lot more to learn about our characters, and a lot more of Hollywood to skewer. And if Apple does invest in this series, it could quickly become a new all-time classic comedy.

The Studio streams on Apple TV Plus. More info about Apple TV Plus free trials here.

Robert De Niro adds another gangster movie to his resume with The Alto Knights, but perhaps he would have been better served to let this one sleep with the fishes. Though the movie, based on the true story of notorious mobsters Frank Costello and Vito Genovese, has quite the crew, including De Niro giving two performances, an Oscar-winning director (Barry Levinson) and the writer of Goodfellas (Nicholas Pileggi), this is a sorry, boring effort that is best forgotten.

The movie chronicles the relationship between Costello and Genovese (both played by De Niro), two of New York’s most notorious crime bosses. While much of the movie is set in the late 50s, it tries to fill audiences in with nearly 50 years of personal and mob history. Despite that, it feels like very little happens in the movie, or at least very little that is actually interesting.

One of the more “exciting” scenes in the entire movie is Costello giving testimony to Congress as they attempt to crack down on organized crime, but it’s not like that will get your adrenaline pumping. Then the movie’s dramatic climax is about as far away from a shootout as you can get.

Of course, you don’t always need violence to satisfy audiences, even in a gangster movie. But the ground work that was needed to pull off these more low-stake moments to be the pinnacle of the movie was not properly laid out or executed well enough.

While a lot of that does fall on a script that just doesn’t have the juice, it also falls on Levinson as the director. Levinson has shown to be able to make effective movies without violence or action (he won an Oscar for the Best Picture winner Rain Man), which is why it is so disappointing that nearly every choice he makes here feels wrong. The movie uses a mish-mash of techniques that don’t feel natural, including Costello narrating in voice over and telling the story directly to the camera, fade outs, flashbacks and more. It feels like they threw the kitchen sink at this movie to try and give it a boost, but nothing works.

The lone saving grace for The Alto Knights is De Niro, who is able to give two solid performances as the opposing mob bosses. It’s intriguing to see De Niro play both the wild, loose cannon and the more subdued, calculating persona in the same movie, and he’s effective in both roles. Oddly, perhaps the weakest part of his work is when De Niro acts opposite himself. Together it’s harder to distinguish the two performances (no favors were done with how these scenes were scripted). It seems clear that even one of the greatest actors of all time is better served when he has an actual co-star he can act opposite of instead of movie trickery.

While some notable names (Debra Messing, Cosmo Jarvis) and recognizable faces (especially to those familiar with the gangster genre) populate the rest of the cast, no one else is able to stand out (a lone exception might be Michael Rispoli, who has one strong scene).

There’s one sequence in the movie where a scene with Genovese is intercut with clips from White Heat (which Costello is watching a preview for on the TV). I would recommend you simply go watch White Heat, a classic gangster movie, instead of The Alto Knights.

But if you choose to watch The Alto Knights, it is playing exclusively in movie theaters right now.

Netflix has another hit on its hands with its latest Shondaland offering, The Residence. Whip-smart writing and an all-star cast combine for a binge worthy new comedy murder mystery that sets a very high bar for the competition. What to Watch screened the series ahead of its release and this is one show that we’ll be watching over and over again.

Uzo Aduba stars as Cordelia Cupp, an eccentric but legendary detective with the Metro Police Department with a particular fondness for bird watching. She’s called upon to investigate the death of White House Chief Usher A. B. Wynter (Giancarlo Esposito, who took over the role for the late Andre Braugher) who was found dead under mysterious circumstances during a state dinner with the Australian prime minister.

There are just over 150 people in the White House between the guests and staff, including Kylie Minogue, and it’s up to Detective Cupp to sort through their stories to figure out what happened to Mr. Wynter. There’s finger pointing, there are misremembered moments (three different people recall the same event but have three different recollections of how many people ran outside — three, two or 15 — and whether Mr. Wynter was with them), there is scandal and there are truths meant to be hidden that suddenly come to light.

Through it all, Cupp’s eagle eye is taking in every detail and exposing the lies in her quest for the truth. It becomes very clear that the death of the Chief Usher is but the tip of the iceberg as the investigation yields more questions than answers. The series shifts between the past and the present, and gaps in the narrative are filled seamlessly in courtesy of a congressional hearing trying to get to the bottom of the whole affair.

Aduba commands attention in every scene. As Cupp, she is cool, calm and in control in an impossibly chaotic situation. The Residence cast is an impressive who’s who of talent, and despite the massive size of the ensemble everything comes together remarkably well. Randall Park’s FBI SpecialAgent Edwin Park is the perfect comedic foil to Aduba’s deadpan Cordelia Cupp, who prefers to work alone; the reluctant duo make their way through the White House and listen to countless interviews that only deepen the mystery.

One of the things that really stands out about The Residence is the focus on the support staff who keep the White House running. Mr. Winter’s death reveals that he was at the top of a very well-oiled machine that includes cooks, groundskeepers, plumbers, electricians, painters and even the official calligrapher. Without their hard work, the whole place would fall apart and

Like Bridgerton, the sets in The Residence — especially those of the White House, where the majority of the story takes place — are so detailed that you’d think they filmed on location at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. We also have to praise the camera work throughout the series; with 132 rooms to explore, there are stunning sequences where the camera moves seamlessly from room to room to provide the viewer with a bird’s eye view of just how big the White House, and the crime scene, is.

The Residence is a delightful mix of comedy, drama and intrigue and it never takes itself too seriously. It’s in the same vein as Knives Out (which happens to get an acknowledgement as the title of episode 3), but the sprawling crime scene and laundry list of characters and their motives is reminiscent of the seminal classic Clue.

If you like murder mysteries, smart comedies and huge casts of very talented people, then The Residence will be your next obsession.

All eight episodes of The Residence are available to stream on Netflix.

Walking into Good American Family, I was a mixed bag of emotions. On one hand, I was excited to see Ellen Pompeo in her first major role outside of Grey’s Anatomy. As someone who is very familiar with the legendary character Meredith Grey, I wanted to see Pompeo spread her wings a bit in a project after she left the Shonda Rhimes hit as a series regular.

But even with Pompeo’s star power, I found myself hesitant to dive into Good American Family because of the subject matter. The show is inspired by the true story of Natalia Grace and the Barnett family, a narrative I’m very familiar with thanks to ID’s popular documentary, The Curious Case of Natalia Grace. The docuseries is three seasons and thoroughly covers how Natalia came to be adopted by Michael and Kristine Barnett, how their relationship soured and what happened in the aftermath. So my concern was that I’d be constantly comparing the scripted show with the documentary. Plainly put, I feared it would be like reading a book before you watch the movie, and as many people know, that has the potential to be a recipe for disaster.

With all that being said, after watching Good American, I’m still left with a mixed bag of emotions.

Let’s start with Pompeo trying to get out of the big shadow cast by her own brilliant performance as Meredith and selling to viewers that she’s Kristine Barnett. Sometimes when an actor plays such a legendary character for so long, it’s hard to see them as anyone else. In the first two episodes of Good American, I kept watching as if this was the second act for Meredith in Indiana with a new husband and new life. This was aided by the fact that Kristine does voiceovers, just like Meredith does in Grey’s Anatomy. Additionally, because Pompeo at times delivers dialogue in a similar tonality to her prior role, it’s hard to see the differentiation.

But once the series shifted more or less into a big showdown between Kristine and Natalia Grace (Imogen Faith Reid), Pompeo shed her layers as the good doc. I stopped looking at Pompeo as a surgeon pretending to be this stay-at-home mom turned entrepreneur, and more like the actual Kristine Barnett.

Speaking of Reid, I have to applaud her work. She effectively had me convinced that the scripted version of Natalia Grace was methodically layered and complex, and I wasn’t necessarily reminded of Isabelle Fuhrman’s Esther character from the movie Orphan. Both projects strike similar chords, but Reid effectively does enough with her character to stand apart.

As for Mark Duplass’ Michael Barnett, I largely found his performance solid. Similar to the perception I got from the real Michael in The Curious Case of Natalia Grace, this fictionalized character tends to be a bit melodramatic and quirky. There was never a point where I considered Duplass wasn’t the Barnett patriarch.

Pivoting back to the story, my fears from having watched the ID documentary did materialize. Even with the scripted drama only being inspired by the Natalia Grace story, I couldn’t help but overanalyze each scene. In some cases, I questioned why certain creative liberties were taken when the “real” sequence of events or characterization would have provided an equally as riveting viewing experience, if not more. In hindsight, it likely had to do with trying to create more distance between real life and fiction as the series again is only supposed to be inspired by true events.

Now to be clear, the story isn’t terrible. In fact, what benefits Good American Family is that it largely lets Kristine’s perspective be the driving force of the show. In the three seasons of the documentary, Kristine never shares her side of things or gives an interview. So for me, Good American Family satisfies a curiosity in some ways about what the real Kristine could have believed happened in this whole ordeal.

I’d say for those who have limited knowledge of the Natalia Grace story there’s a good chance you’ll find Good American Family a fairly good watch, as you won’t have anything to compare it to. It’s even more exciting if you’ve managed never to see Ellen Pompeo as Dr. Meredith Grey on Grey’s Anatomy. Plus, the pacing of the episodes leave little room for many dull moments. But if you’re like me and have seen both, you may settle on the new show as being just adequate.

Good American Family is now streaming on Hulu in the US and arrives in the UK on Disney Plus in May.

Steven Soderbergh remains one of the most prolific filmmakers in Hollywood, as Black Bag is already the director’s second 2025 new movie (following Presence) and his sixth movie since 2020. To be honest, I’ve found myself siding more with general audiences than other critics in the surprising divide on liking Soderbergh’s recent output. That has changed with the sharp, taut and suave spy thriller Black Bag.

Soderbergh once again directs a script by David Koepp (the two have collaborated on Presence and Kimi in the last three years) to tell a story about intelligence agent George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) as he is tasked with finding a traitor in his organization that has stolen a device that could cause nuclear devastation. He has five primary suspects, one of which includes his wife, master spy Kathryn (Cate Blanchett). Rege-Jean Page, Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris and Pierce Brosnan also star.

While the missing nuclear device serves as the macguffin for Black Bag, the movie is truly about the interpersonal relationships between the characters — their desires, the lies they tell each other and realizing just how far you would go for someone before turning against them.

To depict that, Black Bag does away with any kind of action or chase sequence (save for one instance, but it’s far from a Mission: Impossible type moment). Instead, the most intense scenes take place sitting around a dinner table with the characters just talking. It works because of the great combination of Soderbergh’s direction, cinematography and editing (he once again pulls triple duty) and Koepp’s sharp dialogue and intriguing characters. The only downside to this is that the stakes of the movie can feel small (despite the threat of thousands of innocent lives lost), but how these characters interact is plenty entertaining enough.

Of course helping bring Koepp’s characters to life are the actors, highlighted by Fassbender and Blanchett. Fassbender’s George — who feels like a nod to John Le Carre’s George Smiley — is cold and calculating, with the actor playing him almost as a robot; that’s all the more effective when there’s a moment he briefly loses control and we see the panic on his face. Blanchett, meanwhile, has the fun, sexy and mysterious role, which she absolutely nails. Together, Fassbender and Blanchett are phenomenal and create a dynamic on-screen power couple worth remembering.

The rest of the supporting cast are all solid, with Abela and Burke being my personal standouts, though Page, Harris and Brosnan all have their moments.

It is also worth mentioning that the movie has a runtime of just over an hour and a half, which feels like a rarity these days. The benefit is that there is no waste in this movie. Every scene is important for moving the plot along and revealing something about the characters.

A small bugaboo that I just couldn’t get out of my head came with the score — it kept making me think of Ocean’s Eleven. That perhaps shouldn’t be surprising, as the Ocean’s franchise composer David Holmes served in the same capacity for Black Bag. It doesn’t hurt the movie at all, for me it was just a weird thing that I couldn’t get out of my head whenever the score came in, taking me a bit out of things.

Even so, Black Bag is a gripping spy drama that will keep you guessing and feels sleek and cool like many of Soderbergh’s fan-favorite movies (the Ocean’s movies, Out of Sight). It is indeed one of my favorites of his in some time.

Black Bag releases exclusively in movie theaters on March 14.

Robert Pattinson goes forth and multiplies as clones in outer space in Bong Joon Ho's bizarre sci-fi satire Mickey 17. The South Korean director's first film since the brilliant, Oscar-winning Parasite is messy, scattershot and overlong, but Pattinson, making yet another of his daring, post-Twilight role choices, almost holds it all together.

He plays Mickey Barnes, a terminally ill-fated loser in a dystopian near future who signs up, along with his cannier, self-seeking friend Timo (Steven Yeun), for a dodgy space colonization expedition in a bid to escape a murderous loan shark down on Earth. Timo lands himself a cushy post as a pilot on the expedition's giant spaceship, which is bound for an icy planet called Niflheim. Unfortunately, Mickey neglects to read the small print of his contract and his job turns out to be that of an "Expendable", a disposable worker put into fatally perilous jobs. In the story's bizarre future, however, scientists have come up with a form of reincarnation in which the dead can be brought back to life as a clone, memories intact, courtesy of a giant bio-printer.

When the film opens, Mickey has already been through sixteen reprints (we later get a darkly comic sequence showing his previous demises), and when he falls into an icy crevasse on Niflheim it looks as though Mickey 17 will soon be going the same way. "Nice knowing you," says the callous Timo, who happens to be on hand. "Have a nice death. See you tomorrow." But Mickey somehow survives both his fall into the crevasse and his encounter with the planet’s Indigenous species, weird creatures that look like a cross between a furry insect and an armadillo and which come to be dubbed as "Creepers". When Mickey 17 makes his way back to the ship, he discovers that Mickey 18 has already been printed. But multiples are strictly outlawed, and if either Mickey is to survive, the other must perish…

Pattinson is terrific in these dual roles, making Mickey 17 a naive passive doofus with a bowl cut borrowed from the Three Stooges’ Moe, while Mickey 18 is sharper and much more aggressive and rebellious. Sadly, the film's other performances are for the most part less successful. Mark Ruffalo plays the space mission's leader, a failed politician named Kenneth Marshall, a strutting, narcissistic, Trump-like buffoon, with a gumshield smile, perma-tan and Benito Mussolini's jutting chin. Backed by a zealous church company, this would-be colonist has fascistic dreams of creating a "pure white planet". His sheep-like followers sport red, Maga-like caps. Of course, they do. The satire is blatantly on the nose, and even more urgent now than when the film was made, but it is never particularly funny.

Toni Collette goes similarly over the top as Marshall's appalling, sauce-obsessed wife, Ylfa, but Naomi Ackie proves much more down to earth and real as Mickey's girlfriend, resilient security agent Nasha, although her character is in places more plot-led than convincing. For a while, it seems that Nasha will have a love rival in the form of Anamaria Vartolomei's higher-status coworker Kai, but this particular story strand is, like many of the film's ideas, left dangling. Indeed, the longer the film goes on, the more Bong’s screenplay (based on the 2022 novel "Mickey 7" by Edward Ashton) seems to go off course.

As fans of the director's work will know, this isn't the first time he has delivered swingeing anti-capitalist satire on screen. Parasite (2019) was especially fierce in its critique of the gulf between society's haves and have-nots, but that film showed Bong handling his story's tonal shifts between satire, screwball farce, black comedy and horror much more deftly than he manages here. His previous English-language films, Snowpiercer (2013) and Okja (2017), also took ferocious swipes at greed and exploitation, and both boasted grotesquely caricatured baddies, with Tilda Swinton displaying buck-teeth and bottle-end glasses as a monstrous authoritarian in Snowpiercer, while Jake Gyllenhaal was exaggeratedly OTT as a squeaky-voiced TV celebrity vet in Okja. With an endlessly expendable worker as its protagonist, Mickey 17 could be a really pointed allegory about human exploitation, but the film Bong has ended up making is bluntly obvious and unfocused. Still, Pattinson is wonderfully funny and surprisingly touching. Despite playing multiple clones, he gives the film humanity and heart.

Mickey 17 premieres in movie theaters on Friday, March 7.

A true-story adventure to make you gasp, Last Breath recounts a tale of survival set in one of the most dangerous environments known to humankind, one that is every bit as inhospitable and perilous as those more obviously cinematic realms of outer space or the peaks of the Himalayas — 300 feet below the surface of the North Sea.

That's where deep-sea divers Chris Lemons, Duncan Allcock and Dave Yuasa ran into trouble in September 2012 while conducting what should have been a routine repair job on the sea bed off the coast of Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The ordeal that ensued has already been the subject of an acclaimed 2019 documentary (also titled Last Breath), co-directed by Richard da Costa and Alex Parkinson, and now Parkinson has turned the disaster into a gripping feature film starring Finn Cole, Woody Harrelson and Simu Liu.

The world the movie inhabits will be alien to most viewers, but Parkinson — who clearly knows the material inside out — sets forth its rules with speed and clarity. Lemons, Allcock and Yuasa are saturation divers, divers who avoid decompression by remaining inside a pressurized environment for up to 28 days at a time, breathing a mixture of oxygen and helium. When in the water, their lifeline is the set of umbilical cables that tether them to their diving bell and to the support ship above, and which carry breathing gases, power, communications and the hot water necessary to keep their suits warm in the near freezing sea.

On the day in question, diving veteran Allcock, played with seen-it-all, weathered wisdom by Harrelson, old hand Yuasa (Liu, displaying zen-like calm) and less experienced tyro Lemons (Peaky Blinders star Cole) are dropped into the sea by their support vessel, the Bibby Topaz, and descend inside their diving bell to a depth of around 300 feet to carry out a pipe repair on an oil rig manifold. With Allcock remaining inside the bell to monitor the work, Lemons and Yuasa dive down to the sea bed while the Dynamic Position System (DPS) on board the Bibby Topaz makes constant adjustments to hold the ship’s spot directly above them. The seas are heavy, the winds around 35 knots, but that shouldn't make a difference… until it does.

The Bibby Topaz suddenly loses its position and starts to drift. The DPS has malfunctioned. Alerted to the danger, Lemons and Yuasa attempt to make their way back to the diving bell, but Lemons’ umbilical gets snagged on the manifold. The full weight of the 8,000 tonne ship is now pulling against his lifeline and inevitably it snaps, leaving him with only around five minutes of air in his backup tank. As the crew on board the Bibby Topaz — including the ship’s captain (Cliff Curtis) and 1st officer (Myanna Buring) — strive to get the ship back into position, more than half an hour passes, leaving everyone involved convinced that their mission will turn out to be a body recovery rather than a rescue…

Parkinson stages all this with thrilling immediacy, cutting back and forth between the frantic activity on board the ship as it is tossed about by the surging swell and the actions of the divers beneath. If the story were fictional it would stretch credulity even further than Lemons' lifeline. Our knowledge that the events we are watching actually happened, tethers the film's desperate race-against-time narrative to the real world, but it doesn't make the unfolding drama any less suspenseful. Admittedly, the fact that the leading roles are played by a trio of stars slightly works against the film's realistic grain, but Cole, Liu and, even Harrelson (his character a bluff Yorkshireman in real life rather than a cool-headed American), give their characters a convincingly down-to-earth solidity. And when it comes to Cole’s imperiled Lemons, we feel even more keenly for his plight having seen his tender relationship with his fiancee Morag (Bobby Rainsbury) economically sketched in the film’s opening scenes. As for his colleagues, their stiff-upper-lipped camaraderie comes across vividly. All the same, be prepared to blub by the time the story reaches its incredible climax.

Last Breath is set to be released exclusively in movie theaters on Friday, February 28, 2025, in the US and March 14 in the UK.

The best gardens feature an eclectic mix of flowers; after all, if everything looks the same then nothing will stand out. That's one of the many things that make Grosse Pointe Garden Society work so well.

There are flower metaphors aplenty. AnnaSophia Robb's Alice, a high school teacher whose beloved dog is missing, takes viewers through the show's cast of characters in the pilot episode by comparing them with their floral counterparts. (She's a geranium, because geraniums can't thrive if you plant them where they don't belong.) Aja Naomi King delights as Catherine, a real estate agent who has more than business dealings with her partner. Ben Rappaport is a landscaper, but more importantly he's a father trying to stay relevant in his kids' lives as his ex-wife's new man tries to take his place. And then there's Birdie (Melissa Fumero), a socialite and quasi-celebrity with self-servingly good intentions who has a knack for trouble.

The story moves back and forth between present day and six months prior; the show utilizes clever ways to indicate when the story is taking place so you never feel overwhelmed by time jumps. At the center is the Grosse Pointe Garden Society with the iron-fisted Marilyn (Jennifer Irwin) in control; Marilyn allows club members to believe they have a say in the goings on, but she's really the one who calls the shots. as she guides the club toward winning prestigious awards each year.

As with any garden, there are plenty of busy bees who like to move from flower to flower, and that's how the Grosse Pointe gossip mill works. Everyone knows everything about everything...so when the four friends are seen burying a body, well, the clock is ticking before fingers start pointing in their direction.

Grosse Pointe Garden Society is easy to watch and enjoy. The story isn't overly complicated and all of the players are laid out so that you immediately fall in love with the protagonists and curse the villains. There's a great mystery at the heart of the story, but there's also lots of drama in each character's life and it leaves you wanting to know more. There's no missing the soapiness of the love triangles and tawdry affairs, but there's enough quick-witted dialogue and quirky comebacks to keep the show's darker moments from bringing the mood down too much.

Promising seeds have been planted with Grosse Pointe Garden Society and we're looking forward to see what grows.

Grosse Pointe Garden Society airs Sundays at 10 pm ET/PT on NBC, with new episodes streaming the following day on Peacock.

When CBS announced that they were launching Beyond the Gates in partnership with the NAACP, I couldn’t help but think the network was taking one heck of a big swing. In the current TV landscape, many networks are shying away from daily scripted content. Not only that, but in 2009 and 2010 CBS itself axed two of its longtime running soaps in Guiding Light and As the World Turns respectively, effectively leaving The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful to carry the daytime soap torch, along with General Hospital on ABC and Days of Our Lives on Peacock.

Once CBS made preparations for Beyond the Gates and started leaving breadcrumbs about what viewers could expect, I found myself slowly becoming intrigued. As someone who watched As the World Turns and is a massive fan of Law & Order: SVU, how could I not be thrilled to learn that Tamara Tunie was helping to anchor the show’s cast? Then when you add Hollywood legend Clifton Davis in the mix along with B&B vet Karla Mosley, you could have considered me excited.

Then there's the intriguing plot. A show centered on the Duprees, an affluent Black family with generations of wealth, power and prestige who apparently have their fair share of secrets and enemies. Soap lovers know you want a powerful family at the heart of any good daytime drama, as you need the people trying to be them and the folks trying to take them down to cause a good dose of chaos. And given the litany of trailer and promo videos for the new series, there is lots of chaos.

With all that anticipation built up, imagine how happy I was to see that Beyond the Gates lives up to all the hype. It may be early into this venture, but it’s a remarkable soap and for a number of reasons.

Starting with the casting, Tunie and Davis paired as the matriarch and patriarch of the Dupree family was a brilliant decision. The two veteran actors play off each other well, and for the show to be brand-new, I oddly want to hold their dynamic in high regard as if I’m referring to The Young and the Restless Victor Newman (Eric Braeden) and Nikki (Melody Thomas Scott)... however, I'll stop short of doing that just yet.

But the breakout star of Beyond the Gates is hands down Mosley as Dani Dupree. She brings so much energy to the character, and it’s highly entertaining watching Dani give into some of her worst impulses and doing things that a Dupree probably shouldn’t do. Her highs and lows are what make for an enjoyable soapy ride.

Moving beyond the casting, kudos to the writing. Michele Val Jean and her team have done a fantastic job with the pacing of the show so as a viewer, you don’t feel like you're constantly watching cyclical conversations about the same thing with no movement or resolve. So far, the 37-minute episodes don’t feel stale and don’t leave me desperately wanting the dialogue to be more meaningful or the scenes to move more quickly.

Speaking of scenes, it’s hard not to fall in love with the freshness of the new stages and the variation of their use. You don’t watch Beyond the Gates episodes and the characters are largely tied to a bigger-than-life mansion or a restaurant. They’re constantly moving and changing, which lends to the great pacing.

Now if I have to talk about the cons of the show, let’s zero in on the theme song and opening credits. As a package, it won’t wow you and it’s fairly forgettable. Perhaps it’s the legacy of The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful, but their opening theme songs and images tend to strike more significant notes. (The Young and the Restless theme song was even cultivated into Mary J. Blige’s “No More Drama.”)

So all in all, should you watch Beyond the Gates? Absolutely. New episodes air weekdays on CBS, and become available to stream the day after on Paramount Plus.

The legacy of Suits lives on in Suits LA, the stylish new spinoff with a distinctive West Coast vibe and a brand-new team of legal eagles making a splash in Los Angeles. What to Watch previewed the first three episodes of the new series and without question, the move to LA breathes new life into the franchise’s storied legacy.

Suits LA was greenlit while the original series enjoyed an unprecedented debut on Netflix in the summer of 2023, shattering viewership records and developing a whole new legion of fans. The spinoff charts its own course, while borrowing from the original series, resulting in an entertaining viewing experience

There are plenty of comparisons to draw between Suits LA and its predecessor. The designer clothes are there. The fancy high-rise offices full of glass and polished wood are there. Even the "Greenback Boogie" is there. But so too are palm trees, celebrity appearances, plentiful sunshine and men who wear designer sneakers with their business suits because that's how LA rolls. Most of the background elements are there but a major difference is that Black Lane Law's focus is on entertainment law and criminal law, giving the show a very refreshing new playground to explore.

Suits LA features Stephen Amell (Arrow) as Ted Black, a former federal prosecutor from New York (hence the Harvey Specter connection) who moved to Los Angeles 15 years ago to start a new life with a focus on entertainment law. Black quickly rises to become one of the top and most highly sought-after entertainment lawyers in Tinseltown. Together with his best friend, Stuart Lane (The Walking Dead alum Josh McDermitt), a brilliant criminal defense attorney, they form Black Lane Law. Rick Dodson (Bryan Greenberg) and Erica Rollins (Lex Scott Davis) are the shining stars at Black Lane. They both hope to be named head of entertainment at the firm and the ambitious attorneys have no problem stepping over each other to secure the role.

Amell’s Ted is cocky and brash. There are moments where you can close your eyes and swear Harvey Specter is talking. Unlike Harvey, though, there’s a darkness in Ted that lies just beyond the surface. McDermitt is fun to watch as Stuart; the defense attorney is self-assured and cool under pressure. Ted leans on his assistant, Roslyn (Azita Ghanizada) for support, and though Ghanizada is very different from Sarah Rafferty’s Donna, there’s no question that the legacy lives on.

Creator Aaron Korsh doesn’t pull any punches with the new series. The pilot episode not only drops viewers into a high-profile murder case but also some very heavy behind-the-scenes drama at the firm and in his personal life that leaves Ted reeling.

At the heart of Suits was the relationship between Gabriel Macht’s Harvey Specter and Patrick J. Adams’ Mike Ross. Mike was the Robin to Harvey’s Batman, a dynamic duo blazing a fiery trail through New York courtrooms. LA’s Ted Black is a loner (dare we say he’s more of the Green Arrow type?) but he has a great team to help him tackle challenges thrown at him. Since entertainment law is all about contracts and negotiations, most of the legal action takes place around a conference table or during dinners at expensive restaurants. This gives the ensemble plenty of time and space to shine as they battle for their clients.

One of the biggest and most notable differences between the series is the lack of swearing in Suits LA. Thanks to its home on network television, Suits LA is forced to keep things squeaky clean whereas Suits never shied away from colorful language — indeed, they were dropping f-bombs by season 7. The banter is still sharp, though, particularly between Rick and Erica, for whom bickering is a spectator sport.

Suits started off with a bang while Suits LA takes a slower approach. The pilot moves slower than the second and third episodes; once the foundation is set, the pace picks up. There’s a lot to take in right away in the pilot and the show does a good job helping to introduce the cast without making it too much of a distraction.

Suits LA has lots of room to grow. The show is entertaining with interesting characters and lots of potential, and there are lots of opportunities for cameos. Yes, Harvey Specter is scheduled to show up and there’s a good chance that other members of the Pearson Specter Litt team could show up, too. That said, Suits LA works just fine on its own and will no doubt have a bright future in the warm Los Angeles sunshine.

Suits LA premieres Sunday, February 23, at 9 pm ET/PT on NBC, with new episodes available to stream the following day on Peacock.

Moviegoers with a taste for slapstick splatter will lap up this gleefully gruesome horror comedy loosely adapted from a 1980 short story by Stephen King. With The Monkey, writer-director Osgood Perkins, the son of horror icon Anthony Perkins (best known, of course, for playing homicidal motel owner Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho), serves up 98 minutes of mayhem during which the drumming of the wind-up toy of the title presages a series of improbably gory deaths. But as one character after another meets a sticky end, Perkins is clearly seeking to raise grisly chuckles rather than out-and-out scares.

Left behind by their absent airline pilot father, the toy monkey comes into the possession of twin brothers Hal and Bill (played as boys by Christian Convery and as adults by Theo James). We already know the monkey is bad news. The film’s darkly comic opening scene has shown us the boys’ dad (Adam Scott) attempting to rid himself of this malignant object in a pawnshop, only for the shop's hapless clerk to fall victim to a gut-splitting freak accident. The next to go is the brothers’ babysitter (Danica Dreyer), after which they realise that each time the monkey’s drumsticks (cymbals in King’s story) start playing someone winds up dead in macabre circumstances.

The twins couldn’t be more different. Bill, the elder by a few minutes, is a loathsome bully; sensitive bespectacled Hal, our point of identification in the story, is his brother's perennial victim. Even so, following further deaths, including one that is even closer to home, the pair work together to throw the monkey down a deep well. Fast-forward 25 years to the present day and Hal has lost touch with his estranged brother. He is also about to lose contact with his teenage son, Petey (Colin O’Brien), who is shortly to be adopted by his ex-wife’s new husband, smug self-help author Ted (a cameoing Elijah Wood). Hal has kept his distance from his son in a bid to shield him from the curse of the monkey, but as he reluctantly takes Petey on a week-long road trip back to his childhood home in small-town Maine, he comes to realise that both the monkey and his brother are still menacingly at large.

Critics and readers of King’s original story have found all manner of meanings behind the monkey's malignity, from the sudden release of suppressed impulses to the return of repressed trauma. Perkins has personally experienced more than his share of trauma and tragedy in his own life: his famous father was a victim of AIDS and his mother, photographer Berry Berenson, died during the September 11 attacks as a passenger on American Airlines Flight II, one of the hijacked planes flown into the World Trade Center. In The Monkey Perkins toys with the idea of inherited family trauma, but doesn’t take it overly seriously. If his film has a message it is one that is much more on the nose, expressing a view of life that some will see as stoic resignation to fate, others as bleak nihilism. The twins' beloved mother, Lois (Tatiana Maslany), sums it up succinctly: "Everybody dies. Some of us peacefully and in our sleep, and some of us... horribly. And that's life."

Fear not. Perkins doesn't use up his film's brisk running time waxing philosophically. He's far more interested in staging gory decapitations, eviscerations and disembowelings. If you have an appetite for this kind of thing then you will find The Monkey tremendous fun. Perkins knows what he's doing and teases us with the build up to each death, slowly cocking the trigger, as it were, before setting off the series of events that will result in a character’s demise. The ludicrously intricate chain reactions involved will remind American viewers of the outlandish mechanical devices invented by artist Rube Goldberg, while British viewers may recall the harebrained contraptions devised by Goldberg’s slightly earlier English counterpart, cartoonist William Heath Robinson.

The protracted manner in which Perkins leads up to the story's deaths doesn't really count as suspense, nor does it deliver jump scares, and it certainly doesn’t create an atmosphere of creeping dread. If these are features you seek in a horror film, you will have to look elsewhere. Yet even if the cartoonish violence gets a bit samey, there’s no denying the inventiveness with which Perkins stages his film’s episodes. The acting fits the bill, too, with Convery and James splendidly doubling up as the younger and older versions of the twins, while the supporting cast seize their roles with relish. Perkins himself plays one of the victims, the brothers’ swinger uncle, who ends up resembling “cherry pie” after getting trampled by stampeding horses during a camping trip. The Monkey won’t join the likes of Carrie and The Shining in the pantheon of Stephen King horror adaptations, but its tongue-in-cheek absurdity is sure to find it an appreciative audience all the same.

If you're looking for the perfect romantic comedy that can make you smile, keep you entertained and provide an escape from reality on a journey into the Italian countryside, then La Dolce Villa is exactly what you need. And given that it lands on Netflix the day before Valentine's Day, it's also the perfect movie to watch when you're in the mood for love.

Romantic comedies are meant to be lighthearted and fun, and La Dolce Villa checks those boxes easily. You won't enjoy the movie nearly as much if you overthink the details, rather it's best enjoyed when you just go with the flow.

Scott Foley plays Eric, a restaurant consultant whose "Dad Bat Signal" goes off upon discovering — on social media, no less — that his free-spirited daughter intends to purchase an Italian villa for one euro. He arrives in the charming town of Montezara to talk his daughter, Olivia (Maia Reficco) out of this scheme (he emphasizes that this is a scheme on several occasions). Olivia already has plans to tour available villas with Francesca (Violante Placido), the mayor of Montezara. It's not until they tour the final villa, one that's not technically part of the one-euro plan, that Olivia finds the home of her dreams.

Eric isn't sold about the whole idea but he's willing to go along with his daughter's plans after she explains that she and her mother, who passed away from cancer five years prior, used to look at these one-euro villas and dream of owning one. Being in Italy, Olivia says, makes her feel like her mother is close.

During construction, Olivia discovers an old authentic pizza oven hidden behind a wall. Eric was a very talented chef before his wife died and it's not long before his passion for food is rekindled and his enthusiasm for Olivia's project, along with his easygoing relationship with Francesca, reignites something inside him he thought was lost forever.

La Dolce Villa has a phenomenal cast, without whom this movie wouldn't be so special. It's impossible not to feel Olivia's passion for making her dream become a reality, or laughing with Eric's attempts to manage the renovation even though he's not in charge at all. Placido's Francesca is eloquent and warm despite her struggles to keep things running smoothly in Montezara. It won't take long before you're actively imagining what your dream one-euro Italian villa would be like.

Though the running joke about the perils of "adulting" wear thin very early on, they're easy to excuse when you consider that La Dolce Villa is a movie about passion, whether you're a young adult discovering the things that inspire you or you're a more established adult reclaiming passions that have been lost over the years.

Whether you're looking for a Valentine's Day movie, want a sunny escape on a rainy day or if you're searching for a movie that can remind you to embrace your own passion, La Dolce Villa is exactly what you need.

La Dolce Villa is now available to stream on Netflix.

It's a truth universally acknowledged that in the late 1990s and early 2000s, her name was synonymous with 30-something single women who were looking for love, up against the attitudes of their families and friends and swigged Chardonnay to stave off loneliness. Big pants came into it as well. Now Bridget Jones is back, older for sure, but wiser? And, more to the point, is she still the ultimate standard bearer for singletons?

In the fourth film to bear her name, and still based on the novels of Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy finds her in her fifties with two children and adjusting to life after the sudden loss of her husband Mark Darcy. It takes time, but everybody around her — friends, family, gynecologist et al — is pushing her to move forward. Cue a friend who signs her up for a dating app, and an attractive park ranger in his late 20s who is quickly smitten. With her glow back and confidence sky high, the seemingly perfect mums at the kids' school are far less daunting and life is fun. Until he does a runner. Left high and dry, she's better at getting back on her feet and finds, once again, that what she’s been looking for is right under her nose.

Like its predecessors, the film has been making headlines, but for different reasons.

This time it's the age-difference romance between 50-something Bridget (Renee Zellweger, of course) and sub-30 Rockster (Prime Target’s Leo Woodall). It’s been a favorite theme for filmmakers of late, from the dewy-eyed The Idea Of You to the manipulative Babygirl, in what's felt like an attempt to change attitudes. That's not what this film has in mind. The approach is conventional and predictable: he's incredibly attractive, they have a wonderful time together until he gets cold feet about her age and ghosts her. And, when he comes back, she's moved on because she knows it’ll never work. Lesson? It’s fun while it lasts, but younger men never stick around. It's borderline preachy and gives the film a very dated feel.

It's not the only aspect past its sell-by date. Bridget's friends and colleagues refer to Rockster as her "toyboy", a term that belongs in her first outing, not 2025. The dating app she’s signed up for is Tinder but, let’s face it, swiping left and right is kinda yesterday. She still lives in the cozy, affluent middle-class London of the 1990s, even though this is set in the now. Money is never short, her house is beautiful — Hampstead Heath is literally at the end of the road — and the children's idyllic school is full of little Tarquins and Jocastas, with judgemental, entitled parents to match.

Thankfully, Bridget does upset the status quo with her customary energy, wearing a PJ top when she takes the children to school and allowing them to make a mess in the house. She's the kind of mum that kids would adore.

But, as well as looking to the future, the film needs to keep its feet firmly in the past, with returning characters and references to memorable scenes from previous installments. Fans of the series know where they are with both the films and books and don't want anything to change, so every important box is ticked. Bridget, for instance, still has that strange habit of running out into the snow in a flimsy dress and never getting cold. And the big pants put in an appearance, visually and verbally (no prizes for guessing who mentions them!).

Zellweger has made Bridget her own and all the scatty, often naïve, appeal is intact, coupled with a more recently-acquired maturity, but she’s in danger right from the start of being completely upstaged. Basking in the glow of his current renaissance, Hugh Grant bookends the action and gets proceedings off to a great start as a thoroughly unsuitable babysitter, teaching her children things they shouldn’t really know at their tender age. And, even though his appearance towards the end comes dangerously close to schmaltz, his smile and naughty twinkle come to the rescue.

The scene-stealing doesn't stop there. Emma Thompson returns for a couple of scenes as Bridget's go-to for any medical issues and, more importantly, life advice. It goes without saying that she delivers, especially when it comes to laughs. Among the newbies is Leila Farzad, as the queen of the perfect "n" pushy mums who looks down her surgically enhanced nose at Bridget’s lack of makeup when taking the children to school. And, if she’d been given enough screen time, Joanna Scanlan’s make-up artist, Cathy, would have walked away with her scenes. She hardly gets a look-in and it’s such a waste.

For all the laughs and the familiarity, Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy sags in the middle, spending too long on Bridget and Rockster’s romance and then frantically rushing towards a wholly predictable conclusion. Whether this is a fond farewell to Miss Jones remains to be seen, but there’s a definite air of finality about the film, as well as the sense that she’s at last, found the happy ending that she and audiences have always wished for. After everything she goes through this time, you can’t deny she deserves it.

Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy is released in UK cinemas on February 13 and in the US on 13 February on Peacock Premium.

If the rise of foreign language movies contending for Oscars and making headlines (Emilia Perez, I'm Still Here to name a couple) has you intrigued to give more movies with subtitles a chance, perhaps A24 and Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope is not the best place to start. I don’t mean that as a critique of the movie, which I found quite enchanting, but it is also a challenging watch that may frustrate those more accustomed to Hollywood’s style.

Sorrentino, whose The Great Beauty won an Oscar for (what at the time was) Best Foreign Film, wrote and directed Parthenope as a love letter to Naples, his hometown. The movie follows the life of Parthenope (Celeste Della Porta), a gorgeous woman named after the Greek colony that first settled the city. Over her life we see her experience love and heartbreak, life’s beauty and its ugliness as it appears in Naples.

This was actually only the second movie of Sorrentino’s that I have seen on the big screen, and the first since his English-language movie Youth from 2015. To me Sorrentino’s movies have always had an ethereal quality to them, which was never easy to fully appreciate when watching at home, with distractions more readily available, on a smaller screen, where the movie’s visuals and tone were harder to be taken in by. But watching Parthenope in the dark of a theater lured me in and transfixed me to the journey of this young woman, even if there are plenty of strange and what the f**k moments.

Part of what makes Parthenope so alluring is Della Porta. One of the main conceits of the movie is that Parthenope’s beauty is unlike anything many have seen, and sure enough Della Porta is a vision on the screen in her first starring role. Yet she is more than just a model of desire. Sorrentino and Della Porta collectively create a fascinating lead character, whose search for a greater understanding of life is one I was contently took part in.

If some were interested in Parthenope because of Gary Oldman appearing in the movie, you may be disappointed to learn that Oldman is present for just a few scenes. However, as American author John Cheevers, he delivers some key advice to a young Parthenope. But a positive for the movie is that we don’t miss Oldman’s presence as a number of memorable supporting characters enter and exit the movie, while Della Porta effectively keeps our interest.

A nod should also be given to composer Lele Marchitelli, who crafted a beautiful score, as well as cinematographer Daria D’Antonio for capturing stunning vistas of Naples. You could use Sorrentino’s movies as a tourist promotion for Italy, the visuals are that good, but there is always something deeper meaning behind the beauty that makes his movies rich in theme and discussion.

While there will be plenty of moments worth discussing and some extended examination, I was a bit disappointed that Sorrentino chose to be so on the nose in a couple of places. Part of the plot of the movie is Parthenope’s study of anthropology (the study of humans), which she continues outside of the classroom with her various experiences. Yet still she claims not to know what anthropology is, only for her professor (Silvio Orlando) to eventually give her (and the audience) a direct answer, in case we hadn’t picked it up yet. But there’s an even more blatant example involving the Miracle of San Gennaro that I won’t go into details on, but when that storyline concluded I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.

Parthenope is likely not for everyone, as some could see it as a stereotypical example of foreign movies wanting to be seen as capital “A” art. For my part, I wouldn’t say that Parthenope is among the best foreign movies I’ve seen recently, but what it does have is an alluring quality that has made me gain a greater appreciation for Sorrentino’s work and wishing I had seen more of his movies on the big screen to see how that may have changed my experience.

Parthenope is now playing in limited US movie theaters, expanding to additional markets in the following weeks. The movie premieres in the UK on May 2.

As Sophie Thatcher’s Iris learns in Companion, a healthy relationship needs to have both sides working together to achieve the best results. There are admittedly many more components, but the idea is basically the same with movies — for as good as some elements of a movie might be, if another area isn’t pulling its weight then the whole thing can be off. In the case of Companion, the talent on screen does their jobs to satisfying results, but behind the camera is where things didn’t live up to expectations.

In a nutshell, Companion sees a young couple, Iris and Josh (Jack Quaid), head out for a weekend getaway with friends Kat (Megan Suri), Eli (Harvey Guillen) and Patrick (Lukas Gage) at the remote cabin/mansion of Kat’s wealthy boyfriend Sergey (Rupert Friend). However, when a murder takes place it sets off a chain of events that is going to have rippling effects on everyone’s relationships.

Companion was written and directed by Drew Hancock, his first full-length movie credit of his career. While the script offers a fun concept and alludes to a few larger ideas, the movie reaches its heights because of the work of its ensemble. Hancock’s directing, meanwhile, is flat, failing to bring much to the table.

Hancock is able to check all of the basic boxes as a director, delivering a perfectly competent studio movie. But that’s about all I can say about his work. Companion is supposed to be a dark comedy that blends psychological thrills and sci-fi. You can tell a lot of these elements are there in the script, but the movie’s tone and style don’t make the most of them, which falls primarily on Hancock.

To be fair, Hancock’s script is a well-conceived, solidly-written piece of work. Wouldn't say it reinvents the wheel, but in addition to some good banter and quips, it weaves in some larger ideas about man’s hubris with technology and toxic masculinity/incel behavior without being overbearing on either subject.

Even so, the story has a sense of predictability to it. Part of that is the fault of marketing, which ruined a big twist meant to serve as a major moment. But even if you’ve missed the trailers and are coming in mostly blind, key story beats are foreshadowed so obviously that there’s little satisfaction when they actually do come to fruition. One of the rare instances that I was surprised was not because of where they took the story, but because a key piece of the moment seemingly popped out of nowhere and was something that wasn’t heavily foreshadowed.

All that being said, Companion is still a solidly entertaining movie, and that is because of the work of the cast. After a strong performance in 2024’s Heretic, Thatcher is once again a standout performer as Iris, carrying much of the emotional arc of the movie but also getting to bring some fun to her role as Iris assumes more autonomy. Meanwhile, Quaid takes a bit of a turn from his most notable character, Hughie on The Boys, to fun results. Suri, Guillen and Gage then all have their moments, particularly Guillen, who knows a thing or two about scene-stealing from his time on What We Do in the Shadows.

While a solid script and good performances make watching Companion a satisfying enough experience, the movie’s weak points keep it from being memorable.

You can watch Companion now exclusively in movie theaters in the US and UK.

Paradise earned a lot of well-deserved hype, and I was included in the number of those excited for its release for two big reasons — Sterling K. Brown and Dan Fogelman. Arguably since his days on Army Wives, Brown has been a must-watch actor who has consistently risen to the occasion, whether that be with Emmy-nominated performances in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, his Oscar-nominated role in American Fiction or his Emmy-winning work in American Crime Story and This Is Us.

Speaking of This is Us, that brings me to its creator, Dan Fogelman. The super producer created one of the best primetime dramas in the last decade, one that elicited many tears from viewers over the years, along with general fanfare. So with Fogelman and Brown partnering once again on Paradise — with Julianne Nicholson (Mare of Easttown) and James Marsden (Enchanted) also in the mix and both phenomenal in their own right — how could the new series not be a hit? Well, unfortunately, Paradise doesn’t live up to its namesake.

Paradise follows Brown’s Agent Xavier Collins as he tries to get to the bottom of who is behind the most treasonous act in America — murdering the president. While the premise itself would suggest to viewers they'll be on an exhilarating ride, that’s not exactly the case.

Unlike primetime dramas that have more episodes to set up and tell stories, with Paradise being only eight episodes it didn’t have that luxury but took the slow-burn approach anyway. The first two episodes at times move rather slowly in laying down the foundation of the plot, which is ironic considering the amount of flashbacks used to tell the backstories of the characters. Because it takes a little longer to get to the motive and the “why” someone may have wanted to kill President Bradford (Marsden), it becomes easy for one’s attention to drift.

Additionally, while flashbacks were the bread and butter of This Is Us, less may have been more for Paradise. On occasions, the jumping back and forth in the past feels disruptive rather than helpful in moving along the story.

Then there’s the special apocalyptic plot twist. As intriguing as it may be to think about the world should the sky actually fall, this added layer to the Paradise storyline inherently feels unnecessary. Almost like slapping a bumper sticker or eyelashes on a car. Despite my misgivings about the pacing of the whodunnit plot, it’s still one that had the bones to stand on its own without adding this kind of frill. Yes, the extra component makes the series stand out from similar political thrillers, but this level of distinction is one that perhaps I could have done without.

But it’s not all bad, as the show is watchable. The performances from Brown and Nicholson were as expected, incredibly solid. Brown impeccably portrays a relentless truth-seeker, out to find all the mysteries behind the central murder and dig deeper into the suspicious status quo. Nicholson on the other hand, plays a layered billionaire, who while guilty of selfish ambition, is capable of relatable everyday human qualities. The tension between the stars’ roles makes for some great dramatic moments.

To my surprise though, Marsden’s execution as the mature and brash playboy president is what stands out the most. The character strikes a different tone from Marsden’s other onscreen showings, so you aren’t reminded of X-Men’s Cyclops, Enchanted’s Prince Edward or Sonic the Hedgehog’s Tom. If Marsden’s performance in Paradise is a glimpse into what the actor stands to give as he enters this new phase in his veteran career, then color me intrigued.

Also, despite my questioning the frequency of flashbacks used, admittedly, some served an entertaining purpose as they cleverly tied into some big reveals. When these occurrences come along, you’re reminded of all the potential the series had.

Once more, Paradise has its share of flaws, but with the talent of those in front of the camera like Brown, Nicholson and Marsden, the series is at least worth tuning into so you can be the final judge. However, for those fans of the political thriller genre, your appetite may be better satisfied with shows like The Night Agent and The Diplomat, or even revisiting fan-favorites Scandal and The Blacklist.

Episodes of Paradise are available to stream on Hulu in the US and Disney Plus in the UK.

There appeared to be some promise with Flight Risk — Mark Wahlberg plays a villain role in a contained action/thriller that at 90 minutes long is pretty much taking place in real time. However, in actuality, it may have been more entertaining to simply raw dog this plane ride than see the thin story, half-baked characters and minimal action that makes this one an outright bore.

Flight Risk follows US Marshal Madolyn Harris (Michelle Dockery) as she is tasked with transporting a reluctant government witness, Winston (Topher Grace), from the Alaskan wilderness so he can appear in court to testify against a powerful crime boss. They have to take a small propeller plane piloted by a freelance pilot (Mark Wahlberg) to make it in time, but they soon learn that the pilot is not who he says he is, putting all of their lives at risk. Mel Gibson directed the movie with a script from Jared Rosenberg.

Things do not start off well for this movie, and I’m not even talking about the actual story or anything. There are a number of visual effect shots early on that are some of the worst I’ve seen in a movie in some time; cheap and entirely unconvincing. The only explanation I can make is that they were saving all of their money for the plane ride that makes up most of the movie. And while things do look better for that, it only means that all of the movie’s other weaknesses are even more obvious.

Dockery and Grace give it the old college try with their performances, but there is not a lot they can do with their flat and uninteresting characters. Dockery’s Madolyn has the cliched weight of a previously failed assignment hanging over her head, while the movie tries to portray Winston as the wise-cracking comedic relief, but none of the cracks particularly work.

Wahlberg, meanwhile, is having fun playing this deranged villain and is one of the only things that this movie has going for it; but I would not call it a good performance, rather it’s more of the scenery-chewing variety.

There are a couple of attempts to ramp things up as Madolyn tries to figure out how their mission was compromised and having to learn to fly a plane, but most of those subplots are handled over the phone with characters we never see and get minimal background on, so any developments on that front fail to drum interest either. If there was more dynamic stuff going on with the relationships and storylines on the plane, then maybe things could have ratcheted up a bit.

You can’t even bank on the movie’s action sequences to save the proceedings. There are really only a couple throughout the movie, and they are short and compact; it makes sense as they’re stuck in a small airplane, but doesn’t change the fact that they’re just not that interesting to watch.

When people talk about January being a dumping ground for bottom-of-the-barrel movies, Flight Risk is the type of thing they are talking about. Do yourself a favor and skip this disappointing 2025 new movie and instead try and catch up on the recent slate of Oscar nominated movies.

Flight Risk releases exclusively in movie theaters January 24 in the US, UK and elsewhere around the world.

There have been plenty of great comedic duos in movie history, from Abbott and Costello to Steve Martin and Martin Short. It’s too early to put Keke Palmer and SZA in that pantheon (it is their first movie together after all), but they are an undeniably terrific pairing in One of Them Days, the first comedy of the 2025 new movie slate that does what it sets out to do: telling a fun story of two best friends that will have you laughing throughout.

Written by Syreeta Singleton (the first screenplay for the Insecure and Rap Sh!t writer) and directed by Lawrence Lamont (another Rap Sh!t veteran making his feature directing debut), One of Them Days follows best friends and roommates Dreux (Palmer) and Alyssa (SZA) as they have to travel all over their Los Angeles neighborhood to get enough money to pay their rent after Alyssa’s oblivious boyfriend Keshawn (Joshua David Neal) wasted it on himself; if they don’t have it by the end of the day they’ll be evicted from their apartment. Along the way they have to deal with a range of colorful characters and dangerous gangsters.

While the Singleton’s script and Lamont’s directing are strong debuts, particularly with a number of smaller moments, One of Them Days is carried by Palmer and SZA, who nail their comedic bits but who are equally good when the time comes for a few emotional moments between the two. Any issues with the movie are small, as One of Them Days has the goods.

At this point, seeing a strong performer from Palmer is no surprise, as the two-time Emmy winner has built her star in the likes of Scream Queens, Berlin Station, Hustlers and, most notably, Nope. What was a nice surprise is how SZA, in her movie debut and just her second acting job ever (the other being a guest role on Insecure), is a great scene partner with Palmer. Beyond their comedic back and forth, the pair’s relationship is the emotional crux of the movie, and they capture that with ease.

However it's not just a two-women show, as there are a number of standout supporting performances. Most notably are that of Katt Williams, who plays a homeless man who pops up to offer timely, humorous advice to Dreux and Alyssa, and Aziza Scott as Bernice, someone who will stop at nothing when she’s felt like she’s been wronged, putting that energy toward Dreux and Alyssa over the course of the movie. Other notable supporting appearances include Lil Rel Howery, Maude Apatow, Janelle James and Keyla Monterrosso Mejia.

These strong performances definitely help sell the comedy, but a lot of it also comes from clever small moments in the script and executed by Lamont. While there are big bits of physical comedy that are sure to elicit laughs (the blood bank scene is a particular stand out), the stuff that I enjoyed the most were little things like how Dreux and Alyssa’s landlord changes when the new, white tenant Bethany (Apatow) moves in; nods to unfortunate financial realities, like creditors charging the hilariously figure of 1,900.5% interest; or that Dreux is conscious of how expensive an ambulance ride is. Comedies aren’t always obvious showcases for directors, but Lamont definitely infuses a few nice touches to put his own stamp on the proceedings as well.

The most notable “issue” with the movie is its management of time. A lot happens to Dreux and Alyssa over the course of a day, but despite them reminding us of their ticking clock and a graphic that pops up every now and then, there’s a lack of urgency in the tone and editing. Also, a couple of storylines — most notably Dreux’s pursuit of a promotion — wrap up a little too conveniently, but ultimately they arrive at satisfying conclusions.

I want to emphasize the quotation marks around “issue,” because really these are just small things that I noticed but others may have little to no problem with. That’s because One of Them Days delivers a constant stream of jokes (big and small) to keep you laughing and has a central relationship that you constantly root for. It's a strong start for 2025 comedies.

One of Them Days releases exclusively in US movie theaters on January 17.

I wasn’t actively writing about movies when Den of Thieves came out in 2018, so it was one I opted to skip at the time. However, I became aware that a bit of a cult following started to grow around the Gerard Butler heist movie, so with Den of Thieves 2: Pantera being among the first 2025 new movies to hit big screens I made sure to catch up with the original so I can weigh in this time around.

Quickly on Den of Thieves (FYI there will be some SPOILERS as it’s hard to fully discuss the movie without), it felt like a Heat wannabe with Butler chewing the scenery as a rogue cop that is more unpredictable than the bad guys, the latter led by Pablo Schreiber and including O’Shea Jackson Jr. It featured a bloated story that didn’t really do anything to stand out until a final big reveal about how Jackson’s Donnie pulled a fast one on everyone.

So what about the sequel? The good news is that Den of Thieves 2: Pantera is an improvement in most areas from its predecessor, but it still suffers a few of the same fatal flaws, including a bloated runtime (all told the movie comes in at two hours and 24 minutes) that saps energy from the proceedings. It also trades its defining quality — Butler’s big, brash performance — to become more of a buddy picture. All in all, it’s a better movie, but it’s no more than average in the realm of heist movies.

Once again directed by and featuring a script by Christian Gudegast, the story picks up a few years after the events of the first movie. Donnie is working in Europe, pulling off diamond heists. Meanwhile, back in the States, Nick (Butler) continues his dogged pursuit to figure out what happened at the Federal Reserve. That eventually leads him to track Donnie down in France, where he is preparing to rob the World Diamond Center. But Nick isn’t there to stop him, instead, he wants in on the heist.

I liked Butler and Jackson as allies instead of enemies; the two have solid chemistry and it was interesting to see the more constrained Donnie and the boisterous Nick work together. We also get more of Donnie’s backstory while Nick’s internal struggles of changing sides from a cop to a thief play better than his deteriorating marriage in the first movie.

The negative to these deeper explorations of character is that Nick becomes less edgy. The man who interrupted his soon-to-be ex-wife’s date in the first movie is gone; the closest bit of the old Nick we got was him arguing with French police about the pronunciations of words. So Nick’s character may be more sympathetic, but he is not nearly as interesting to watch.

There’s a similar trade-off when it comes to the movie’s heist sequence. I would say the actual heist is much better executed this time around, but the subsequent chase and shootout take a back seat and won’t really get your blood pumping.

Also, it doesn’t feel like there’s a whole lot at stake here. There’s no clear, single opposing antagonist now that Nick and Donnie are working together; we also don’t have the indication that the pair’s intentions are ever really at odds. They’re just going about preparing and executing the heist, with little challenges standing in their way throughout.

This really plays out with the movie’s runtime. When you really boil it down, not a lot actually happens. Ultimately, the payoff ends up being only minimal. If it was a brisk hour-and-a-half, that can be forgiven, but Den of Thieves 2: Pantera is nearly an hour longer than that, and honestly I wouldn’t blame anyone whose mind wanders a bit over that time.

I do believe that Den of Thieves 2: Pantera is a better movie than its predecessor, but that doesn’t mean it’s anything special. Looking for something mildly enjoyable to kill some time or have on in the background, go for it. Beyond that, don’t expect much more.

Watch Den of Thieves 2: Pantera exclusively in US movie theaters; a UK release date for the movie has not been confirmed at this time.

After setting up a strong foundation in the first season, Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches season 2 is sultry, sexy and scary as hell. While season 1 reveled in all its Southern Gothic glory, season 2 basks in its darkness as a true horror story. Reviewers were given the first seven episodes of the season to review and I can tell you without hesitation that season 2 is bewitchingly brilliant.

Season 2 picks up shortly after season 1. Mayfair designee Rowan (Alexandra Daddario) has given birth to Lasher but the child is no ordinary creature; the milk-guzzling demon is growing by leaps and bounds by the hour in his new human form. Rowan is concerned, but when she sees the youngster shedding his baby teeth with a bloody grin she knows that she’s in trouble. What’s keeping her from seeking help, however, is the fact that her powers are growing exponentially with her son (and former lover) nearby and she’s not exactly willing to part with them. But when an older Lasher (Jack Huston) starts getting into deeper trouble, Rowan is forced to act.

Meanwhile, Sip (Tongayi Chirisa) is trying to navigate the complexities of the Talamasca knowing that they, too, have interests in Lasher. Cortland Mayfair (Harry Hamlin) was turned to stone by Rowan after his web of lies started to untangle; though he’s a statue hidden in her basement, however, Cortland is on a horrifying journey of his own.

New to the cast this season are Alyssa Jirrels as Moira Mayfair, Ben Feldman as Lark and Ted Levine as Julien Mayfair. Moira arrives in New Orleans after her sister Tessa’s death in the first season. The young mind reader wants answers and she knows Rowan is the one who knows the truth. She’s smart and witty, and it didn’t take long for her to become one of my favorite Mayfairs.

Lark and Rowan go way back; she turns to him in the present day for help and given how close they once were. Lark provides some much-needed levity to break up some of the more tense moments in the series; as the outsider, he watches the Mayfair affairs like a spectator sport. While he’s a fish out of water, he doesn’t hesitate to offer assistance as Rowan and her allies hunt for Lasher.

Daddario has found her footing as Rowan, skillfully portraying her as off-balanced and uncertain as she navigates her strange motherhood journey, her new powers and her role as the Mayfair designee. Huston’s Lasher is a child in a man’s body. He can’t control his urges, which puts the Mayfairs in danger. It’s fun watching Huston shift from charming to childlike and back again, making it easy to forget that Lasher is still, in fact, a demon in sheep’s clothing.

I find that Mayfair Witches’ true strength as a series comes from the supporting characters. Hamlin and Chirisa could (and should!) absolutely front their own spinoff series, while Jirrels, Feldman and Levine are very welcome additions to the fold (and could have their own spinoffs, too!). Hamlin masterfully portrays the razor-thin line between Cortland’s trademark shrewdness and his newfound sense of vulnerability while Chirisa brings out Sip’s humanity as a man torn between shattered truths and an uncertain future. And we have to give credit to Charlayne Woodard as Dolly Jean Mayfair and Jen Richards as Jojo Mayfair, who elevate every scene they’re in.

While I can’t say much about Levine’s Julien yet, I will say this as a non-spoilery preview: if you appreciated Ben Daniels’ stellar turn as Santiago in Interview with the Vampire season 2, you’re going to love watching Levine’s portrayal of Julien. Let me put it this way: if Sam Reid’s Lestat and Levine’s Julien were competing in a Brat Prince contest, it would probably be a tie. That should tell you everything.

Showrunner Esta Spalding has course-corrected from the often sluggish first season to give season 2 a much quicker pace and a darker, horror-laden feel. Mayfair Witches season 2 sheds the heavy narratives that bogged down the first season, seizing the strong foundation that was built to elevate the story. With only eight episodes, though, there are moments when you wish there was more time to explore certain stories and characters. All in all, after watching the first seven episodes I’m genuinely excited to see what’s ahead for Mayfair Witches in the future.

Anne Rice fans will appreciate the Easter eggs sprinkled throughout the new season, which not only provides a few links to Interview with the Vampire but also to the new Talamasca series as well. In fact, it’s fair to say that Mayfair Witches season 2 is the glue between AMC’s Anne Rice Immortal Universe, not only building its own future with a strong story but also providing a nod to what’s ahead in the shared universe as well.

Mayfair Witches season 2 premieres Sunday, January 5, at 9 pm ET/PT on AMC and will be available to stream same day on AMC Plus.

The cliche is drama is easy, comedy is hard. But let’s not overlook the difficulty of horror, a genre that can often swing from hauntingly great to comically bad. In the case of The Damned, a less exaggerated example of that swing came within the movie’s runtime, as I was on board with just about everything until the final moments of the movie that, while not ruining the experience, left me unsatisfied.

The Damned is directed by Thordur Palsson, an Icelandic filmmaker making his directing debut with the 2025 new movie. The story (from Palsson with a script written by Jamie Hannigan) takes place in 19th century Iceland, where a widow leads a fishing crew during a harsh winter. When they make the difficult decision not to rescue men whose ship sinks just beyond their bay, they soon realize their decision may come back to haunt them (literally). Odessa Young leads the ensemble that also features Joe Cole, Lewis Gribben, Francis Magee, Turlough Convery, Mícheál Óg Lane, Siobhan Finneran and Rory McCann.

Palsson, who previously directed the Netflix series The Valhalla Murders, has the goods, crafting a handsome-looking movie and effectively imbuing it with a lingering sense of dread, one that can chill you as much as the frozen landscape of the movie’s setting. Where Palsson, and the movie overall, struggles is landing that final punctuation; hitting the audience with a definitive moment that will linger after the credits roll.

The movie wastes no time in getting viewers in the right mindset, as the story opens in the middle of a harsh winter that has completely isolated the bay where the story takes place and one character’s ghost story portends what is coming for these characters. Palsson’s ability to create and maintain this overall sense of unease throughout while not relying on cheap scares (i.e. jump scares) is what gets me excited about his potential as a filmmaker.

Beyond the tone, style and some lovely cinematography (by Eli Arenson), The Damned also features an ensemble of no big names (the most recognizable is likely McCann, who played The Hound in Game of Thrones), but who all understood the assignment and executed it very well. Chief among that is Young, who plays the widowed Eva now in charge of leading this group of men. Though Eva is in a position that she never expected to be, Young gives her a level of composure that helps her grow into the authority as the world around her descends into darkness, but her own fear — in both the decision she is making as the leader and with the ghostly entity that begins to haunt them — is always just underneath the surface.

All of this is great and will have you interested in the story unfolding on screen, but you end up waiting for a payoff that never comes. And I’m not necessarily talking about a big scare, that’s clearly not the style that Palsson is using here. But (without getting into spoilers) the ending just kind of happens, to the point when the screen faded to black I literally thought, “wait, that’s it?”

That’s not to criticize the story or message of The Damned; it feels rich in Icelandic lore and its message is clear. But how that final message is revealed to us feels inconsistent and jarring to the movie we just watched.

While the ending could have clinched this as an incredibly strong debut, don’t miss the forest for the trees, as for the most part The Damned is an effectively chilling psychological horror from a clearly talented filmmaker.

Watch The Damned exclusively in US movie theaters. The movie premieres in the UK on January 10.

Squid Game season 2 is the highly-anticipated return of the Netflix global phenomenon. With such rave reviews for season 1 and the game finally over for Player 456, it was hard to imagine where the show would go next. After all, he’d survived, right? While 45.6 billion won should have been enough for Gi-hun to start over, he couldn’t stand the idea of the game continuing. The money, as far he’s concerned, is covered in the blood of the players. So, in Squid Game season 2, it’s time for revenge.

In pursuit of the salesman who recruits players with a game of Ddajki, Gi-hun builds a team to search every subway station in Seoul. And, eventually, he teams up with season 1’s Jun-ho, the undercover cop that infiltrated the island. Let’s not forget that Jun-ho discovered the true identity of Front Man — the ruler of the game — and an important part of season 2. If this was a chess game, the pairing of Gin-hi and Jun-ho feels like the perfectly logical next step for the show to take.

But, how do you follow up from such an iconic game that played out in season 1? In fact, it was so iconic that they even made a spin-off reality show, Squid Game: The Challenge. For the first few two episodes, at least, it felt like a different show altogether. Perhaps we could get used to the idea that the game is finished and the show was going to take us in a new direction. Though, suddenly, he’s back in the game, playing all over again. And, we suddenly realized what we’d been missing.

While it appears at first that the same games are going to play out, only with a whole new set of players, it’s just Red Light, Green Light that makes a return from season 1. There on out, there are entirely new games to play and ways to, unfortunately, die. These new games are, in true Squid Game fashion, disturbing and whimsical. While they seem simple in nature, the stakes are too high meaning these childhood games turn into living nightmares. While Gi-hun pleads with his fellow players, a lot of them see his presence as an opportunity to get further ahead, rather than standing up against the torturous situation.

But, surely Gi-hun doesn’t have to play the game all over again? Well, there’s another storyline unfolding at the same time. Though hopelessly separated from Jun-ho and his team, they are trying to find him based on what little knowledge Jun-ho has of his time on the island. And there’s an interesting deception going on that’s not quite fully explored in season 2, but it sure is teased.

The new players inside the game are refreshing. In season 2, there’s such a variety of storylines that it carves itself a new special place in the Squid Game timeline. There’s Player 120, an ex-soldier transitioning into a new life as a woman. There’s Player 149 and Player 007, a mother and son with a tumultuous family dynamic. And, there’s Player 390, another friend of Gi-hun’s who has found his way into the game through the same gambling problem that Gi-hun shares.

And then, there’s the role of Front Man and the opportunity to experience him in an entirely new light. While the viewers know his true identity, alongside Jun-ho, Front Man’s younger brother, Gi-hun and his fellow players do not. This new dynamic in Squid Game makes for a thrilling watch. As you witness how humanity unravels when backed into a corner and how greed can transform a state of mind, you may even start to question whether the creators have a point.

There’s a chance though, that viewers may be left feeling a little deflated by season 2’s finale. While Squid Game season 2 delights in the most alarming of ways, you’ll be left on a cliffhanger, desperate for the crescendo to reach its climax. Fortunately, everything that came before it was unequivocally Squid Game, so while you might not quite get to where you wanted to, you’ll most definitely enjoy the ride. The show has created its own iconic hemisphere that knows how to perfectly terrify you, while at the same time you can’t look away. And you shouldn’t, because it’s a stellar watch.

Squid Game season 2 is available to watch now on Netflix.

Amazon Fire TV Omni Mini-LED quick review

If you’re browsing on Amazon to buy a brand-new TV, then you’ll probably be considering sets made by the retailer alongside rivals from TCL, Samsung and Hisense, and in particular wondering if they’re any good.

The Amazon Fire TV Omni Mini-LED is the new top-end range of TVs from Amazon, succeeding its Omni QLED series from 2023, and while it has a range of upgrades, the big new selling point is at the end of the name.

Mini-LED is a fancy kind of screen technology that uses smaller individual lights than other sets to backlight your picture, which has a range of benefits including improved contrast (the difference between neighboring colors) and darker-looking blacks. More and more TVs around the world are coming out with mini-LED tech but they still cost a lot right now.

I hosted a few movie nights while testing the Fire TV and the contrast alone makes watching films really immersive. Like when you're sitting in a dark cinema you can really feel the strength of the bright areas and the gloominess of the dark ones and I particularly appreciated how night-time scenes were a lot easier to see.

This display feature is why the Amazon Fire TV Omni Mini-LED TV is one you might want to consider: it’s not cheap by any means, but it undercuts a lot of rivals on the market. Plus it does so while bringing lots of extra features to improve your entertainment.

For example it has a 144Hz display, so it’s great for video gamers. It allows for hands-free navigation to perform basic tasks, something I used all the time when I couldn’t find the remote. And it has many screen technologies so that movies and TV shows look really great. For the price, I was really impressed with how the display looked.

I had two small gripes which got in the way of my experience, however both were about using the TV rather than watching things. Firstly, the remote wasn’t very responsive, and sometimes I’d need to wait for my input to register or press a button again to scroll or select – the remote also misses a few buttons that I’d have liked to see.

Secondly, the TV runs on Amazon’s operating system (OS) called Fire TV, and as many users online seem to agree, it’s not the most aesthetically-pleasing OS. You get inundated with ads, the layout isn’t easy to personalize, and navigating for your chosen app or service can sometimes be counterintuitive.

If you’re the kind of person who spends more time scrolling than actually watching, then these issues might crop up. However I can see some people finding these concerns easy to overlook.

If that’s you, then this is simply a good-looking TV that offers value for money in most departments.

Amazon Fire TV Omni Mini-LED price information

• 55"/65"/75" and 85" in the US
• Starts at $819.99 / £849.99 for cheapest option
• Can be found in sales easily

In most countries, there are three sizes of TV: 55, 65 and 75 inches. Here’s how they stack up in terms of price:

In the US, there’s also a gigantic 85-inch version of the set. This’ll cost you $2,099.99 to buy and it's not available in the UK.

This constitutes a price increase of a couple of hundred dollars / pounds per size option over the QLED, as well as a removal of the two smallest sizes and the introduction of some larger ones.

It’s worth flagging that almost as soon as the Omni Mini-LEDs were announced, they were put on sale for Black Friday, and at the time of writing several weeks later they’re still discounted (albeit to a lesser degree). So you can probably find a discount if you look around.

These aren’t the cheapest mini-LED 4K TVs at these sizes with the likes of TCL and Hisense offering alternatives that are a touch cheaper, but Amazon has clearly positioned its TVs at the more affordable end of the spectrum.

Amazon Fire TV Omni Mini-LED set-up

• Legs in box but can be wall-mounted too
• Multiple ports in rear
• Easy to set up

You can mount the Fire TV Omni Mini-LED on a wall or on a stand, and I did the former for my testing. You get legs for it in the box if you prefer the latter.

The TV has ports for optical connection, ethernet, antennae, headphones, an IR emitter and a single USB-A port, as well as four HDMI ports of which one is for eARC. As well as wired internet with the ethernet port you can, of course, use Wi-Fi which I did.

I found setting up the TV very quick: you connect it to the internet and then set it up using your Amazon account. I’ve already set up Fire TV devices so it remembered all my apps and choices, though if you’re new, you will have to go through the extra step of creating an account.

As the Omni Mini-LED TV has Fire TV built in, and is therefore a smart TV, you don’t need to connect anything to it if you don’t want. I used the TV alongside my PlayStation, hence the cable you see in the photo.

Amazon Fire TV Omni Mini-LED day-to-day use

• Software is cluttered
• Voice navigation is handy
• Ambient Experience is fun to have

The Amazon Fire TV Omni Mini-LED TVs run on the company’s custom-built TV software – this is called Fire TV and it’s also what you get if you use a streaming stick from the company.

It’s hard to deny that Fire TV is a little bit overwhelming to look at. Boot it up and your display is cluttered up with a icons of varying sizes like big TV show and movie picks at the bottom, streaming apps along the middle and huge commercials at the top, some of which auto-play. You don’t know where to look!

This software is good if you don’t know what you want to watch, as you’re inundated with recommendations and adverts, but if you do know which app or service you’re navigating to then it’s quite annoying.

I also found a few bugs in the software, with one in particular rearing its head a few times (including during my photo session, hence why I have it on camera!). On Prime Video's own platform, it didn't let me skip through videos sometimes claiming that I could fast forward through adverts... when I was just watching the movie. But there weren't too many problems overall.

I quickly found myself relying on voice navigation to open apps and movies without having to deal with the interface, as it’s very convenient and (most of the time at least) is pretty accurate to what you asked.

Something to flag in this section is the Fire TV Ambient Experience, which is basically a screensaver for your TV. It takes a bit of work to set it up with widgets and backdrops, and it does miss a level of customization that I would have liked to see, but I did enjoy how it’d turn my idling TV into a nice wintery moodscape with a crackling fire or rushing snowy stream.

Amazon Fire TV Omni Mini-LED remote

• Takes AAA batteries
• All the expected buttons plus a few
• Lack of 'input' button is annoying

The Amazon Fire TV Alexa Voice Remote comes with the Omni Mini-LED. This has all the options you’d expect from a smart TV remote, plus a few more.

These expected buttons are the likes of volume, channel and home buttons, but there was one that I really missed: an input button. I connected my PlayStation to the TV through a HDMI input, and with no ‘Input’ button on the remote, I had to return to the Fire TV home page every time I wanted to switch from streaming a movie to playing a game. It was only a few extra seconds but it’s an annoying extra step.

The extra options I mention are really handy for navigation. Four buttons at the bottom will take you straight to select streaming services (the options depend on your region), which is handy as long as you use at least one of those platforms. And as mentioned, I used voice control a lot, and the blue Alexa button is what you press and hold to activate that (you can also do it straight to the TV, but I found the remote way was a lot more reliable).

On the topic of reliability, I found that the Fire TV Alexa Remote didn’t always work seamlessly with the TV. Sometimes I’d have to press a button twice to enable it, and my flat isn’t big so that’s not a simple distance issue.

Amazon Fire TV Omni Mini-LED video and audio quality

• 4K screen with 144Hz max refresh rate
• Mini-LED screen tech brings myriad improvements
• Audio is 2.1 with Dolby Atmos

The meat and potatoes of a TV is its audio-visual performance, and the Fire TV Omni Mini-LED packs in lots of technology to make movies and TV shows look really good.

The resolution is 4K, with a pixel count of 3840 x 2160 regardless of which set size you opt for. That means you can watch high-resolution content via Blu-Ray or streaming service if you have access.

The default refresh rate is 120Hz, which is high for a TV, but when you enable gaming mode it goes even higher to 144Hz.

As you may be able to tell from the name, the real draw is the use of Mini-LED screen technology, with this marking Amazon’s debut into this fancy screen tech. The way this works is to back-light the screen picture with loads of small LED lights instead of fewer larger ones like in a normal LED TV.

If that’s too much tech jargon for you, the benefits are these: the contrast is improved, so brighter colors look brighter and darker ones look darker. Plus details can be sharper, which helps alongside the 4K spec, and brighter objects on screen won’t ‘bleed’ and make objects around them look brighter too. They’re not mandatory upgrades by any means, but for people who care about visual fidelity they’re useful benefits.

Helping the TV’s case are several technology standards which do the same including HDR10 certification, Dolby Vision IQ and HDR10+ Adaptive.

This all makes movies and TV shows look great – it’s like having your own cinema screen in your living room. I enjoyed especially how the contrast improved movie nights, as this can help you appreciate details in shots and the artistic vision between color choices and framing on screen. Before the Fire TV I’d used a cheaper smart TV and the improvements here were drastic.

Another tech which Amazon has introduced here is called Intelligent Picture, which ostensibly uses an AI processor to optimize each picture based on what you’re looking at. It’s hard to judge how effective this is since I couldn’t watch without it on, but it’s worth flagging anyway.

Audio sounds good, with the TV packing a 2.1 audio set-up with two speakers and one subwoofer. Bear in mind that the Amazon Fire TV Soundbar only has 2.0 so if you've been considering a cheap TV and that, or a more expensive set like the Omni Mini-LED, the latter might be better.

Dolby Atmos supported by the set too, which is a kind of surround-sound audio set-up to make movies and shows more immersive.

Is the Amazon Fire TV Omni Mini-LED worth buying?

This definitely isn’t a TV for everyone: it’s big, with cutting-edge technology and handy extras. If you’re looking for any old set to buy for your living room, regardless of its visual specs, there are much cheaper options you should be considering (which we’ll get to later).

I’d recommend it for people who are starting to build their home theater system, but don’t want to buy the absolute cream of the crop that the best TV brands offer.

The Fire TV Omni Mini-LED is great value for money, despite a few rough edges, and so it’s best suited for people who are becoming more tech-savvy and want to have some premium features without splurging too much on the best premium TVs on the market.

Competition

Looking for something similar to the Amazon Fire TV Omni Mini-LED? These are other options that are either coming from Amazon, or bearing Mini-LED tech. The links below are all for the 55-inch option so you can easily compare prices (except for the TCL C855 which is the 65-inch model, the smallest one).

• Looking for something cheaper? Alongside the Mini-LED sets Amazon announced its Fire TV 4-series of 4K TVs. They're smaller and don't pack as many features or the high-tech screen technology but they're a lot more affordable.
• The Hisense U7N is a similarly-priced range of Mini-LED TVs that run on Google TV (in most regions, or VIDAA in the UK) and have a comparable range of features.
• A year prior Amazon released the Fire TV Omni QLED range of TVs which also look pretty good. While they miss some of the Mini-LED sets' features, like a high refresh rate, they cost a fair amount less.
• The pretty cheap TCL C805 and mid-range TCL 855 are both Mini-LED rivals to the Omni which have impress feature sets. They run Google TV.

More on Amazon Fire TV devices

• How to turn off an Amazon Fire TV Stick
• How to get Netflix on an Amazon Fire TV
• Amazon Fire TV Stick vs Fire TV Stick 4K comparison
• Amazon Fire TV Soundbar Plus review

How I tested the Amazon Fire TV Omni Mini-LED

I used the 55-inch model of the Amazon Fire TV Omni Mini-LED for an entire month, replacing my standard TV in my living room with it. I used it alongside the Fire TV Soundbar Plus, although I stopped using that towards the end so I could appreciate the TV’s audio chops.

Most of that time was spent streaming movies and shows from Netflix, Disney Plus and Prime Video, and also streaming lots of Christmas music from Spotify and Amazon Music, but I also watched some videos on other streaming services and gaming on my PlayStation. The Ambient Experience got lots of time on the screen too.

I’ve been testing various tech products for over 6 years; not just TVs but projectors, streaming sticks, speakers, soundbars, tablets and more. There are very few types of gadget I haven’t tried at this point! This coverage has been for What to watch and various of our sister sites including TechRadar, TechRadar Pro, Creative Bloq and TopTenReviews.

We all know the formula for a sports movie by now. A scrappy underdog with a chip on their shoulder overcomes incredible odds with the help of a dedicated coach to win the big title. That’s not a criticism, it’s a formula that works time and time again to leave audiences with a good feeling. But what makes The Fire Inside unique is that its story doesn’t stop with that winning moment, instead showing how winning is not necessarily a cure for all of life’s problems.

The Fire Inside is based on the life of Claressa Shields, who as a 17-year-old won the Olympic gold medal in boxing at the 2012 games. Shields did so overcoming poverty and a troubled childhood in Flint, Michigan. But even after her Olympic glory, she found she had to take up a new fight as life’s struggles — primarily the lack of financial opportunity for a female athlete in a male-centric sport — continued to land its punches.

Starring the excellent pair of Ryan Destiny as Shields and Brian Tyree Henry as her coach, Jason Crutchfield, the movie serves as the feature directorial debut for Oscar-nominated cinematographer Rachel Morrison and features a script written by Barry Jenkins. That creative team hits all of the right notes to give The Fire Inside a good bit more depth than its peers, resulting in a winning story, but the athletic moments are a bit muted, placing it in the good, just shy of great, tier.

The first half of the movie is all about Shields’ efforts to make the 2012 Olympics and take home the gold. There’s plenty in that for a full movie, and some filmmakers would have likely been content to just end the story as she stands on top of the podium victorious. But The Fire Inside’s greatest strength is that it follows up and sees Shields after the Olympics, when she hasn’t gotten any endorsements and struggles to pay the bills and achieve the better life she thought would be coming her way. Though female athletes today have become household names, even just 12 years ago Shields was emblematic of their struggles for fair compensation. Her fight to get what she’s believed she’s earned is even more inspirational to watch than her fights in the ring.

A lot of that has to do Ryan Destiny, who gives one of the breakout performances of the year. She is every bit believable as the Flint tough boxer, but she’s even better when she is fighting for her future outside of the ring. Destiny goes toe-to-toe with the Oscar-nominated Henry, who gives another strong performance as Shields’ coach. The pair carry the movie, with their interactions, and occasional verbal bouts, the most engaging thing to watch.

Part of that is because the boxing scenes aren’t anything to write home about. Morrison makes a fine debut as a director after years as a cinematographer, but considering her past work I was a bit surprised that the boxing scenes weren’t as engaging as I might have hoped. Now part of the problem is that Olympic boxing is a bit different than what we’re used to seeing on screen, and it’s not as fun trying to figure out how to root for points instead of a knockout.

But even if the boxing scenes were a bit of a let down, the script by Barry Jenkins more than makes up for it, providing a depth of story and characters. I’ve already talked about how the movie effectively manages to go beyond the easy ending of winning gold, but Jenkins also deserves credit for creating realistic characters in Shields’ parents. Shields’ mother Jackie (Olunike Adeliyi) struggles to provide for her family, occasionally neglectful, while her father Clarence (Adam Clark) has been in jail for much of her child. The movie acknowledges these facts, but it also doesn’t limit its depictions of Jackie and Clarence as merely obstacles or antagonists for Claressa to overcome, as some lazier scripts might do. Instead, they are real people who have had (and continue to have) their struggles, but who also do their best to support Claressa as they can.

All that being said, The Fire Inside feels like it’s teetering on the edge of greatness, but ultimately falls just a little short. But that’s alright, this is still a winning sports drama that you’d be hard pressed not to enjoy and ultimately be moved by. It’ll get you cheering for sure.

The Fire Inside releases exclusively in movie theaters on December 25 in the US; it premieres February 7 in the UK.

When I left the screening of Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu I overheard a few other patrons talking about the movie. Many of them were going on effusively about it, reveling in its gothic delights. I listened with intent, to see if anyone said anything that I could find a point of contention with or find some semblance of common ground; but there wasn't much I could find. As I continued my way out of the movie theater I came to a simple conclusion — I am not a Robert Eggers fan.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Robert Eggers hater. I have seen all of his previous feature-length movies (The Witch, The Lighthouse, The Northman) and I fully recognize that he has a style and skill that makes him a true auteur, I just don’t find myself becoming fully enraptured by his movies. Whether that’s because of his movies’ overarching sense of dread, the incredibly well-researched and written but at times hard-to-follow dialogue or what have you. I can see the impressive work he has put on screen but can't say I truly loved any of his movies.

The case proves true for Nosferatu, a remake of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent classic of the same name, itself an unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The movie is as gorgeous as any I’ve seen in 2024, with Eggers truly putting his own unique stamp on it from the design of the villainous Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) and accentuating the themes and scares of the story. For me it was all a bit too much, but it could be just right for fans of Eggers and horror in general.

For those unfamiliar with the story, it focuses on Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp) and Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult), a newly married couple. Thomas is tasked by his work to travel to a distant land and finalize a real-estate deal with the "eccentric" Count Orlok. Despite his wife’s protests, Thomas goes. However, they both become snared in Orlok’s evil intentions, as a mysterious connection exists between Orlok and Ellen that will result in devastating horrors if they cannot stop him.

Skarsgård is no stranger to playing otherworldly monsters, having played Pennywise in the recent It movies. He has an incredible skill for bringing these frightening creatures to life. While the makeup is certainly a factor, the actor absolutely deserves credit, as his menace pierces through the screen as Orlok even though we rarely see him as more than a shadowy figure.

As for the rest of the cast, Willem Dafoe brings a blast of energy to the movie as Professor von Franz, an expert in the occult who helps the main characters as they attempt to figure out a way to defeat Orlok. Hoult, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Simon McBurney are all solid; Emma Corrin and Ralph Ineson are fine, but not given a lot to work with.

The most interesting performance belongs to Lily-Rose Depp, which I found to be a bit inconsistent, swinging back between a few highs and lows. To be fair though, her role has a high degree of difficulty as she has to bounce back and forth from sheer madness to a more traditional 19th century wife, so it would not have been an easy task for any one.

Fair or not, the entire time watching the movie I couldn’t help but think of the original Nosferatu (which is available to watch for free on Tubi), comparing what Eggers chose to do versus the work from Murnau that I know so well. In just about every case I prefer the original, as a greater focus on Ellen’s fits of madness, the extended sequences (the 2024 version is a good 40 minutes longer than the original) and the gore didn't add enough to the classic story.

I'm not going to argue with anyone who sees and loves Nosferatu, I can definitely understand where they may be coming from. But at the end of the day, it’s simply not a movie that I’m going to be praising or dying to watch again. After seeing all four of Eggers’ movies, while I recognize the talent and hope he continues making interesting movies, I think my personal excitement for them will be muted from here on out.

Nosferatu releases exclusively in movie theaters on December 25 in the US; it premieres January 1, 2025, in the UK.