Eternals makes its aims clear, but the whole enterprise is frictionless, resulting in one of the most flavorless Marvel films to date. Meet the Eternals, featured in Marvel’s interminable newest installment bearing their name. A band of ageless superheroes brought to Earth eons ago…
Blockbuster Beat by Matt Lynch Film
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings | Destin Daniel Cretton
Shang-Chi is perfunctory origin story work boasting little characterization and an overestimation of its representational currency. The Marvel Cinematic Universe marches on undaunted with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which, despite its representational bona-fides, could not be a more purely generic exercise…
Jungle Cruise‘s attempts at throwback family adventuring are lost to a miasma of awful VFX and greenscreen compositing. For some reason, Disney’s Jungle Cruise, a $200 million family-oriented studio blockbuster based on a children’s amusement park ride, begins with the opening strains of Metallica’s…
Black Widow is fairly lightweight and doesn’t impress much with its action or visual design, but the character work and comedy prove somewhat redemptive. Although it takes place sometime between the events of Civil War and Infinity War, Black Widow begins in the mid-’90s, with…
Luca is an obviously gorgeous film, but its half-cooked conception and execution continues the recent trend of sub-par Pixar efforts. The currently swirling rumors which claim that Luca is Pixar’s family-friendly version of Call Me By Your Name can safely be set aside. Sure, the…
Cruella begins from a stupid premise and proceeds to do little more than inspire product development and contribute to the Dalmatians Easter egg canon. A few minutes into Disney’s completely unasked-for live-action prequel Cruella, little Estella — one day to become animated arch-villain Cruella…
Mulan fails as action spectacle and lazily cribs from the vast cinematic legacy it so loosely approximates. After such massive financial successes as Beauty and the Beast and especially last year’s The Lion King, it was of course highly unlikely that Disney would stop mining their…
The One and Only Ivan is an intentionally inclusive, surprisingly unbusy animated offering from Disney. Over the past few weeks, Disney has gone on a bit of a promotional blitz for their latest animal-centric feature, The One and Only Ivan, with ads built around a…
Beyonce’s instincts for visual panache are undermined by the studio’s clear attempt to expropriate and Disneyfy Black is King. As an act of synergy, the Beyonce-directed Disney+ release Black is King feels natural, perhaps even inevitable. At this point, Beyonce has successfully built herself…
Hamilton barely qualifies as a film, losing much of what makes it a stage success in translation, and its historical revisionism feels much murkier in 2020 America. In New York, during the 19th century, there was Broadway, which catered to New York’s more affluent…