michael's movie reviews
2025
These are the movies I reviewed in 2025.
reviewed 2025.12.17
This is the original of a "man caught in a time loop" stories...
reviewed 2025.11.27
This is a movie about a CIA analyst who is motivated to enter the field by the murder of his wife...
reviewed 2025.11.27
I started watching this on a flight west-bound to Europe, and finished it on the return flight...
reviewed 2025.11.27
This movie has a stellar cast in an interesting setting and era, conveying an important and timely message about power-made plutocrats destroying American democracy to suit their hunger for more wealth and power...
reviewed 2025.11.01
This movie has a stellar cast that is squandered on a tell-don't-show story with an enormous gulf between two halves...
reviewed 2025.10.19
Well, I have a pretty strong chest cold and was laid up this evening...
reviewed 2025.10.18
This is a Jason Statham flick...
anacondas: the hunt for the blood orchid
reviewed 2025.10.17
Okay, look: sometimes you just want to unwind with a silly movie with some annoying people getting picked off by monsters...
reviewed 2025.10.15
I'll give this movie one thing - it wasn't as dumb as it looked in the trailers...
reviewed 2025.10.12
The Boy (aged seventeen) and I watched this as it's on a "movie bucket list" poster I gave him for Christmas...
reviewed 2025.09.28
This is a 1985 zombie movie, and the third in the trilogy by the original zombie director, George Romero. It's set in Florida that has been completely taken over by zombies. Aside from a small team of scientists and soldiers studying the zombies on an island in Florida, there is no sign that anything has survived in the dear old USA.The dysfunction between the scientists and the soldiers that ar..
reviewed 2025.09.20
This was on The Boy's movie bucket list. It's about a handful of ex intelligence officers hired by unknown parties to secure a MacGuffin, in this case an armored briefcase with unknown contents. "What's in the box?" being the operative question for the first 2/3 of the movie.What I enjoy about this thing is how the team of mutually strange-to..
reviewed 2025.09.03
This is a science fiction story that feels like Christian apologetics...
reviewed 2025.08.18
This was a disappointing "comedy" about a family that is embroiled in gangster business ...
reviewed 2025.08.18
I watched this on the plane, not having heard of it prior. It's about an American veteran of the US foray into Afghanistan*. She has PTSD and is plagued by constant waking visions of her dead friend Zoë. I liked everything about this, from the realistic characters, the engaging tone and plot, and the simple way that everyone involved seemed to handle the material with sufficient respect.Strongl..
reviewed 2025.07.26
This is a Japanese drama about some employees of a massive online retailer with a militant fulfillment operation that becomes the subject of a bombing campaign...
reviewed 2025.07.26
Well, movie names aren't getting any less dumb, but this third installment in a series of super-anti-hero flicks was a happy surprise...
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person
reviewed 2025.07.22
This is a Quebec vampire flick about a young man who falls in love with an ageless and non-killing vampire...
reviewed 2025.07.21
This is a sci-fi flick about a fellow who signs up for a settlement trip that will found a new human colony on a distant star...
reviewed 2025.07.18
For movie night, The Girl wanted to watch this. I'm honestly not sure where she might have heard of it, but it turned up on our Prime account so away we went.It is the best Transformers movie I have ever seen...
reviewed 2025.07.14
This is the sequel to a decent fantasy movie about some immortal warriors who work for God or something...
reviewed 2025.05.30
We have multiple streaming services for some reason. Sometimes this works out, such as seeing an interesting sci-fi flick about kids on the moon I'd never heard of. Other times, or I should say sometimes in the same example, the streaming provider yanks the movie from their platform and you go back to finish it with your twelve year old but it's gone.So maybe not a great example there.Other, o..
reviewed 2025.05.03
This turned out to be the kind of sci-fi/action flick you hope for: good enough to keep you watching, but largely free of over-the-top emotional indulgence or blockbuster CGI scenes that take you out of it...
reviewed 2025.04.27
This is a drama set on a Japanese bullet train (shinkansen) following the long route down from northern Japan to Tokyo. A bomb threat is placed just as the train gets up to speed, warning that the bombs are rigged to go off should the train go below 100 kph. To prove his seriousness, the bomber blows up a cargo train.By the time the crew is alerted and the clock is ticking, we have already met q..
reviewed 2025.03.30
This seminal movie has a problem: you cannot now watch it without thinking of many, many other titles that have come along since then plotting the same course...
reviewed 2025.03.23
This is a sci-fi flick set in the 1960's...
reviewed 2025.03.21
Yes, it's movie night with Netflix...
reviewed 2025.01.22
This is an action flick (it's in the name!) starring two former spies or assassins or whatever who are drawn back into the game after their quiet life as suburban parents is blown up online...
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
reviewed 2025.01.13
Much to my delight, we spotted this very late sequel to the 1993 movie Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers. It had some fun call-backs and of course pits the two nerds of these movies against the arch villain Feathers McGraw.We enjoyed the plot, the fun tone, and just about everything...
reviewed 2025.01.06
Netflix was promoting this sci-fi flick this weekend...