Freeze Frame

What do you get when you combine an intriguing story, great cast, impressive production values and a top-notch director? In the case of “Amsterdam,” you get a real mess. Christian Bale, Margot Robbie and John David Washington lead a terrific ensemble in David O. Russell’s bold experiment gone awry. It’s a murder mystery, period drama, […]

A heartfelt and empathetic performance by Ana de Armas as troubled Hollywood superstar Marilyn Monroe isn’t quite enough to elevate the excessively depressing NC-17 drama, “Blonde, ” now on Netflix. […]

Olivia Wilde’s feminist sci-fi thriller “Don’t Worry Darling” has generated outsized interest due to the headlines involving the backstage turmoil during and after filming. I just wish the movie were as […]

“The Woman King” should be a contender for a gold crown come Oscar time. Viola Davis leads a stellar cast in this action-packed historical epic about an elite unit of female […]

America’s dad wants to be a real dad. Tom Hanks stars as Geppetto in the Disney Plus live-action remake of the 1940 animated masterpiece, “Pinocchio.” Cynthia Erivo plays the Blue Fairy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt provides the voice of Jiminy Cricket and Keegan-Michael Key is the duplicitous Honest John. Hanks re-teams here for the fourth time with […]

When it comes to the comic mockumentary “Honk for Jesus, Save Your Soul,” you can thank heaven for one thing: the outstanding performances from Regina Hall and Sterling K. Brown. They play the first lady and pastor of a megachurch, preaching the gospel of prosperity. But a sex scandal complicates their comeback efforts. This dark […]

The Idris Elba film fest continues for the second week in a row with the ambitious fantasy, “Three Thousand Years of Longing.” Elba plays a genie who emerges from a bottle to grant scholar Tilda Swinton three wishes. What follows is an off-beat philosophical meditation on human desire. This earnest effort was written and directed […]

Who is the king of the jungle, man or beast? Idris Elba finds out the hard way in the unnerving new action thriller, “Beast.” A widower doctor takes his estranged teenage girls to Africa to visit a wildlife preserve. They encounter an enraged lion out to kill all humans after his pride is wiped out by […]

If “Men in Black” had been about vampires instead of aliens, it may have looked a bit like the tongue-in-cheek horror movie, “Day Shift.” Jamie Foxx plays a rogue vampire hunter in suburban LA. He tries to get back in the vampire hunters union, but has troubles with his new union steward, played by Dave […]

Brad Pitt is a charismatic, Oscar-winning actor. His considerable efforts and some outstanding stunt choreography aren’t enough to save the over-the-top action comedy, “Bullet Train.” Pitt plays an assassin sent to Japan to recover a mysterious briefcase on the world’s fastest train, only to find himself confronting an assortment of colorful bad guys. The frantic action […]

File the animated action comedy “DC League of Super Pets” under the ‘pleasant surprises’ category. Krypto, Superman’s dog, puts together a crew of rescue pets to save his master and the other members of the Justice League when their lives are threatened by a super evil guinea pig. Okay, okay, I thought this one would […]

Jordan Peele’s ambitious and inventive sci-fi horror entry “Nope” is one part brilliant and three parts frustrating. It’s as if M. Knight Shyamalan had decided to remake Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” with the goal of creeping us out. Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer play proprietors of a horse training ranch who attempt […]

The troubled life of former Kansas City Royals first baseman Willie Aikens gets the inspirational biopic treatment with “The Royal.” It’s currently showing theatrically at the Screenland Armour and is available on multiple streaming platforms. Amin Joseph plays Aikens who clung to his dignity after serving years in prison on drug charges. “The Royal” is an instructive […]

When comedian Taika Waititi wrote and directed the 2017 Marvel epic “Thor: Ragnarok,” he injected the Avengers series with a playful, irreverent twist, emphasizing humor as well as action. He made Thor a bit of a goof. Still heroic, but also flawed and fearful. Watiti employs that same template with its follow-up, “Thor: Love and […]

“Minions: The Rise of Gru” is the fifth movie in the hit animated “Despicable Me” franchise. The kids are already tuned in, but the makers of this origin story cleverly place the action in the 1970s to give adults a cagey nostalgia hit. We learn how Gru met the yellow fellows and how he fulfilled his aspirations […]

The life of rock n’ roll legend Elvis Presley gets an over-the-top, almost operatic treatment with Baz Luhrmann’s phantasmagorical two-hour and forty-five-minute biopic, “Elvis,” Tom Hanks plays his Svengali-like manager, Col. Tom Parker, narrating the story from his selfish, opportunistic perspective. Austin Butler is excellent as the naive but extraordinarily talented Presley, seen here as […]

Buzz Lightyear, the Space Ranger who inspired the fabled action figure from “Toy Story,” gets an origin story with “Lightyear.” Chis Evans provides the voice of our hero who battles the evil Emperor Zurg and his robot army while attempting to protect fellow space travelers on a remote planet millions of miles from Earth. The animation […]

The “Jurassic Park” films have raked in over $5 billion at the worldwide box office. Naturally, Hollywood is as interested in resurrecting the franchise as the evil corporations are in resurrecting those aggressive dinosaurs. “Jurassic World Dominion” is the sixth film in the series, and it offers more of the same, an abundance of action, […]

Lenexa, Kansas native and “America’s Got Talent” winner Grace VanderWaal stars in the Disney+ musical, “Hollywood Stargirl,” a sequel to the 2020 film “Stargirl.” When Stargirl and her mom leave Arizona for the West Coast, the young singer gets involved with neighbors trying to make their own movie. While it’s totally predictable and filled with […]

It’s been 36 years since Tom Cruise first scrambled his jets in the action blockbuster “Top Gun.” The long-gestating sequel “Top Gun: Maverick” has finally arrived and, happily, these Navy pilots nearly reach mach 10. But, as Maverick says, “You don’t have time to think up there. You think, you’re dead.” Good advice for the audience, […]

The second “Downton Abbey” feature film, “Downton Abbey: A New Era,” provides fans with just what they expect from their favorite British period soap opera; High-toned escapism. Multiple plot threads unfold as the dowager countess, played with her patented aristocratic spunk by Dame Maggie Smith, discovers that she has inherited a villa in the south of […]

Is it possible to find comfort in mutual desperation? The extremely edgy comic drama “On the Count of Three” dares to explore that thorny question in a story about two friends who make a mutual suicide pact. Jerrod Carmichael and Christopher Abbott are excellent, full stop, as lifelong friends who decide that life’s challenges aren’t […]

Remember Charles Bronson, the actor who in the 1970s and 80s, made a slew of bloody revenge dramas during his golden years? The career of Liam Neeson has taken a similar trajectory. The latest example is “Memory,” the story of an aging hit man who gains a conscience but loses his memory. When he’s assigned to […]

The medieval Viking legend of Amleth, the inspiration for Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” becomes a dark big screen extravaganza in “The Northman.” Alexander Skarsgård takes the title role of a prince who spends years seeking revenge on his uncle who killed his father, married his mother, and stole his kingdom. Director Robert Eggers lacks Shakespeare’s depth and poetry but […]

The Harry Potter prequels have all the superior production values that fans have come to expect from this popular franchise. And while better than the previous episode, “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore” is still saddled with a somewhat clunky, meandering storyline. Jude Law returns as Hogwarts professor Albus Dumbledore, but Mads Mikkelsen replaces Johnny […]