Adventure Films
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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (PG)
Half-Blood Prince is the first, and perhaps only, Harry Potter film to feel like it isn’t trying to be a good “Harry Potter film” and just does its best at being a good film. The seventh film has a similar tone, and Azkaban encapsulates what it is to be a Harry Potter film the best, but my point stands. In the sixth cinematic installment of the franchise, Harry Potter and his friends are ordinary British teens placed in extraordinary circumstances, but instead of focusing on the circumstances, the film chooses to focus on the teens – and is much better off because of it.
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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (PG)
In the evangelical circles of my childhood, Harry Potter was anathema; when I was allowed to read the books in high school, they still carried the sense of something forbidden about them, though by the time I reached college, J.K. Rowling was suddenly accorded the reverence due a long-lost member of the Inklings. Suffice it […]
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Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (PG-13)
Do not go to see this film. Let me qualify: do not spend money seeing Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom unless your desire is to make two hours and ten minutes of your life feel more like four or five. It is a perfect proving ground for testing the relative perception of the passing of time. […]
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Solo: A Star Wars Story (PG-13)
By all accounts, Solo: A Star Wars Story is the post-Lucas Star Wars movie that should feel most like a corporate product. In a bizarre paradox, it may actually be the one that feels most human. The other post-Lucas films have been intriguing but haphazard; that Solo possesses a simple sort of dramatic competency should […]
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Star Wars: The Last Jedi – An Explication (PG-13)
Although I have waited till now to publish any written thoughts on the film, it is fairly common knowledge in various circles of the internet that I do not much care for Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The number of fishes above might also indicate this, though I have found it difficult to settle on a rating for the film, because my thoughts and feelings on it are mixed – conflicted, one might say.
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Avengers: Infinity War (PG-13)
Avengers: Infinity War is as middle-of-the-road between better and lesser MCU films as I am middle-of-the-road between the two camps of reviewers. The MCU’s greatest weaknesses are on full display here, and while Infinity War doesn’t always play to the MCU’s greatest strengths, it does keep my hope alive that those strengths do exist. Infinity War is not a game-changer. It could have been, should have been, and almost was, but it’s more of the same—only it’s more of the same to the power of more of the same.
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Isle of Dogs (PG-13)
I have just checked. At the moment, there are only two movies streaming in the “Children & Family” section of Netflix which I would allow my daughters, ages 6 and 8, to watch. I love children, and happily admit myself to be one of those naïve romantics who does not really believe them capable of […]
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Ready Player One (PG-13)
Ready Player One depicts a future world inhabited by people who would rather live out their days in a virtual reality world — and the sad truth is that it doesn’t feel too inauthentic of a possible real-life future. For as much as a film like this wishes to sing the virtues of our society’s […]
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X-Men: First Class (PG-13)
G.K. Chesterton’s essay “Vengeance” suggests that although modern law is highly refined, it can evolve into a system devoid of any passion and become a machine which unreflectively punishes people. “The evil in our modern law is not one of barbaric passions, but one of passionless routine. The trouble is not that a lawyer really […]
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Black Panther (PG-13)
Recently – within the last three months, let’s say – the latest entry in a blockbuster franchise with at least ten theatrical releases to its name (and a million more well on the way) was released. This new film received near-universal critical praise, with many viewers ecstatically describing it as a departure from previous installments […]
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Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (PG-13)
What makes a film, or anything for that matter, good? Perhaps I should answer that in a different way, since the word “good” in the English language has two broad but distinct definitions – the first moral, the second beneficial. Both of these are valuable as qualities in filmmaking, but what I mean to ask specifically is how do we, from our various frames of reference, discern value in a particular film?
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TRON: Legacy (PG)
TRON: Legacy can hardly be called a great film, but it made quite the impression on me when I first saw it on opening night back in December of 2010, and I have been making excuses for it ever since. Emerging from the theater, I might even, in my adolescent fervor, have described it as […]
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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 […]