List of All Articles with Tag 'review'

A half-century after the original helped rewrite the rules of horror and launched a thousand imitators, "The Exorcist: Believer" tries picking up that mantle, with the lure of 90-year-old Ellen Burstyn reprising her role. The nostalgia factor elevates an otherwise slow-building film that maintains an eerie creepiness before fumbling through a slightly muddled climactic act.

After three superbly savage seasons, "The Boys" has graduated to the spinoffs stage, first with the animated shorts "Diabolical" and now "Gen V," a supes-in-college series that's every bit as nasty -- in mostly good ways -- as the flagship series. Cleverly drafting off the anchor show, this coming-of-age superhero satire in some ways feels like what "The New Mutants" should have been.

Given the rarity of big, bold sci-fi concepts without a "2" after the title, it's a bit of shame to return a tepid verdict on "The Creator," director/co-writer Gareth Edwards' attempt to build a stirring drama around a war-ravaged future pitting humankind against artificial intelligence. While the film traffics in thoughtful ideas as well as spectacle, it doesn't complete the vital emotional connections between its head and its heart.

Two new documentaries challenge perceptions about how charitable endeavors can and should operate, and what's required for them to succeed in their stated missions.

The shortage of new scripted network series because of the writers strike makes "Krapopolis" and "The Irrational" stand out on the major networks, but only in terms of newness, not freshness. Indeed, a tired Fox animated sitcom and very familiar NBC crime procedural only provide a one-two reminder of what's not worth missing.

When considering the simple pleasures of the "John Wick" movies, character development and dense back story would rate somewhere below the bottom of the list. The world of streaming, however, favors the long winded, a factor much in evidence in "The Continental: From the World of John Wick," a handsomely produced but unnecessary prequel Peacock miniseries with a Keanu Reeves-shaped donut hole.

After three movies in four years, "The Expendables" waited more than nine to unleash its latest adventure, likely a testament to the poorly received youth movement introduced in the third film. "Expend4ables" seeks to provide a badly spelled tonic to that misstep but works from such a flimsy, threadbare script, "The Disposables" would describe it better.

"Dumb Money" takes full advantage of its David-vs.-Goliath underpinnings to turn a tale of stocks and finance, a la "The Big Short" or "Too Big to Fail," into a crowd-pleasing underdog story. Paul Dano heads a sprawling cast as the guy leading the rebels with pitchforks on behalf of GameStop, resulting in a film that's smart and satisfying enough to earn every dollar it makes.

"Restraint" is a seldom-used word in connection with "American Horror Story," where the emphasis often tilts more toward gory images and sadism than genuine scares. Yet working from a novel with a different writer appears to have imposed some welcome discipline on the 12th edition of the FX series, "Delicate," which owes a tonal debt to "Rosemary's Baby."

Nostalgia only goes so far with "The Super Models," a four-part Apple TV+ docuseries as glossy as a high-end fashion magazine of yore, and often as slim as one from the Internet age. Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington Burns lead this strut down memory lane, punctuated by occasional highlights but ultimately more celebratory than revelatory.

A long-awaited moment finally arrived for "Star Wars Rebels" fans in the sixth episode of "Ahsoka," marking the live-action debut of two fan favorites from that animated series.

As polarizing he might be, Sean Penn is no stranger to humanitarian efforts and crusading around the globe, as detailed in the documentary "Citizen Penn." Penn was in Ukraine when Russian bombs started falling in February 2022, which turns "Superpower" into a powerful chronicle of Ukrainian courage and resistance, in a way that reflects Penn's passion as opposed to journalistic detachment.