NT Movie Reviews

The Royal Hotel is a tense look at what happens when two young women find themselves tending bar near a mining depot out in the Australian desert. With both a look at how alcohol can affect the patrons as well as the workers, The Royal Hotel is a cautionary tale in just about every way as it pertains to working a bar and the kind of trouble people get in when they’ve gone too far. As a bartender m...

Fair Play is a tantalizing look at the dynamic of power in relationships and just how far away from yourself you can get as you succumb to your role. While not quite the erotic thriller it’s being billed as, this film certainly looks at control and power from a few different perspectives that always leave you guessing where our protagonists’ heads may be at. Beneath the financial drama of this fil...

Reptile is a stylish and slow-burning detective procedural that follows a mysterious detective caught in a den of deceit. Co-Written by and starring Benicio Del Toro, this latest from Netflix is made in the likeness of other detective thrillers like Zodiac and Prisoners , but with a lot more modern visual flare. While it certainly doesn’t reach the same level of prestige as the films it emulates,...

No One Will Save You is an alien home invasion thriller that piques your sci-fi interest but unfortunately stumbles on its way to the finale. Leaving much of the story up to flashbacks and silent interactions, this mostly silent film relies heavily on atmospheric music and creepy aliens to hold your attention. As far as solo survival films go, it’s often a challenge to push the story past the 90-m...

Spy Kids: Armageddon is underwhelming and a far-departure from the once great family film franchise that balanced great story with even greater characters. Despite coming from the same man who brought us the original trilogy, Armageddon feels lifeless in comparison and only had me wishing for any kind of easter egg or cameo from anyone we’d recognize. I understand that things change with time and...

Flora and Son is a light and mostly enjoyable musical movie that offers plenty of laughs but falls short of making any real connection with its original music. Streaming on Apple TV+ after playing a couple different film festivals recently, this was easily one of my most anticipated movies of the year, especially given the musical and story strength of writer/director John Carney’s previous works....

The Creator is one of the most original and thought-provoking pieces of science fiction as it relates to artificial intelligence and the reality of human nature. Rather than just creating something that’s stands as a visual spectacle, director and writer Gareth Edwards embeds you in this near-present society and crafts a future that feels lived-in and incredibly believable. Everyone is always worr...

Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham reunite with a new crew after nearly a decade to kick more old-man ass with knives and guns blazing in Expendables 4 ! The old action hero Suicide Squad is back with a fresh rotation and even more obscure talent to do the job few could accomplish. What’s remarkable is that even after almost another decade, The Expendables is still largely enjoyable if you’re wi...

A Million Miles Away is the inspiring true story of Astronaut Jose Hernandez and his journey from working in the fields as a child to soaring high above the atmosphere. A young migrant worker who would spend his life dreaming of life in the stars, Hernandez worked tirelessly for decades to reach those stars while balancing a life with his wonderful family. Influenced by his parents and the strengt...

Dumb Money is a crowd-pleasing and frustrating look at the world of stocks and how Wall Street execs try to control the markets to keep the little guys out. Following in the footsteps of The Big Short (though not nearly as detailed and informative) this film smartly pits the 99% against the 1% who seem to have little regard for the rest of the people in this country trying to make an honest living...

A Haunting in Venice follows world-renowned detective Hercule Poirot to Italy to unearth the mystery of a young girl’s death and a supposedly haunted house! Over the last six years Kenneth Branagh has quietly put together an incredibly entertaining trilogy of Agatha Christie’s works, each film highlighting a different and integral aspect of Christie’s writing. With a smaller and less high-profile...

Bottoms is a hysterical satire of the high school experience told from the perspective of the unattractive and talentless queer students who form a fight club to get laid. While high schools and students have changed over the years, the same anxieties and insecurities forever loom over the next waves of students in an endless cycle. Playing in a very similar vein to the 21 Jump Street film, this f...

How To Blow Up A Pipeline is an anxiety-fueled eco-terrorist thriller that captures an intense and understandable rage towards corporations responsible for harming the planet with their practices. Based on a novel of the same name written by Andreas Malm, the film captures the anger and resentment that’s fueled by many in our country in terms of how our land is treated and how that adversely affec...

The Equalizer 3 follows Denzel Washington to Sicily where he learns organized crime never sleeps and shows the world that ass kicking is a universal language! The Equalizer 3 takes things slow to start, as we watch McCall rehabilitate a nasty back wound in a beautiful coastal town in Sicily. While taking the time to regain his strength and slowly get back into fight-ready shape, McCall can’t help...

Blue Beetle is DC’s intro to one of its most enjoyable heroes and their first Latino superhero to debut on the big screen! The story of Jaime Reyes is one that’s intensely focused on his family dynamic and his Mexican heritage, showcasing the lives that many in our own country lead as Mexican Americans. After originally being slated to release on streaming only, Warner Bros. made an uncharacterist...

Set in the social media age of filming everything, Talk To Me is a unsettling thriller that sees teens making a game of contacting & being possessed by spirits. The blend of grief and horror works exceptionally well in this film, providing great emotional highs, but also taking you to some dark and horrifying lows. The horror on display here is of a jarring and unpredictable type that’s made s...

Gran Turismo is a fantastic live-action representation of the hyper-successful video game franchise and the racecar drivers it would eventually inspire. Taking the underdog story to video game simulation and racecar driving, this film smartly reaffirms the odds stacked against a kid who’s played video games his whole life and how those skills will translate in an actual super car. For all the simu...

Heart of Stone is Netflix’s latest attempt at launching a potential spy series, this time more in the vein of the Mission: Impossible franchise with Gal Gadot at the helm! While there are dozens of moments and cues that will feel familiar to you in the film, Heart of Stone executes them well for the most part. Even though I know I’ve seen Tom Cruise and Keanu Reeves and James Bond’s all do similar...

The Last Voyage of the Demeter is the cinematic retelling of the Captain's Logs from Bram Stoker's original novel, 'Dracula' . The film follows the crew of The Demeter as they sail from Romania to England with unknown cargo aboard from an unknown master. After a stowaway is found beneath the deck and is discovered with bite marks in her neck, things take a turn for the horrific as something begins...

They Cloned Tyrone is inventive and twisted science fiction that balances huge laughs with sociopolitical commentary centered around the black community! When I tell that you that I keep waiting for Netflix to surprise me, this is exactly the kind of proactive and expertly crafted film I was talking about. Director and co-writer Juel Taylor (writer of Creed II and Space Jam: A New Legacy ) has tap...

Dreamin' Wild is a soft-spoken look at the Emerson Brothers lives and how the album they recorded as teens would find an audience decades later. Brothers Donnie and Joe (Casey Affleck and Walton Goggins) grew up on their family farm out in Fruitland, Washington, working the land by day and spending their evenings writing and recording music. Secluded from most of the outside world and not having m...

The Beanie Bubble is a look at the successful women who helped turned Beanie Babies into one of the world's first massive secondary market crazes! In a world where you can resell practically anything to the right group of people, it was refreshing and crazy to spin the clock back and watch people fight and gather en-masse to collect as many Beanie Babies as they could. The principals of supply and...

Meg 2: The Trench brings big action and even bigger bites than the first film and gives Jason Statham another opportunity to show us why the world loves him. When thinking of Summer movie season and the type of blockbuster films we're used to seeing, it's always refreshing to get a creature feature in the mix and it helps when it doesn't take itself too seriously. Follow NT Movie Reviews on all so...

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is a breezy and refreshing animated reboot from Seth Rogen by way of the artistic style of the Spiderverse films! Capitalizing on the overwhelmingly positive response from audiences in terms of comic book art styles being replicated on screen, TMNT Mutant Mayhem is a visual delight that injects some new life into this franchise for new and old audiences...

Disney returns with a remake of the Haunted Mansion, the infamous Disneyland ride that has entertained audiences for decades. Twenty years after the last Haunted Mansion movie this film takes another family friendly approach to horror and ghosts, however this time bringing in some great discussion about grief and how to move forward. It leaves a lot to be desired by the way of scares and excitemen...