Reviews

I’ve been waiting to see a great dinosaur movie since JURASSIC PARK, but I might be giving up on that dream, unless I make it myself. JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH is the seventh(?!) in a franchise that just won’t go extinct. I guess this is a sequel to the last one, in the sense that the world has now grown tired of seeing dinosaurs and has now moved on (much like in my world). Shady millionaire Martin (Rupert Friend), a pharmaceutical representative, needs three unique samples of dino DNA for a groundbreaking new heart medication. He convinces Zora (Scarlett Johansson) the covert operation specialist, Duncan (Mahershala Ali) the smuggler, and Henry (Jonathan Bailey) the paleontologist, to go to a forbidden island where the most dangerous dinosaurs are. Simple. Meanwhile in another script, you have a family on a random boat ride near the area that nobody is supposed to go near! Well, they get capsized and saved by “Group gold-diggers” and are now forced to tag along their supposed suicide mission. I bet the studio head said they require a kid to be in the movie to relate to the kids in the audience. That’s just part of the reason why I’m done with this franchise. It has become too family friendly and too much like a theme park ride, absolutely no pun intended. The family literally does not need to be here. Also, I’m done with genetically designed dinosaurs. Give me something new. Give me a violent, bloody, scary, not for kids dino movie. To be fair, they got David Koepp, screenwriter of the original JURASSIC PARK. He doesn’t really have a good track record these days, and this definitely didn’t help. There are some scenes that were great, but the poor, stuffed script overshadows everything. Director Gareth Edwards is the main reason I actually don’t hate this movie. He is great at imposing scope and scale to keep the tension high. He knows how to create exciting action sequences. I started having fun when people started getting eaten, eventually. It took a literal slog through the jungle to get to the fun stuff though. In some ways, this is a return to form for the franchise. If only the writing was better. This movie needed a bit more time in the oven, but if you’re in the mood for re-heated leftovers, then you might have a good time with JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH. Life, uh, keeps finding a way.

After quite a few mediocre attempts, Apple finally has a big-budget hit on their hands. F1: THE MOVIE is, you guessed it, a movie about Formula 1 car racing. It features Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt), an old-school racer living nomadically who comes back into the fold of F1, convinced by his friend Ruben (Javier Bardem), who now owns the APXGP F1 team. Desperate for a win, Ruben has Sonny and Joshua (Damson Idris), a hotshot rookie, working together to try and save the team from being sold off. At first, they butt heads with their different driving styles. They have a great dynamic here. I was invested in the character drama. It has some of the usual sports movie tropes, but everything is executed so well here, these are easily overshadowed. This comes from the team of producer Jerry Bruckheimer, screenwriter Ehren Kruger, and director Joseph Kosinski, who recently made the mega-hit TOP GUN: MAVERICK. While in that, you felt like you were actually inside the cockpit, flying around doing extremely dangerous stunts. In this movie, I felt like I was actually inside a different kind of cockpit, going blistering speeds, one hand twitch away from death. The camera work combined with the sound design and the electrifying Hans Zimmer score reminded me of CHALLENGERS. Yes the story can be predictable and perhaps a smidge too long for some (not me), but the rest overshadows these small flaws. F1 is a team sport, which is something that’s heavily focused on here. They have also really embedded themselves in the infrastructure and lingo of Formula 1 racing, without making the audience feel lost. Pitt’s last few roles have been pretty interesting, all involving looking inward and thinking about the future or his legacy. He has now become the old-school mentor-type who follows his own rules, looking for redemption, coming in to try and help out a young whippersnapper who’s more interested in social media followers than actually winning. This is a sports movie to a T. Cars go vroom vroom. Tension within the team. Authentic blood-pumping races. Brad Pitt being Brad Pitt. Just like TOP GUN: MAVERICK, F1: THE MOVIE is a high-octane summer crowd-pleaser that is made to be seen on the big screen with big sound. Put the petal to the metal and get to a theater near you!

The biggest surprise of this week was “Onibaba” . I perhaps would never watch it if a friend hadn’t picked it out, because I thought it would just be another very Japanese (and Kwaidan-like) drama about an old female demon, as “Oni” means “demon” in Japanese, and “baba” means “an old woman”. But turns out it was just all too human, and the tiny, little, but nonetheless critical, supernatural factor appears in a most unexpected way.

The plot feels overly familiar, and many twists are far too easy to predict. The action scenes are passable, and while the pacing isn’t sluggish, it never feels tight. Worst of all, the main villain Daedalus—built up extensively in the first half—gets dispatched far too abruptly. It all feels a bit rushed and undercooked.

français

Good movie

A textbook teen horror thriller from the late '90s. The killer, a fisherman out for revenge, is clad in a raincoat and wielding a hook. While the mystery falls a bit flat, the mood is tense, the kills are bloody, and the overall experience is undeniably entertaining.

Clooney’s character is caught in a storm of betrayal, legacy, and fatherhood, and he responds with quiet resilience. His restrained, deeply human portrayal lends the film its moral core. Right or wrong, his decisions reflect the quiet strength of a man learning to live with imperfection.

Emotionally resonant and quietly devastating, the film doesn’t treat war as something distant or outdated. Children around the world are still facing similar threats of displacement and loss even today.

A genuinely funny and surprisingly engaging reality show. Today’s farming tech is massive and highly advanced, which makes it all the more exciting. But even with all the modern gear, a farmer’s fate still depends on the weather. The work is endless, the profit is modest, and without subsidies, most wouldn’t survive.

The production is polished and largely faithful to the novel, which makes for a decent watch. Still, the film struggles to find a voice of its own. After two centuries of constant reinterpretations, the source material now feels oddly dated in this form.

Still, I’m a fan of these grounded British-style crime dramas. The casting is sharp, with characters who are instantly distinctive. Their step-by-step, boots-on-the-ground investigative process feels closer to a true crime doc than fiction — refreshingly unflashy and believable.

“Hardcore Henry” deserves credit as a landmark in Russian visual storytelling. It fuses the immersive feel of first-person shooters with cinematic language—GoPro-style long takes, frenetic cuts, stylized flashbacks. It’s a bold experiment in merging two narrative forms.

The investigation relies almost entirely on eavesdropping, which quickly becomes tedious. Just because it’s based on true events doesn’t mean the screenplay should stop trying — this is a feature film, not a documentary.

While the plot is relatively tight, it lacks depth and originality. Hellboy’s character remains iconic, but there’s little evolution from earlier portrayals. The introduction of a rookie agent adds a hint of freshness but lacks chemistry with the titular antihero, leaving the narrative feeling tepid and uninspired.

As I finished the film, I couldn’t help but think—yes, Bobby took his own life under unbearable pressure, but at least he had the courage to confront his identity and be honest with those around him. His death, while tragic, became a catalyst for empathy and understanding in others.

Like many of its genre peers, this film lacks originality. Dim lighting, recycled jump-scare setups, and monotonous settings make it feel all too familiar yet not nearly frightening enough. The final rescue scene should have delivered emotional payoff, but unanswered plot questions and a rushed ending rob it of any real impact.

Sam’s psychological journey is charted with textbook precision. Tobey Maguire delivers a gripping performance, capturing the character’s inner turmoil with discipline and nuance, from his early restraint to his later breakdowns. A truly committed piece of acting.

I finished the whole season for Mia Healey. The early episodes were promising, and the race scenes had their thrills, but that ending—what was that? Does it mean there’s going to be a second season? Also, the emotional arcs felt underdeveloped and left a lot to be desired.

Beyond Pedro himself, the series focuses on a dark chapter in Mexican history—landowning elites who used marriage as a tool of control and cloaked their violence and exploitation in religion. The widespread abuse of women, the countless illegitimate children, and the psychological scars carried by fatherless children are stark reminders of how environment shapes identity. These are the truths that linger long after the final frame.