CAPSULE MOVIE REVIEWS: 11-14-25
- 3 days ago
- 28 min read
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My Film Critic pants are quite fetching; they are on, pressed, and ironed. I'm ready to review seven new movies in this week's capsule (short) movie reviews for Friday, November 14th, 2025.
Edgar Wright's The Running Man is the second adaptation of Stephen King's 1982 novel (originally written under his Richard Bachman pseudonym) and a remake of the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger cult favorite.
Set in a dystopian future ruled by media manipulation and government corruption, the story follows Ben Richards (Glen Powell), a desperate everyman forced to participate in a deadly game show where contestants ("runners") must survive while being hunted down for sport.
In this version, the show's host (Colman Domingo) and its sleazy producer (Josh Brolin) control a society addicted to televised violence.
Richards becomes both pawn and rebel in a world where entertainment has replaced truth, and rebellion means survival. Wright's film aims for timely political commentary about propaganda, misinformation, and the commodification of violence. It's intended to be sharp, satirical, and thrilling. Unfortunately, it ends up being none of those things.
I am a huge Edgar Wright fan. Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World's End: AKA The Cornetto Trilogy, are some of my favorite comedies of all time. Baby Driver is one of the best action movies of the past 25 years. It's stylish, propulsive, brilliantly choreographed, and filled with incredible use of music. I adore that film.
But lately, Wright seems to be losing his touch. Last Night in Soho was a beautifully shot mess, and now The Running Man feels like the work of a filmmaker completely unsure of his own voice.
From the opening moments, the tone is all over the place. Wright can't decide what kind of movie he's making: part political satire, part futuristic action, part wacky reality-TV parody, and part overwrought melodrama about a man fighting to save his family.
Those things could all work in theory, but here they clash. The tonal whiplash is exhausting. One minute it's a tongue-in-cheek game show spoof with over-the-top performances, the next it's trying to be deadly serious and emotional, and neither approach lands.
This is a loud, chaotic, painfully unfunny mess of a movie. It doesn't feel like Edgar Wright directed it at all.
And then there's Glen Powell. Look, if you've listened to my podcast or read any of my reviews, you already know how I feel about him. He's one of the most limited, irritating, smug actors working today.
Every role he plays feels like the same guy; he's cocky, hollow, and overly pleased with himself. He's supposed to be the "everyman" hero here, but Powell couldn't be less relatable. I never buy a single moment of his performance. His attempts at sincerity fall flat, his rage feels phony, and there's not a trace of depth anywhere.
He's the wrong guy for this role, plain and simple. When your entire movie hinges on the audience caring about your protagonist's survival, you can't cast an actor who makes people root for the Hunters instead.
Then there's Colman Domingo as the show's flamboyant host. I know a lot of people love him, but I just don't get it. He's a showy, overly theatrical performer, and here he's just unbearable....and he is NO Richard Dawson.
Every gesture, every line reading feels forced. It's acting with a capital A. And it doesn't help that he seems to be in a completely different movie from everyone else.
Josh Brolin (an actor I usually love) is wasted. He's stuck playing a one-dimensional corporate villain with fake white teeth for some reason, and even he seems bored. Lee Pace, as the masked Hunter leader, doesn't fare any better. His big unmasking moment near the end lands with a thud.
There is, however, one stretch of the movie that works...and it's no coincidence that it's the only part that actually feels like Edgar Wright directed it. It's a 10- to 15-minute sequence involving Michael Cera (playing a rebel named Elton) and Sandra Dickinson as his crazy TV-addicted mother.
The tone, the energy, the editing...all of it suddenly clicks. There's a wild action scene scored to Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker) by The Rolling Stones that absolutely rips, the way Wright used Bellbottoms or Hocus Pocus in Baby Driver.
For a few glorious minutes, the film comes to life. It's funny, dynamic, and full of that rhythmic, visually inventive flair that made Wright famous.
And then it's gone. The movie goes right back to being a loud, humorless slog.
The screenplay (by Wright and Michael Bacall) is a jumble of tones and half-baked ideas. It wants to be a biting commentary on media addiction and authoritarianism, but it never says anything new. The satire is as subtle as a sledgehammer, the political commentary is obvious, and the attempts at emotional depth are laughable.
Wright fills the movie with little "Easter eggs" referencing Stephen King's universe (background signage, character names, visual gags), but they feel lazy and meaningless. In Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz, his pop-culture nods were clever, purposeful, and woven into the storytelling.
Here, they're just empty fan-service decorations. Seeing "Walken" or "Nicholson" or "Spacek" written above a dressing room vestibule isn't clever; it's just there.
And the film's look, while flashy, loud, and slick, is weirdly lifeless. The editing lacks rhythm, the soundtrack never shuts up, and the visual wit that used to define Wright's work is replaced by generic, studio-approved flashiness.
It's frustrating because there are good actors here who could have made something of this. William H. Macy, for instance, shows up and does nothing. Emilia Jones, who's terrific in CODA, is wasted as Powell's hostage/cohort.
Katy O'Brian, who's proven she can hold her own in Queens of the Dead and Love Lies Bleeding, is probably the second-best thing in the film after Michael Cera. Everyone else is either lost or on autopilot.
Even Brolin (one of our most dependable actors) can't salvage this. He's in first gear the whole time, chewing through bad dialogue with those fake teeth, probably wondering why he agreed to this.
For all its flash and budget, The Running Man feels soulless. The humor doesn't land, the action lacks rhythm, and the story is so predictable it borders on parody. It's missing Wright's signature wit, timing, and energy, you know...the stuff that made Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz so electric.
Here, he seems disengaged, almost like he was fulfilling a contract.
There's a moment involving a clip of an old James Brolin disaster movie playing in the background (a fun little nod to Josh's father). For a brief second, I thought, "There's the Edgar Wright I know." But it's fleeting.
The Running Man (2025) is an overstuffed, overlong, tonally confused mess that is shockingly dull considering the talent involved. It's loud, humorless, and utterly devoid of the clever energy that made Edgar Wright's earlier films so memorable.
The 1987 Schwarzenegger version (directed by Paul Michael Glaser) may have been ridiculous, but at least it had personality and Richard Dawson. It knew what it was. This one doesn't.
In the end, this is just another bad Stephen King adaptation in what's turning out to be a banner year for terrible Stephen King movies: four awful ones in a row, by my count.
Wright's passion is nowhere to be found, Glen Powell cements himself as one of the most irritating leads of the decade, and the result is a glossy, noisy, empty, two-hour migraine.
To put it bluntly: The Running Man is dead on arrival. And for the record: Starsky made the better movie. - ⭐️1/2
So, the Four Horsemen are back. Again. Apparently, there was still enough box office magic left in this bizarre franchise to justify a third entry... nine years after Now You See Me 2.
This time around, the illusionists-turned-heist-artists are joined by a younger, fresher group of magicians as they attempt to steal a massive diamond called the Heart Diamond from an evil crime syndicate led by Veronika Vanderberg (Rosamund Pike).
In theory, it's supposed to be slick, clever, and full of twists. In practice, it's loud, obnoxious, and dumb as hell.
The movie starts with a big, flashy reunion show for the Four Horsemen (Jesse Eisenberg's Danny Atlas, Woody Harrelson's Merritt, Dave Franco's Jack, and Isla Fisher's Henley), only to reveal that what we're seeing isn't real at all.
It's a hologram illusion created by a group of new magicians: Bosco (Dominic Sessa), June (Ariana Greenblatt), and Charlie (Justice Smith), who idolize the original team and want to use "magic for good."
Naturally, Eisenberg's Atlas storms in, insults everyone, and ends up recruiting them for a heist to steal the world's biggest diamond from Veronika Vanderberg, who's using her empire for money laundering and global corruption.
There's a lot of globe-trotting (Antwerp, Abu Dhabi, France), a lot of impossible action sequences, and a lot of smug dialogue. By the time the third act rolls around, you're not sure if you're watching a magic movie, a heist movie, or an accidental parody of Inception, Fast & Furious, and Mission: Impossible all mashed together.
The Now You See Me movies are really, really dumb. The first one was entertaining; it had energy, charm, and the novelty of seeing magicians act like superheroes. But everything since then has just gotten dumber, louder, and more self-satisfied.
These movies think they're clever, but they're not. They think they're cool, but they're not. They think they're pulling off intricate tricks, but they're just hitting you over the head with CGI nonsense.
And now, with Now You See Me: Now You Don't, the stupidity has reached its final form.
Jesse Eisenberg (who, by the way, wrote and directed one of the best movies of 2024: A Real Pain) looks absolutely miserable here. Every line he delivers has that trademark Eisenberg smugness, but this time it's not even fun. It feels like he's cashing a check and thinking about his next arthouse project the entire time. You can almost hear him saying, "Let's get this over with so I can go write something meaningful again."
Woody Harrelson, on the other hand, seems to be having the time of his life. It's like he took a few edibles before every take and just decided to wing it. There's even a line where his character says, "The edible just kicked in," and I'm convinced that wasn't in the script... that was just reality captured on film.
Dave Franco is barely in the movie. Isla Fisher is completely wasted, spending most of the time wearing ridiculous outfits and outrageously impractical heels that make her look like she got lost on her way to a fashion show instead of a heist. And Morgan Freeman pops in just long enough to remind you how much better he is than this material.
The new cast? Justice Smith, Dominic Sessa, and Ariana Greenblatt all try, but they're stuck in a sequel that treats them like props. It's obvious Lionsgate is trying to pass the torch to a younger generation, but good luck with that, because there's no way this thing spawns another spinoff.
The only person who seems to fully understand what kind of movie she's in is Rosamund Pike. She's the MVP here by a mile. She goes full over-the-top villain mode, complete with an absurd accent and deliciously exaggerated line readings.
She's having a blast, and it shows. If the rest of the cast had leaned into the same level of camp, this thing could have been fun.
Ruben Fleischer (who once made the great Zombieland) directs this one, and it feels like a parody of his earlier, better work. The movie is slick, expensive, and competently shot, but it's got zero personality. The editing is frantic, the action is incoherent, and the "magic tricks" are completely meaningless because they're all CGI.
That's the fatal flaw of this franchise: when everything is digital, there's no wonder, no surprise, and no illusion. You can't be impressed by a magic trick when the computer does all the work. What's magical about that? Watching these scenes feels like sitting through a two-hour ad for visual effects software.
It took five credited writers to put this thing together. Five. And somehow, they couldn't come up with a single original idea. Every line of dialogue sounds like it was written by an AI program fed with Ocean's Eleven scripts and TikTok snark.
The jokes fall flat, the twists are predictable, and the plot holes are big enough to drive a van full of magicians through.
The movie thinks it's being clever, but it's like watching someone explain a bad card trick three times in a row.
Okay, let's be fair. The movie looks expensive, the cinematography is slick, the international locations are beautiful, and the production design has some flair. Rosamund Pike is genuinely entertaining, Woody Harrelson is funny when he's clearly improvising, and the pacing never drags because the movie's too loud to ever be boring.
That's about it.
Now You See Me: Now You Don't is a perfect example of what happens when a studio confuses noise for entertainment. It's all flash and no magic; it's a two-hour exercise in smugness and CGI trickery that doesn't understand why people liked the first movie in the first place.
It's a franchise that should've disappeared years ago, and, instead of pulling off a grand finale, this third film feels like watching someone botch their own disappearing act in slow motion.
The only magic trick here is how they managed to make something this expensive feel this cheap.
A complete waste of time, it's loud, derivative, and aggressively stupid. By far the worst of the trilogy. - ⭐️1/2
Keeper is the latest attempt by Osgood Perkins to convince everyone that he's some kind of modern horror auteur. It stars Tatiana Maslany as Liz, an artist with commitment issues who heads with her boyfriend Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) to his family's remote cabin for an anniversary weekend that quickly turns into a nightmare.
Malcolm's a doctor, he's charming, steady...the "perfect" guy, but something about him feels off. Liz starts noticing weird sounds, shadows, and visions of dead women, and when Malcolm suddenly leaves for a supposed "emergency," she's left alone in a place that seems to be alive with something evil.
Before long, she discovers the truth: the cabin is tied to ancient beings who require human sacrifices to extend Malcolm's life. What was supposed to be a romantic getaway becomes a death trap. Liz has to face the horrifying reality that love, trust, and manipulation can be the most dangerous mix of all.
For reasons that continue to baffle me, Osgood Perkins has become one of those directors horror fans keep pretending is a visionary. I genuinely don't get it. I'm completely, utterly confused by the acclaim this guy receives, in the same way I'm confused by all the praise Zach Cregger got for Barbarian and Weapons.
Perkins and Cregger are two sides of the same overhyped, faux-auteur coin: they make movies that look like they should be deep, but they're just shallow, pretentious exercises dressed up in atmospheric lighting and slow camera moves.
Perkins, of course, has horror royalty DNA (he's the son of Anthony Perkins, the legendary Norman Bates), but that doesn't mean he inherited the talent. His debut, The Blackcoat's Daughter, was interesting and probably his best work, but since then, it's been one misfire after another.
I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House was a dull, self-important bore. Gretel & Hansel was a failed arthouse fairy tale. Longlegs was a complete mess, with one of Nicolas Cage's most ridiculous performances. And then came The Monkey, which is one of the worst movies of 2025; it's a disaster of tone, pacing, and execution.
Now we get Keeper, which, while not quite as awful as The Monkey, is still another dud that is derivative, unscary, and hopelessly self-serious.
Everything about Keeper feels secondhand. It borrows from every horror subgenre imaginable: haunted-cabin movies, witch folklore, relationship paranoia thrillers, and folk horror.
But Perkins doesn't add anything new to any of it. He takes ideas that have been explored in far better films (Suspiria, Hereditary, Midsommar, What Lies Beneath, even The Cabin in the Woods, to name just a few) and just smashes them together with no rhythm or originality.
There's no suspense here. None. Perkins mistakes slow pacing for tension and moody lighting for atmosphere. What he's going for is dread, but what he actually achieves is boredom. The scares are predictable, the "visions" are recycled, and the creatures look like leftover designs from a Syfy Channel pilot.
The whole "cabin in the woods" setup is one of horror's oldest staples, and that's fine when someone does something fresh with it. Perkins doesn't. He just shoots it like a furniture catalog haunted by bad editing choices.
Tatiana Maslany is the only reason to watch this thing, and even then, you'll wish she were in something better. She's a tremendous actress (she proved that years ago in Orphan Black and again in Perry Mason), and she brings a real emotional grounding to Liz.
You believe her fear, her confusion, her strength. She gives the kind of performance that's miles better than the movie around her.
Rossif Sutherland, as Malcolm, does what he can, but his character is so thinly written it's impossible to care. He's basically "creepy boyfriend who might be part of a cult," and that's his entire character arc.
Maslany, though, gives it everything she's got. You can tell she's trying to elevate the material, and she deserves a director who's not busy imitating Dario Argento, Ari Aster, and Robert Zemeckis all at once.
Let's talk about Perkins' so-called "style." His fans like to call it surreal, but I'd call it film-school-student sloppy. His editing is jarring for no reason, his pacing is uneven, and he constantly mistakes confusion for artistry.
There's no rhythm to his storytelling, scenes cut off abruptly, shots linger too long, and the camera placements seem arbitrary. It's the cinematic equivalent of a first-year student shouting, "Look, I can be weird too!"
Perkins clearly thinks he's creating atmosphere, but the result feels forced... like someone trying to copy David Lynch without any of the wit or control.
Keeper desperately wants to be Suspiria; it wants that hypnotic, unnerving feel of supernatural dread wrapped in symbolic horror, but it's not even in the same league. It also cribs from Midsommar and Hereditary, mimicking Ari Aster's precision and emotional trauma but with none of his skill or insight.
Even the twist in the final act feels like a lazy homage to Hereditary's finale, but without any buildup or meaning.
Perkins throws in nods to What Lies Beneath and Things Heard & Seen, yet somehow drains all of the tension those movies had. He's recycling the emotions and aesthetics of better films and mistaking that for style.
The script is flat. It's all atmosphere and no substance. The dialogue is perfunctory, the twists predictable, and the themes (manipulation, trust, betrayal) have been explored countless times before in much sharper and scarier ways.
The movie wants to say something about relationships and power, about love turning to control, but it's too buried under clichés and overwrought symbolism to connect.
There's one thing worth praising here: Tatiana Maslany. She's phenomenal, and she single-handedly gives this movie a heartbeat. Without her, Keeper would be completely unwatchable. She's subtle, emotional, and believable... everything the rest of the film isn't.
The cinematography, to be fair, is occasionally striking, as the lighting and color palette are moody and effective at times. But you can't hang a whole movie on a few pretty shots.
The only reason this thing doesn't completely collapse is Tatiana Maslany, who delivers a performance that this movie simply doesn't deserve. She's the keeper here, not the film. - ⭐️1/2
I have been a Noah Baumbach fan for years. The Squid and the Whale? Brilliant. Marriage Story? Devastating in the best way. Frances Ha? Loved it. Even White Noise, that weird, Don DeLillo fever dream that most people hated... I liked it!
I've always thought Baumbach was one of the smartest and most introspective filmmakers working today. He digs deep into human behavior, picks at neuroses, and makes you laugh while you wince. He's dark, sharp, painfully honest.
So it gives me zero pleasure (actually, it hurts a little) to say that I absolutely hated Jay Kelly. It's one of the biggest disappointments of the year. A sappy, self-serious, melodramatic mess that plays like a Noah Baumbach parody directed by someone who just finished a film history course on Fellini and Bergman.
The movie follows George Clooney as Jay Kelly, a famous actor who's losing his grip on both his career and his family. He's got the fame, the awards, the entourage, but he's also got regrets, estranged daughters, and a nagging sense that his life doesn't mean anything anymore.
After a fight with an old friend from acting school (Billy Crudup), a funeral, and a few too many drinks, he impulsively takes off to Europe with his longtime manager, played by Adam Sandler, and his entourage.
It's supposed to be a bonding trip with his daughter, but really it's a meandering, self-reflective journey through guilt, fame, fatherhood, and every other theme that's ever shown up in a midlife crisis movie.
There are stops in Paris, Tuscany, train rides with fans, viral videos, broken relationships, and a "tribute" event where he's supposed to come to terms with himself.
Along the way, we meet his ex-wife, his daughters, his manager's wife (Greta Gerwig), and a lot of other characters who seem to exist mainly so Clooney can stare at them, or ignore them, while the music score tells us to feel something.
Baumbach usually writes characters who are smart, neurotic, and flawed in deeply relatable ways. In Jay Kelly, everyone's just annoying. Every character seems engineered to deliver a TED Talk about regret.
There's no wit, no edge, no human messiness; it's just a parade of monologues and forced symbolism. It's like Baumbach decided, "You know what? Enough of the dry, dark humor... let's go full Hallmark Channel, but make it European."
And that's really what this movie is: Baumbach doing an imitation of European arthouse cinema. It's as if he watched 8½, Wild Strawberries, and Amarcord on repeat, took notes, then said, "I can do that!" Spoiler: he can't.
This is two hours and fifteen minutes of warmed-over Fellini and Bergman filtered through an American lens that just doesn't get it. Clooney wanders through dreamlike flashbacks, fantasy sequences, and cloying "memories" of better days. Yes, all the tropes are there, but with none of the soul.
He's not even just ripping off Fellini and Bergman. There's Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry in there, too, complete with a self-loathing celebrity who confuses narcissism with introspection.
And Baumbach goes one step further by sprinkling in moments and ideas that were lifted straight out of Tarkovsky's The Mirror and Olivier Assayas's Clouds of Sils Maria. It's like a greatest hits album of art film references, except none of them fit together, and the cover band can't play.
On paper, this is a dream lineup: Clooney, Sandler, Laura Dern, Billy Crudup, Riley Keough, Stacy Keach. That's an incredible group of actors. In practice, it's a collection of talented people stranded in a movie that doesn't know what to do with them.
Clooney is actually perfectly cast, but his character is so self-absorbed and whiny that you stop caring about him fifteen minutes in. He's basically doing a sadder version of his Michael Clayton face for two hours straight.
Adam Sandler, as his manager, is totally miscast. I love Sandler, and when he's in his dramatic zone, he can be amazing (Uncut Gems, Punch-Drunk Love). But here, he's out of rhythm. He can't find the tone.
The chemistry between him and Clooney feels forced, like two A-listers who met on set and immediately went to separate trailers between takes.
Laura Dern, though, is terrific. She gives the movie a pulse whenever she's on screen, playing Clooney's weary publicist who's trying to hold her own life together.
Greta Gerwig also pops up in a small role as Sandler's wife and, predictably, is wonderful. Billy Crudup's good too, but he is stuck in a role that's basically "bitter ghost of career past."
And then, in the middle of all this brooding and pontificating, there's a kid (Sandler and Gerwig's son) who steals the whole movie. This little guy's obsessed with licking fences and blurting out the truth, and he's the only spark of life in this whole overblown dirge.
When a toddler is the highlight of your George Clooney/Noah Baumbach prestige project, you've got a problem.
The whole film feels like Baumbach saying, "Look, I'm not just an American filmmaker... I can do highbrow European art, too." Except it's fake artiness. It's glossy, expensive, Netflix-friendly "pretend depth." There's a difference between subtle melancholy and aggressively forced sophistication.
And that final scene? I won't spoil it (though, really, there's nothing to spoil), but it ends with Clooney breaking the fourth wall, looking straight into the camera, and saying a line that's supposed to be profound but lands somewhere between pretentious and laughable.
It's the kind of moment that makes you want to yell at the screen, "Are you serious right now?"
Oh, and the tribute montage near the end, which is the big emotional payoff, uses actual clips from Clooney's real career, like Leatherheads and The Peacemaker. I'm not kidding.
We get an in-movie tribute to a fictional actor featuring footage from Clooney's actual filmography. I've seen on-the-nose before, but this is a whole new level of cringe. It's like Baumbach made an expensive fan edit.
Jay Kelly is an enormous misfire, maybe Baumbach's worst film by a mile. It's self-indulgent, tone-deaf, humorless, and derivative to the point of parody. The movie desperately wants to be meaningful, but it's like watching a rich, famous filmmaker go to Europe, stare into the distance, and announce, "I, too, am tortured."
As a longtime fan of Baumbach, it's depressing to see him go this far off the rails. Jay Kelly is the cinematic equivalent of a director's midlife crisis: full of self-importance, desperately reaching for profundity, and landing face-first in pretension.
A huge disappointment. And, yes, Noah, we get it: you've seen 8½. You don't have to remake it in Tuscany with George Clooney. - ⭐️1/2
Richard Linklater just keeps doing it. He's one of the few directors who can jump from genre to genre, tone to tone, and somehow still make it all feel like it came from the same brilliant mind.
And now, only weeks after the release of his solid Blue Moon, he's dropped another gem, this time, a French-language, black-and-white, 4:3 aspect ratio love letter to film itself.
Nouvelle Vague (or New Wave in English) isn't just a movie; it's a cinematic valentine to the artists, lunatics, and dreamers who changed movies forever.
The film takes us back to 1959, as a young, hungry, and somewhat infuriating Jean-Luc Godard (played uncannily by Guillaume Marbeck) sets out to make Breathless, the movie that would blow apart the rules of filmmaking and help kickstart the French New Wave.
Linklater's approach is simple but brilliant; he tells the story of how this scrappy little movie got made and, in doing so, captures the messy, chaotic, caffeine-and-cigarette-fueled energy of an entire movement.
We meet all the icons of that scene (François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Rivette, Éric Rohmer, Agnès Varda, and even Roberto Rossellini), all of whom make appearances as these brilliant, opinionated, slightly arrogant young filmmakers arguing about cinema over wine and Gauloises. And at the center of it all is Godard, who's desperate to prove he belongs.
The movie tracks the 21-day shoot of Breathless: the tension with his producer (Bruno Dreyfürst), the confusion of the crew, and the bemusement of his stars: Jean-Paul Belmondo (Aubry Dullin, spot-on) and Jean Seberg (Zoey Deutch, charming, funny, and surprisingly perfect as the American outsider dropped into all this chaos).
It's a film about artistic risk, arrogance, discovery, and the beauty of making it up as you go along.
Here's the thing about Richard Linklater, he's not just a great director; he's a film lover's director. The guy knows his history, his technique, his movements, his minutiae. He's made so many wildly different films (Slacker, Before Sunrise, Dazed and Confused, Boyhood, School of Rock, Waking Life, Bernie, Apollo 10½, Hit Man). Yet, every single one feels like it comes from someone who just flat-out loves movies.
And Nouvelle Vague might be the most movie-loving movie he's ever made. It's meticulously researched, packed with detail, but also full of warmth, wit, and joy. He clearly loves these people... even when they're being arrogant jerks.
You get the sense that Linklater has spent his life watching, studying, and celebrating these filmmakers, and this film is his way of saying thank you.
For anyone who loves film history, this movie is heaven. Linklater literally fills the frame with legends. In one scene, Rossellini calls a meeting where all the French New Wave figures appear in one room, each introduced directly to the camera with their names on screen, like a roll call of cinematic gods. It's both educational and giddy fun, and for film geeks like me, it's pure joy.
The movie also doesn't shy away from showing these filmmakers' flaws. The cliquishness, the smugness, the endless debates about "true cinema."
They're all pretentious, brilliant, and hilarious... You know, just like real film people. There's even a sly acknowledgment of how male-dominated this movement was, though Linklater makes sure to spotlight Varda and Suzanne Schiffman (Jodie Ruth-Forest) as essential voices in that world.
Visually, this thing is gorgeous. Cinematographer David Chambille shoots the entire film in lush black and white, and it's so authentic you'd swear it was actually shot in 1959.
The grain, the scratches, the cigarette burns at reel changes, it all looks and feels like vintage film stock. Even the lighting has that luminous, high-contrast glow of old French cinema.
The production design, costumes, and VFX work are phenomenal. Paris has been digitally recreated to look like the Paris of the late '50s, with the cars, the signage, the storefronts, everything. It's astonishingly detailed, and yet never flashy. It just feels right.
And yes, the smoking. Everyone smokes. Constantly. It's almost comical, and every scene looks like it was shot inside a cloud of nicotine and Gauloises fumes. It's perfect.
Guillaume Marbeck nails Godard; he's prickly, brilliant, arrogant, insecure, and impossible not to watch. He doesn't imitate Godard so much as capture the essence of his madness.
Zoey Deutch, meanwhile, is a revelation as Jean Seberg. She plays her as smart, skeptical, and bewildered by the circus she's found herself in. The dynamic between Seberg and Godard is fascinating... half flirtation, half power struggle, and all artistic tension.
The rest of the cast is uniformly excellent, even when they only get a few minutes of screen time. Linklater clearly loves these people, and the film gives each of them a moment to shine.
What makes Nouvelle Vague work so well is that it's not just about Breathless; it embodies the spirit of it, the risk-taking, the experimentation, the joy of invention. Linklater doesn't mimic Godard's style; instead, he celebrates what made Godard's style revolutionary in the first place. The movie feels alive, playful, and spontaneous, just like Breathless did 65 years ago.
It's also flat-out entertaining. There's humor, warmth, and a sense of discovery that runs through the entire thing. Even if you don't know your Truffaut from your Chabrol, it's still a great story about passionate people making art that changed the world.
Nouvelle Vague is one of the most delightful, intelligent, and joyful movies of the year. If you're a cinephile, it's pure candy. If you're new to Godard or the French New Wave, it's a great introduction that might make you want to watch Breathless for the first time (or again).
And if you're just someone who loves seeing people obsessed with creating something new, it's a blast.
Linklater proves once again that he can do anything, and this time, he's made one of his most joyful, affectionate, and flat-out fun movies ever.
Nouvelle Vague isn't just a film about filmmaking; it's a celebration of why we fell in love with movies in the first place. And for film lovers, it's an absolute gift. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
There's something kind of fascinating about the premise of The Carpenter's Son, a psychological horror film that dares to reimagine the untold childhood of Jesus. Yeah, that Jesus. It's inspired by the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, one of those apocryphal texts that didn't make the cut for the New Testament.
The film wants to explore that murky, speculative period between the manger and the miracles: the awkward teenage years of the Messiah. There's a great movie in that concept, which is something that wrestles with faith, temptation, identity, and the collision between divine destiny and human confusion.
Unfortunately, The Carpenter's Son isn't that movie. Not even close.
Set in Roman-era Egypt, the story follows Joseph (Nicolas Cage), Mary (FKA Twigs), and their teenage son, Jesus (Noah Jupe), living in hiding to protect the boy from unseen threats.
They settle in a dusty, remote village where a mysterious girl (credited only as "the Stranger," played by Isla Johnston) appears and begins to lure Jesus away from his father's strict teachings. She tempts him to question everything: his faith, his powers, and his purpose. Before long, bad things start happening.
People die, animals act possessed, wooden snakes come to life, and Jesus starts having nightmarish visions that look like rejected scenes from The Omen. By the time Joseph figures out that the Stranger is literally Satan in disguise, the family is already knee-deep in demonic chaos. On paper, that sounds intriguing. On screen, it's an inert, dreary mess.
Lotfy Nathan's direction takes this thing way too seriously. Every frame is heavy with faux gravitas, like someone thought they were making The Passion of the Christ by way of The Witch.
The problem is, there's no atmosphere, no tension, and definitely no scares. It's called a horror film, but it plays more like an underfunded Sunday school fever dream.
Everything feels cheap, from the sets to the costumes to the effects. It honestly looks like they borrowed a few tunics from a church Easter play and drove out to the California desert to shoot it over a long weekend.
The camera sits still, the lighting's fine, and everyone says their lines. That's about the level of craftsmanship on display. It feels like every scene was done in a single take: "Did the boom mic stay out of frame? Great, moving on."
The dialogue is stiff, the pacing glacial, and whatever sense of dread this story needed is replaced with long stretches of nothing.
When I heard Cage was playing Joseph, I got excited. This is a guy who can turn any movie into a spectacle just by showing up. You want the full Cage experience...the screaming, the wild eyes, the "bees!" energy. Give me lunatic Nic, not meditative Nic.
This role begged for unhinged Cage going head-to-head with Satan. Instead, we get quiet, subdued Cage, the one who looks like he's thinking about his next mortgage payment. He's fine, I guess, but mainly seems bored. He mumbles through the film like he's counting the minutes until he can go buy another dinosaur skull.
And that's the thing, this movie desperately needed crazy Cage. Imagine him shouting biblical rage at a demonic child or wrestling with faith by way of facial contortions and primal screams. Instead, he's just… there. Stoic, flat, paycheck casher.
FKA Twigs plays Mary (or "The Mother"), and let's just say acting is not her calling. She's an interesting performer and artist in other mediums, but here she's lost, stiff, and one-note. Noah Jupe, as "The Boy," does what he can with the material, and he's fine. He is a solid young actor.
But the real standout, the one thing keeping this movie from being a total wash, is Isla Johnston as the Stranger. She's mesmerizing. Creepy, sly, magnetic, she is everything the rest of the movie should've been. When she's on screen, you actually feel a pulse. She brings menace, mystery, and danger to a film that otherwise flatlines.
The movie's production value is distractingly bad. You can practically see the seams in the costumes and the budget in every frame. The setting (supposedly ancient Egypt) looks more like an abandoned quarry somewhere outside of L.A. Even the "supernatural" effects feel like afterthoughts: some basic CGI snakes, a few sound effects, a glowing pair of eyes.
There's gore, yes, and violence, and attempts at shock, but there's no suspense, no sense of awe or terror. The scariest thing about this movie is realizing how much time you've got left on the runtime.
What's frustrating is that there's a version of The Carpenter's Son that could've worked. A mythic, psychological deep dive into divine adolescence? That's fascinating.
But this movie doesn't have the brains, the budget, or the guts to pull it off. It plays everything straight, humorless, and joyless. It wants to be profound, but it's not even competent.
Even the behind-the-scenes stories are more entertaining than anything in the film. Apparently, Cage was actually attacked by a swarm of bees while filming in one of the caves, which is a bit of karmic irony considering The Wicker Man's infamous "Not the bees!" moment.
Sadly, nothing that exciting or memorable happens in the movie. I would've killed for a callback to that... anything to jolt this thing to life.
It's ironic that a film about divine power and temptation ends up feeling so soulless. The Carpenter's Son is neither divine nor demonic. It's just completely dead on arrival. - ⭐️1/2
Joachim Trier is one of those filmmakers whose name instantly makes my ears perk up. He's fascinating, consistent, and has a voice that, when he's at his best, feels completely his own.
His Oslo trilogy (Reprise, Oslo, August 31st, and The Worst Person in the World) is among the best bodies of work by any European filmmaker in the last twenty years. That last film, The Worst Person in the World, was just about perfect; it was heartbreaking, funny, profound, and alive in ways few movies dare to be anymore.
So now Trier returns with Sentimental Value, and while it's not on the same level as The Worst Person in the World, it's still a solid, often beautiful, sometimes frustrating piece of filmmaking that's lifted sky-high by its performances.
This one's quieter, a little colder, and far more self-conscious. It's Trier doing "family drama meets meta cinema" with a heavy dose of symbolism, and sometimes, that's the problem.
After their mother's death, two estranged sisters, Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnès (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), are forced to reconnect with their father, Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård), a once-celebrated filmmaker who walked out on them years ago.
Gustav is older now, past his prime, and trying desperately to regain both his artistic relevance and his daughters' forgiveness. He thinks the way to do that is by making a film about their family's painful history, using the old house they grew up in as the set.
Nora's a talented actress, but she's riddled with anxiety and stage fright. Agnès gave up acting long ago and lives a quieter life as a historian. Their relationship is strained but real, full of unspoken resentment and love.
Gustav writes the lead role in his movie for Nora, but she refuses to do it. So, naturally, he casts a famous Hollywood actress, Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning), instead, and that choice detonates everything.
The movie opens with a voiceover about the family home itself, establishing it as both setting and metaphor. It's a beautiful house (a kind of museum of Norwegian history), but there's a literal crack in its foundation. You can already see where this is going.
The house represents the family's fractured relationships, their emotional rot, their shared history of loss and failure. It's not subtle. Trier practically hangs a neon sign over it that says, "Symbolism Ahead!"
That's part of what keeps Sentimental Value from greatness. The metaphors are obvious, and Trier leans on them too much. There's a self-aware quality to the whole film that makes you wish it would just relax and let the relationships breathe.
Despite that, there's a lot here that does work, and that is primarily thanks to the cast. Stellan Skarsgård gives a tremendous performance as Gustav, a man caught between pride and regret. You can feel every ounce of his history in his face and voice.
He's occasionally despicable but never one-dimensional. He knows he's made mistakes but can't stop repeating them, and that push-pull between ego and guilt drives every scene he's in.
Reinsve, once again, is incredible. This woman might be one of the best actors working today. She carries an entire world of emotion in her eyes (sadness, anger, humor, self-doubt), and she makes Nora feel completely real.
It's a quieter performance than her breakout in The Worst Person in the World, but it's just as detailed. You feel the weight of her family history in every nervous glance and every forced smile.
Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, as Agnès, is also wonderful. The scenes between the two sisters are the movie's strongest moments; they are authentic, painful, and alive. When Trier lets them talk, argue, or share a drink, the film hums with life.
And then there's Elle Fanning. She completely redeems herself here after her double disaster in Predator: Badlands. In Sentimental Value, she's radiant, grounded, and emotionally precise.
Her character, Rachel, the American actress cast as Nora's mother, becomes a mirror for everyone else's pain. Fanning nails it. She's charming, wounded, and quietly intelligent, giving the film a jolt of freshness just when it needs it.
Where the film stumbles is in its stylistic choices. Trier has always flirted with experimental structure, but here he sometimes crosses the line into imitation. The blackouts between scenes, the chapter breaks, the merging faces, the obvious echoes of Persona, it's all so on-the-nose that it becomes distracting.
This is Trier doing Woody Allen doing Bergman. And while I love Trier, he's far better than that. When he imitates, he loses his identity.
The film's long middle section, which is filled with Bergman-style close-ups, theatrical monologues, and heavy symbolism, feels forced. The ideas are there, but the presentation is too self-aware, too museum-like.
It's disappointing because you can feel Trier's brilliance under the surface, fighting to get out. He's still an incredible storyteller, but this time he's trapped inside his influences.
That said, there are flashes of greatness all over the place. There's a hilarious and oddly touching scene where Gustav gives his seven-year-old grandson a birthday present: three wildly inappropriate DVDs, including Irreversible.
Watching Skarsgård explain the "artistry" of that film to a confused child is both mortifying and funny... and it says everything about who this guy is.
There's also a brilliant bit where Gustav meets with his old cinematographer, now nearly blind, and realizes that the world of filmmaking has moved on without him.
Later, a sequence involving a Netflix pitch meeting provides some sharp, biting satire about the state of modern cinema. Trier still knows how to weave humor into despair, and those scenes prove it.
The film's final scene is wordless, quiet, and perfect. No dialogue, just the characters, the set, and a feeling of acceptance. It's the emotional payoff the story deserves, and it's delivered with restraint and grace.
Sentimental Value isn't a bad film. In fact, it's a good one, and sometimes even a great one. But it's also a frustrating step down from Trier's previous work. It's too enamored with its own ideas, too caught up in the ghosts of cinema past. The performances are extraordinary, the emotions are real, but the style gets in the way.
Trier is one of the most interesting directors alive, and I'll always show up for whatever he does. But I hope his next movie feels less like imitation and more like revelation.
So yes, Sentimental Value is worth seeing (for the acting, for the emotion, for those painfully honest family moments), but it's also a reminder that even great filmmakers sometimes get lost chasing their heroes. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️
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