Beware of Spoilers

Vision Quest brings James Spader back as Ultron and gives the character something Age of Ultron never really had: time. Adam looks at the first episodes of Marvel’s newest series, Vision’s ongoing identity crisis, the show’s surprisingly strong connective tissue to the larger MCU and why repeatedly insisting this is a “different Vision” could become the season’s biggest structural problem.

Avatar: Seven Havens does something immediately different from both The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra : it introduces a world that is afraid of the Avatar. Adam looks at the first three episodes, why Pavi works as a lead, how the series avoids overexplaining the Cataclysm and why the mystery surrounding Korra's supposed destruction of the world may be far more complicated than the his...

Behemoth! is not quite the movie its trailer suggests, and that's one of the reasons Adam is keeping this festival review unusually spoiler-light. Tony Gilroy uses nonlinear storytelling, thriller-style cinematography and constantly shifting musical language to turn the story of cellist Alex into something far more tense than a conventional personal drama. Pedro Pascal delivers one of his stro...

When a catastrophe affects millions of people, who gets to decide how the person responsible is remembered? Adam reviews Digger , examining its theatrical reconstruction of an environmental disaster, Tom Cruise's performance as an actor challenging that reconstruction and the deeper question raised when the people controlling the story are revealed to have their own connection to the history t...

Charlie is smart, well-read and completely unsure what he wants to do with his life. That kind of drifting protagonist has been a staple of American independent film for decades; but in Charlie Harper , the archetype sometimes feels like it belongs to an earlier generation. Adam looks at the movie's strong central performances, nonlinear memory structure and the missed opportunity to let its 2...

A guy meets a woman named Emily, gets the wrong phone number and finds another Emily while trying to track down the first one. That is already a great rom-com setup. Adam reviews Finding Emily and explains why its central chemistry works, why the supporting characters are so important and how the decision to turn Owen into the subject of Emily’s psychology research creates an ethical conflict far...

Lanterns Episode 3 explains why John Stewart may be one of the most naturally formidable Green Lanterns we've seen; but the answer comes with a cost. Adam looks at John's childhood, the extreme training his parents put him through after learning he might someday be chosen by the Guardians, the meaning behind his persistent bird construct and the uncomfortable line between preparing a child...

After years on the shelf, Coyote vs. Acme finally made it to theaters, and seeing the finished movie only makes Warner Bros.' original decision more confusing. Adam reviews the long-delayed Looney Tunes film, its surprisingly sharp corporate satire, its deep affection for animation history and the human relationships that keep it just short of a perfect score. There's also an unavoidable i...

HBO’s Lanterns looked like it might turn Green Lantern into a grounded prestige drama and leave the cosmic weirdness behind. After the first two episodes, Adam is pleasantly surprised. Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre establish a strong Hal Jordan/John Stewart dynamic, the central mystery actually makes good use of the detective format, and the series is not shying away from constructs, the Green La...

If an entire town gets thrown into prehistoric Earth, the town should probably matter. This week on Beware of Spoilers , Adam breaks down The End of Oak Street , a new Bad Robot dinosaur movie with an excellent premise but too many competing ideas. From an underdeveloped suburban community to a marriage subplot that keeps interrupting the survival story, the movie repeatedly hints at more interest...

Full spoilers ahead. Adam saw Spider-Man: Brand New Day and calls it the first time he's felt confident in the MCU in years. A complete breakdown of who Sadie Sink is playing, why the Peter/*REDACTED* symmetry is the smartest thing in the movie, and how a self-contained, street-level Spider-Man story quietly lays every piece of groundwork the *REDACTED* saga needs. Plus the Tom Holland and Jon...

The first new Avatar project in nearly a decade is here, and Adam has thoughts. A full-spoilers review of Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender , why it's one of the best-looking things the franchise has ever produced, and why it should never have been dumped onto streaming. Plus the central problem: scale. From wrecking Republic City, to unlocking a beast-mode Avatar State, to granting airbending t...

Adam finally caught Obsession , the sub-million-dollar Blumhouse phenomenon that became the horror hit of the year, and he's got reservations the hype train left behind. A full-spoilers breakdown of why Inde Navarrette's multi-layered performance is genuinely Oscar-worthy, how the monkey's-paw premise nails its unsettling middle stretch, and why the blood-soaked third act breaks the fi...

Christopher Nolan is back, and Adam is ready to call it: The Odyssey is the best film of the year so far and a full five stars. Join in for a spoiler-inclusive breakdown (though the book is 3000 years old so the statute of limitations has well passed) of why Nolan has quietly become the best deconstructionist in film, taking a story you half-remember from high school and rebuilding it around its e...

My Adventures with Superman is back after nearly two years, and Adam digs into the first three episodes of season three. Is this secretly Kara's season, how the Reign of the Supermen arc reframes Cyborg Superman as a Lex Luthor story, and why the show's refusal to hit the reset button on Clark and Lois makes it the most emotionally honest Superman on screen. Plus the Seto Kaiba take on Lex...

DC's second swing lands, mostly. Adam caught an early screening of Supergirl and makes the case that Milly Alcock's jaded, Woman of Tomorrow -flavored Kara is strong enough to carry a film with real structural cracks. Full spoilers on the Kara-and-Ruthye dynamic that anchors the whole thing, the grungy visual design that makes the action hard to follow, the third-act green-screen problem,...

The toys are back, and Adam has thoughts about whether they needed to be. A full-spoilers breakdown of Toy Story 5 , the Lilypad tablet villain, a tech-and-childhood theme the movie raises and then refuses to actually wrestle with, why this is fundamentally Jessie's story and all the better for it, how the film gets caught serving two masters, the conspicuous absence of anything Lightyear -rel...

Adam caught the world premiere of the first two episodes of X-Men '97 season 2 at the Tribeca Festival, and this one's deliberately spoiler-free ahead of the show's July 1 return. The team is scattered across time, Apocalypse steps up as the season's central threat, and the second episode delivers a piece of character work that earns a Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 comparison in t...

Steven Spielberg is back in theaters for the first time since The Fabelmans , and he's returned to the aliens that made him. Adam digs into Disclosure Day , Spielberg's coldest, most institutional take on first contact, built on a sharp premise: the government can't keep a secret this big, but a tech company could. Full spoilers ahead on Emily Blunt's award-worthy performance, the...

John Carney is back in wide release for the first time since Sing Street , and Power Ballad might be the movie that finally gets him the Best Original Song nomination the Academy has owed him for a decade. We get into Paul Rudd's quietly devastating turn as a wedding singer whose song gets stolen, Nick Jonas as the surprise of the film, the structural problem that keeps it from a perfect score...

After almost fifteen years in development hell, He-Man finally hits the big screen. We get into why the new Masters of the Universe plays like a 2009 idea in a 2026 body, how shamelessly it lifts from Thor: Ragnarok , the message it keeps undercutting, and the one cameo that nearly saves it. Plus: the most egregious product placement of the year. Preorder Adam's latest book Succession Planning...

As Frank Castle searches for meaning beyond revenge, an unexpected force pulls him back into the fight, but does One Last Kill make the most of its runtime? On today's Beware of Spoilers, Adam digs into the Marvel Special Presentation, the action, the character work, and what it sets up for Castle's next appearance.

The Season 2 finale of Daredevil: Born Again is here, and Adam is breaking it all down. Karen Page's trial reaches its explosive conclusion, Matt Murdock makes a choice that will change his life forever, and the Kingpin's grip on New York City finally starts to crack, but not without a fight. We're also talking Defenders team-ups, shocking cameos, and a season-ending moment that sets u...

Miranda Priestly is back, and so are we. Adam reviews the long-awaited sequel and breaks down whether it earns its place alongside the original or if it should have stayed in the closet. Spoilers included.

Adam discusses the 6th and 7th episodes of Daredevil: Born Again season 2 on Disney+!