Adventure Films
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Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (PG-13)
Recently, FilmFisher editor Joshua Gibbs wrote a piece defending film critics against a common accusation: “This film was just plain fun. Why don’t you snobby film critics get it?” I stand by Gibbs’ argument in that piece, and would like to make an addendum: it is difficult to make a film that is truly fun. […]
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Wonder Woman (PG-13)
In the Pensées, Pascal writes, “I blame equally those who decide to praise man [and] those who blame him… I can only approve those who search in anguish.” Pascal’s anguish stems from man’s contradictory nature: caught inescapably between the extremes of wretchedness and greatness, he is neither wretched enough to be a beast nor great […]
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Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (PG-13)
Gareth Edwards’ Rogue One: A Star Wars Story feels nothing like any other Star Wars film. At first, that’s jarring, even off-putting. Once you settle into its particular rhythm, it’s exhilarating. There is no opening crawl of yellow text setting up the story. There are no Kurosawa-esque wipes to transition between scenes. The story isn’t […]
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Doctor Strange (PG-13)
Scott Derrickson’s Doctor Strange is the latest installment in the rapidly expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe, a collection of interconnected superhero movies that, to many viewers, are starting to feel like indistinguishable products. Doctor Strange sidesteps and invites that complaint in interesting ways. The broad strokes of the story here are par for the course, with […]
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Suicide Squad: Are Comic Book Movies Actually Interesting? (PG-13)
“A lot of comic book movies are actually pretty interesting…” If, over the last ten years, you have lived within the vicinity of teenage boys, you are likely familiar with this claim. The claim that a thing is “actually interesting” is, often enough, actually interesting in and of itself. The “actually interesting” claim assumes that […]
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Captain America: Civil War (PG-13)
This is the zenith of Marvel’s storytelling method. Over the past eight years – a time period winkingly referred to in the film – the studio has built an intricately interconnected “cinematic universe” through thirteen feature films. This model has drawbacks and benefits, both of which I discuss at length in my essay on The […]
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The Avengers: Age of Ultron and the Ethos of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (PG-13)
INTRO: Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Joss Whedon, and Myself I consider myself a casual Marvel fan. I could probably count the number of superhero comics I’ve read on one hand, but I’ve seen every film in the “Marvel Cinematic Universe” (the web of interconnected superhero films that started with Iron Man) since Iron Man 2 (2010) in […]
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The Lone Ranger: Gore Verbinski’s Unheralded Masterpiece (PG-13)
Part 1: Introduction “I cannot tell if this horse is stupid, or just pretending to be stupid.” – Tonto (Johnny Depp) A similar dilemma faced those who watched Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger when it was released over 2013’s Fourth of July weekend. Was it stupid? Or just pretending to be stupid? Most critics and […]
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Where’s That Olde Time Religion? The Force Awakens (PG-13)
I suspect I am not unique in claiming to have had serious conversations with friends in the wee hours of the morning wherein real considerations of future plans have been hashed out using the original Star Wars trilogy as a template for a genuine pursuit of truth and goodness. Should I find a Yoda under […]
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Left Behind: A Good Premise for a Lousy Movie (Not Rated)
Blessed be Netflix, that magical website which allows one to watch terrible movies without feeling guilty about paying for it. After all, you already dished out $8 for the month. The only problem is that sometimes the movies aren’t just bad. They are horrid. Left Behind is a perfect illustration. One will, no doubt, walk […]
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The Martian: The Art of Not Knowing a Place for the First Time (PG-13)
If there is a reason why Americans do not easily cease from exploration it is because, for us, knowing a place for the first time is a horrifying prospect. English colonial writers had a sense of place and Russian novelists a sense of space, but Americans have always been most at home on the frontier—a […]
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Beyond the Mask: Parable or Fluff Film? (PG)
Some stories shun a theme or philosophy or moral—they are meant purely for enjoyment. No one gets much moral edification from The Three Musketeers, but it remains a classic because we enjoy reading it. Die Hard has remained popular not because of any deep and lasting truths, but because it’s macho eye candy. These movies […]
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The Man From U.N.C.L.E., or, “The Anti-Kingsman” (PG-13)
In his essay, “Kingsman and the Maybe Genius of Non-Winking Satire,” Hulk Film Crit makes the rather bold assertion that Matthew Vaughn is a kind of blockbuster Martin Scorsese. As different as their methods may be, Hulk argues that their intentions are deeply similar: both approach ugly subjects with a brutal honesty that acknowledges the allure […]
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Ant-Man: A Humble Beginning (PG-13)
When a new planet swims into the ken of the Marvel cinematic universe, the gravity must be intense. Like stout Cortez staring at the Pacific for the first time, the wonder of new discovery quickly gives way to acquisition and assimilation. After several rounds of feature-length introductions to The Avengers, Ant-Man is an unexpected departure […]
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Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (PG-13)
When the theatre lights go down, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation starts to play the breathless beginning of Lilo Schifrin’s famous theme before the Paramount Studios mountain has even left the screen. With the Mission Impossible franchise now securely established, this is not a film that intends to waste time winning over its audiences. No, […]
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Paper Towns: The Teen Whisperer Mumbles (PG-13)
I know only of John Green what Hollywood has told me, which means Paper Towns is but my second venture into the mind of “the Teen Whisperer,” as Margot Talbot once referred to him in The New Yorker. As with The Fault in Our Stars, the characters in Paper Towns are self-reflective and hungry, but […]
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Inside Out: The Problem of Sadness (PG)
In his iconic work, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis said, “Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.” […]
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Jurassic World: It’s No Wonderful Life (PG-13)
“Oh, my God! We finally, really did it! You maniacs….Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!” The righteous invective Charlton Heston bellows in the final moments of The Planet of the Apes seems similarly suited to the resurrection and public opening of Jurassic Park. Bewilderingly, though, Jurassic World (both the film and the […]
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Tomorrowland (PG)
In the opening minutes of Tomorrowland, a young boy shows us his homemade jetpack. It is meant to be fun and inspiring, but has one problem: it doesn’t work. It’s always nice when a movie hands you a metaphor for itself. It’s not nice when that movie breaks your heart in the process. There may […]
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It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad Mad Max (R)
It’s hard to appreciate paganism properly. I can’t think of many convincingly pagan characters from motion pictures, because most cinematic pagans are nothing more than Republicans or athletes in togas. They talk like us, think like us, dress like us dressing like pagans, opine like us. Our ancient Greeks are suffragettes and our ancient Egyptians […]