CAPSULE MOVIE REVIEWS 11-28-25
- 4 hours ago
- 17 min read
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My Film Critic pants are quite fetching; they are on, pressed, and ironed. I'm ready to review four new movies in this week's capsule (short) movie reviews for Friday, November 28th, 2025.
It's been nine years since the first Zootopia came out, which in animation time is, I don't know, two Ice Ages and a half? And honestly, I barely remembered the details of the original... outside of loving it. Great time. Great cast. Gorgeous animation.
And, of course, the sloths. How the hell could you forget the sloths? Some of the funniest, most inspired comedy animation Disney's ever done.
So, going into Zootopia 2, I had this vague pleasant memory of a good movie, some terrific characters, and Jenny Slate going full villain. And now here we are again, with the bunny and the fox back on the beat.
This sequel wastes absolutely no time dropping you back into that world of the sprawling animal metropolis where every creature under the sun (well… except frogs, as it turns out, which I'll complain about later) gets their own little biome and their own little quirks.
Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde are now rookie cops in the Zootopia Police Department, still getting used to their partnership, their responsibilities, and the fact that they live in a city where a yak can run a spa and a sloth can operate a car at speeds that would get a human arrested on sight.
This time around, their partnership is on the rocks after a previous case goes off the rails and gets them tossed into mandatory "Partners in Crisis" counseling, which, I gotta say, is a brilliant idea. Therapy for mismatched animated animal cops? Yes, please.
And then Chief Bogo (Idris Elba, wonderfully irritated as always) throws them onto a new case: the sudden arrival of Gary De'Snake, a mysterious pit viper voiced by Ke Huy Quan, who slithers into town, causes a panic, and kicks off a conspiracy involving ancient books, climate-control secrets, discrimination, and reptilian history Disney pretends wasn't going to traumatize small children.
The plot gets bigger and weirder from there... there's a murder related to this book, there are hidden reptile communities, there are deserts and marshes and dingy spots of the city where certain animals are forced to live because of prejudice.
Judy and Nick go undercover in places we never saw in the first film, meet an entire rogues gallery of new animals, and stumble into family secrets, buried political truths, and more emotional speeches than you'd expect from a movie where lizards lose their tails for comedic effect.
And here's the thing: this is not just some light, breezy Disney sequel. This movie goes for it. It is absolutely packed with allegories: acceptance, immigration, discrimination, erasing cultures, generational trauma, and entire species wiped off the map.
You can feel it in every corner of the story: this isn't just about a misunderstood snake, it's about outcasts and the marginalized and people shoved aside because they're different or scary or from "somewhere else."
You can see real-world political parallels all over the place, with prejudice, corruption, exploitation, and the wealthy rewriting history to justify horrible things.
Hell, there's even a subplot that feels like a commentary on Native American history. There are layers here, some subtle, some not subtle at all, and honestly? Good. That stuff gives the movie weight.
But, and this is key: you don't have to dig into those heavy ideas if you're just there to watch the bunny and the fox run around cracking jokes. The surface-level movie works perfectly well on its own.
And boy, does it entertain.
These directors (Jared Bush and Byron Howard) know exactly how to build a kinetic world where the jokes zip by faster than the sloth in his speeding car. The animation is gorgeous with next-level detail, beautifully rendered landscapes (the Marsh Market stuff is terrific), action sequences that feel more like something out of a PG buddy-cop movie than a kids' flick, and a color palette that pops off the screen.
Michael Giacchino's score is once again outstanding. The pacing is incredible. It moves. It moves fast. Blink and you'll miss five visual gags.
The cast is insane. Everyone's here. Everyone. Jason Bateman and Ginnifer Goodwin are still fantastic, and their timing, their chemistry, their emotional beats...all great.
Ke Huy Quan kills it as Gary De'Snake, a character who is both hilarious and heartbreaking, especially when he delivers a monologue late in the movie about his family that is surprisingly beautiful.
Fortune Feimster is a riot as a beaver in the marsh. Andy Samberg and David Strathairn show up as lynxes, with Strathairn giving the movie a fierce menace and Samberg doing his Samberg thing in the best way. Patrick Warburton is back and hilarious. Quinta Brunson is fantastic as the mandatory therapist.
Then you've got Macaulay Culkin, Brenda Song, Cecily Strong, Tommy Chong, John Leguizamo, Danny Trejo, Stephanie Beatriz, Jenny Slate, Alan Tudyk in multiple roles, Josh Gad, CM Punk and Roman Reigns as literal zebra cops, Ed Sheeran as a sheep, Auli'i Cravalho as an anti-venom pen (?!), and even Michael J. Fox in a cameo. It's stacked. And everyone sounds like they're having the time of their lives.
The comedy works on every level. Kids will love the silliness, the animal quirks, the slapstick, the big expressions, and the adrenaline. Adults? There are jokes and references for us everywhere: a perfect Shining gag, an unexpected Silence of the Lambs joke, some sharp political humor, and a blink-and-you-miss-it Ratatouille reference that absolutely killed me.
The only comedic disappointment is that there simply are not enough sloths. Yes, one shows up (and the absurdity of a sloth driving like he's in Mad Max is fantastic), but seriously, where are the rest of them? These are comedy gold. Give me a sloth spinoff.
There's just so much happening here: scenes in bars where lizards' tails fall off like gross-out movie gags, chases through deserts and swamps, jokes on jokes on jokes. And in between the chaos, the movie plants some sucker-punch emotion.
Family matters here. Love matters here. The history of an entire species matters here.
There is a scene near the end where Judy and Nick confess their love (speaking ridiculously fast, naturally), and it's kind of perfect. Sweet, heartfelt, sincere. And it lands because these characters work. Their friendship, their banter, their differences, all of it feels real.
It's not flawless. The second half slows down for a long "let us explain the entire plot to you" moment between two characters that absolutely could have been tightened. It's talky. It's clunky. But once it passes, the movie kicks back into gear.
Now let's talk about frogs. There are no frogs. Not one. I looked. Frogs are my favorite animals. The entire animal kingdom is represented here, including obscure rodents, reptiles, and insects with full comedic routines. Meanwhile, frogs (who have been animation royalty forever) are AWOL.
And fish? They're basically set dressing. Or food. No personalities. Just dead seafood. Meanwhile, Disney has Finding Nemo in its catalogue. The inconsistency is hilarious and a little weird.
But putting the amphibian prejudice aside…
Zootopia 2 is terrific. Genuinely terrific. A worthy sequel that matches the tone of the first film while upping the action, deepening the world, layering in heavy themes, and packing the movie with enough jokes to keep the kids giggling and the adults grinning.
It's funny, emotional, political, colorful, beautifully crafted, and filled with some of the best voice talent Disney has ever assembled for one project. It will make a ton of money, and honestly? It deserves to.
And I really hope they make a third one. Judy and Nick have more stories in them. Their partnership is too good, their world too rich, and if they don't give me more sloths next time, I may write a sternly worded letter.
Zootopia 2: fast, smart, funny, heartfelt, surprisingly deep, and an absolute blast. A fantastic follow-up to a very good film. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
There's a certain kind of high-concept romantic comedy that practically announces its influences before the first scene even starts. And Eternity, which is a sweet, attractive, occasionally clever fantasy rom-com about choosing your soulmate in the afterlife, wears its inspirations not just on its sleeve but on its entire outfit.
You can practically see the labels sticking out: Defending Your Life, The Good Place, Heaven Can Wait, Eternal Sunshine, even a little classic Capra if you squint.
Now, borrowing is fine (every rom-com borrows from something), but the trick is to shape those influences into something deeper, funnier, or more unique. Eternity never quite gets there.
It's charming, pleasant, beautifully acted, and full of moments that almost go somewhere interesting… but the big ideas just hover in the background without ever being explored.
The premise is undeniably cute: When you die, you arrive at a whimsical afterlife train depot (part Grand Central, part Wes Anderson tchotchke display) and you get one week to choose your eternity. Mountain World. Queer World. No Men World. Capitalist World. Smoker's World ("Cancer can't kill you twice!"). A buffet of forever options.
Larry (Miles Teller) dies first, choking on a pretzel on the way to a gender reveal party, which is one of the funniest details in the film. A week later, his lifelong partner Joan (Elizabeth Olsen) dies of cancer and joins him at the station, now in her younger, radiant form. So far, so good. Sweet, clever setup.
But there's a third wrinkle: Joan's first husband, Luke (Callum Turner), the dashing war pilot who died in Korea after just two years of marriage, has been waiting for her. For sixty-seven years. As a bartender. In the afterlife. Because apparently "waiting around forever for a woman you dated in your 20s" is a romantic gesture.
Suddenly, we've got a full-blown cosmic love triangle.
Young passion vs. decades of companionship. The one who stuck around vs. the one who never got the chance to disappoint you. The ideal number of husbands to have waiting in the afterlife: zero.
This movie works sporadically, almost entirely because of the cast. Elizabeth Olsen is the MVP here. She gives Joan humor, vulnerability, and a sharp emotional intelligence that the script doesn't always rise to meet. She finds the soul of a woman torn between two versions of herself: the young idealist and the seasoned partner.
Miles Teller, meanwhile, gives Larry a weary, warm, slightly goofy energy. There's a great running joke where Larry keeps marveling at being young again ("I can squat! I haven't squatted since '94!"). Teller nails the comedic beats without losing the grounded sadness of a man who knows he wasn't Joan's first love.
Callum Turner is charming, handsome, and perfectly cast as the romanticized ghost of "what could have been." But he doesn't get much to do besides smolder handsomely and represent the idea of youthful love.
And in the supporting cast: Da'Vine Joy Randolph and John Early as afterlife coordinators steal every scene they're in. Betty Buckley plays older Joan with dignity and warmth. Olga Merediz brings her usual lovable energy. Everyone's giving A+ performances in a film that really only meets them halfway.
Let's talk about the giant Albert Brooks–shaped elephant in the room: Defending Your Life is one of the greatest romantic comedies ever made. A masterpiece. Sharp, funny, wise, with actual ideas about fear, regret, and self-realization.
Eternity borrows from it constantly (the afterlife bureaucracy, the waiting rooms, the ability to revisit memories, the spiritual self-evaluation) but without the philosophical bite. The film has scenes where characters literally step back into moments from their life. That's Defending Your Life. Full stop.
Then there are the Good Place vibes, with the pastel world-building, the silly "eternity zones," the moral questions delivered with sitcom brightness. There's even some Eternal Sunshine DNA, not in the emotional devastation, of course, but in the "memory as emotional battleground" way.
And sure, Heaven Can Wait lurks in the background too, with its cosmic clerks, stations, and mishaps.
The issue isn't that these are influences; it's that Eternity never synthesizes them into something that feels new, or dangerous, or emotionally adventurous. It keeps things safe. It waters down the big ideas until we're left with a cute-but-shallow rom-com, not the profound exploration the premise calls for.
The movie flirts with some fascinating questions, like: Who would you choose to spend forever with? Is a life built on steady love more meaningful than a brief but passionate spark? Does "the one that got away" deserve a place in your eternity? What does regret look like when time no longer exists?
But every time the film gets close to going deeper, it backs off and throws in another joke about Casino World.
It's pleasant. It's likable. But it's also surface-level. If Defending Your Life is a philosophical feast, Eternity is a nice appetizer that never leads to the entrée.
This movie has absolutely no business being almost two hours long. None. It's a slight, charming, modest little fantasia; it's the kind of movie that should run 90 minutes max.
By the 100-minute mark, you feel the ideas stretching thin, and this movie goes far past the 100-minute mark.
Eternity is a sweet movie. A harmless movie. A movie with a very appealing cast, some genuinely funny moments, and a premise that should have led to something much deeper.
If you want a pleasant date-night movie, or if you're a big fan of Elizabeth Olsen (and why wouldn't you be? She's fantastic), then sure... It's worth a watch.
But if you've seen Defending Your Life, The Good Place, Eternal Sunshine, or Heaven Can Wait, you're going to spend a lot of this runtime thinking: "These other things did it better."
A charming trifle, it is enjoyable in the moment, but too thin and too borrowed to last an eternity. - ⭐️⭐️
The third installment in Rian Johnson's Knives Out saga, Wake Up Dead Man, takes detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) to a small upstate New York town where religion, politics, and murder collide.
Blanc's latest mystery centers on Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), a charismatic, fire-and-brimstone priest who runs his congregation like a cult. When Wicks turns up dead during a sermon (stabbed through the chest by a knife topped with a carved devil head), his circle of followers becomes a nest of suspects, each harboring secrets and sins that only Blanc can untangle.
Josh O'Connor plays Rev. Jud Duplenticy, a young priest assigned to Wicks' church after a scandal, while Glenn Close, Kerry Washington, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack, Thomas Haden Church, Andrew Scott, and Jeremy Renner round out a congregation full of motives.
As the case spirals, Johnson layers themes of faith, hypocrisy, and fanaticism into what's meant to be a twisty, modern whodunit.
Here's the thing: I just don't get these Knives Out movies. I've tried (really, I have), but they do absolutely nothing for me. I don't understand why people are losing their minds over them, why every film festival crowd acts like Rian Johnson just reinvented the mystery genre.
At best, these movies are watchable in a background-TV sort of way; they are competently made, full of talented actors, but fundamentally hollow.
And that's a shame, because Rian Johnson used to be a much more interesting filmmaker. His debut Brick back in 2005 was a sharp, moody, high-school-noir gem. The Brothers Bloom was flawed but imaginative. Even his divisive Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which I actually liked, showed risk and personality.
But since Knives Out became a hit in 2019, Johnson's career has been defined by these glossy, crowd-pleasing murder mysteries that feel more like brand extensions than films.
So now we get Wake Up Dead Man. This Netflix-bound sequel proves he's staying in this sandbox for a while, and I'm still sitting here, scratching my head, wondering what everyone else is seeing.
The movie starts off promisingly. The opening twenty minutes are fantastic; they are sharp, funny, and even biting. Johnson sets up a bizarre, satirical look at small-town religion, anchored by Josh Brolin's over-the-top but magnetic Monsignor Wicks and Josh O'Connor's wide-eyed young priest.
It's irreverent, cynical, and filled with vivid character introductions. For a while, I thought, "Okay, maybe this one's finally going to win me over."
Then the murder happens. Benoit Blanc shows up. And the movie, for me, collapses completely.
Everything vibrant and strange about the first act gives way to the same formulaic Knives Out structure we've now seen twice before: lengthy interrogations, flashback montages, people explaining clues, endless twists that aren't that twisty.
The mystery itself isn't particularly clever or satisfying; it's convoluted, overly talky, and at times just plain dumb. The logic doesn't hold up, the resolution feels forced, and the "aha" moment lands with a dull thud.
Worse yet, the film is nearly two and a half hours long and feels every minute of it. It meanders, doubles back, replays scenes from new perspectives, and keeps pretending to be smarter than it is.
Here's my biggest issue with these movies: I don't like Benoit Blanc. I find the character boring, smug, and frankly annoying. The accent (which is supposed to be charming?) grates on me.
He's written as this folksy genius, but Daniel Craig plays him like he's half-bored, half-amused by the nonsense around him, and it makes me feel the same way.
He's no Hercule Poirot. He's no Sam Spade. He's certainly no Columbo. He's an affectation with a drawl. And when your central detective doesn't engage me, it's tough to care about the puzzle he's solving.
To be fair, Wake Up Dead Man does try to be about something. Johnson uses religion, faith, and fanaticism as his backdrop, mixing in commentary on power, blind devotion, and groupthink.
You could read the film as a political allegory, with Brolin's Wicks standing in for a certain real-world demagogue. There's even a subplot about fake news, social media echo chambers, and how truth gets twisted in the modern age.
But none of it lands. It's too heavy-handed, too obvious, and too self-satisfied. Johnson isn't making points so much as underlining them with a highlighter. The result is a movie that's both preachy and shallow; it's a murder mystery that thinks it's about big ideas but mostly just circles them.
If there's a reason to watch the movie, it's the cast. As always, Johnson surrounds himself with heavy hitters, and they're all giving it everything they've got.
Josh O'Connor is terrific. Between this, Challengers, and The Mastermind, he's quietly becoming one of the most compelling young actors working right now. He gives his priest a mix of sincerity and insecurity that's genuinely human.
Brolin, as Wicks, is mesmerizing and hilarious. He is part prophet, part con man, and entirely unhinged. Mila Kunis is surprisingly grounded as the small-town police chief, and Jeremy Renner (in his first major role since his accident) is a welcome presence, doing some of his oddest, loosest work.
The wonderful Kerry Washington has a few sharp moments, Andrew Scott gets some dry laughs, and Thomas Haden Church steals every scene he's in as a Chicago Cub-loving groundskeeper who basically drinks Pepsi in his garage and watches baseball.
Glenn Close, though, is the standout. She's funny, sharp, and the best she's been in years, coming after a long stretch of unmemorable roles. It's an absolute pleasure to see her wake up a movie like this one.
Technically, the film is gorgeous. Steve Yedlin's cinematography is lush and polished, the production design immaculate. It's all beautifully lit, beautifully framed, and perfectly put together. This thing screams "quality production." It'll look terrific on Netflix, which is where most people will see it.
But it's all surface. The craft can't make up for the fact that the story itself is thin and overly smug.
The problem with Wake Up Dead Man (and really with all the Knives Out films) is that they pretend to be clever, but they're not. They're smug about their own cleverness, and that's what drives me nuts.
There's no real mystery here, just endless exposition and a parade of eccentric characters performing self-awareness.
When the film actually leans into its dark comedy and satire, it works. But when it tries to play the mystery straight, it falls apart. The first 20 minutes are lively, sharp, and hilarious; everything after that feels like a long, tedious magic trick where you already know the outcome.
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery is another slick, overlong, self-important entry in a series that I just can't get behind. It looks great, it's full of talented people, and for a brief stretch at the start, it even hints at greatness.
But once Benoit Blanc takes the stage, the fun drains out and the movie becomes exactly what it's been every time before: a smug, predictable, overcomplicated puzzle anchored by a detective I couldn't care less about.
A terrific cast, a great setup, and some beautifully funny moments wasted on a film that mistakes cleverness for intelligence. By the 2-hour mark, I was ready to leave the theater.
Rian Johnson has proven he can make smarter, bolder, better movies than this. I really hope he does again someday. - ⭐️⭐️
There's a very particular feeling I get when a filmmaker I once kind of admired drifts into "prestige mode." You know it, it's the self-serious, ultra-poetic, "notice how lyrical I'm being" gear. And with Hamnet, Chloe Zhao has slammed her entire artistic engine into that gear and snapped the stick off.
This is a movie that is constantly whispering, "Look how profound I am," while simultaneously poking you in the ribs with symbolism so obvious you'd think you were watching a Shakespeare-themed escape room.
Hamnet is based on Maggie O'Farrell's extremely successful, very poetic novel about the imagined origins of Hamlet. It's ripe for beauty and tragedy.
But Zhao takes that material, mixes in her usual Malick-lite nature worship, and ends up with something that swings wildly between overwrought melodrama and faux-mystical arthouse dreaminess.
The film imagines the relationship between Agnes (Jessie Buckley) and Will (Paul Mescal) Shakespeare, though Zhao coyly refuses to let anyone actually say "Shakespeare" for the first hour, as if the audience will suddenly gasp: "Oh my God, it's him!"
It's the kind of filmmaking affectation that wants you to think you're watching something poetic, when really you're watching two people flirt in the woods like they're auditioning for a Renaissance perfume commercial.
They fall in love, they marry, they have kids, and eventually tragedy strikes: their 11-year-old son Hamnet dies of the plague. The film wants this moment to land with the force of a meteor hitting your emotional solar system.
Instead, Zhao treats every single scene before and after with such operatic solemnity that there's nowhere left for the tragedy to go. The emotional peaks are already blasted at 11, so once the real heartbreak arrives, you're numb.
Chloé Zhao has strengths when she keeps things grounded, when she lets environments shape characters in ways that are gentle and honest (The Rider, parts of Nomadland). But here, she seems determined to make the most aggressively symbolic Shakespeare movie ever created.
The camera follows characters as if it's on a religious pilgrimage. Every tree root, every hawk feather, every patch of sun on a cheek is treated like it contains the secret meaning of life.
At some point, I half expected Jessie Buckley to slowly turn to the camera, holding a skull and whisper, "Get it? Nature. Death. Shakespeare. See what I did there?"
By minute fifteen, every stylistic choice is so thuddingly obvious that I knew exactly what the next two hours were going to feel like. And I wasn't wrong.
Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal are phenomenal actors. Both of them are magnetic, expressive, and deeply committed performers. They're also in a movie where Zhao directs them to dial every emotion up to the screaming, sweating, trembling edge of total acting burnout.
Buckley is contorting herself inside trees, howling like some kind of woodland oracle, and collapsing in grief with such decibel-shattering intensity that subtlety is a distant memory.
Mescal is right there with her, with quivering lips, misty eyes, breathy declarations, tortured glances. It's all so BIG. And non-stop. People in this movie weep like they've just gotten news that the Earth is ending every third scene.
Look, grief is devastating, and losing a child is unimaginable. But the film uses that grief in the cheapest, most manipulative way possible. Zhao doesn't earn the emotion; she bludgeons you with it.
The film's editing style (choppy, fragmented, aggressively elliptical) wants to feel like the drifting fog of memory or myth. Instead, it feels like the movie is assembled from scenes shuffled by someone playing 52-card pickup. There's no flow. Just impressionistic chunks, aggressively arranged, daring you to "feel the poetry."
And don't even get me started on the Shakespeare "inside jokes." Every time the kids reenact a bit of Macbeth or someone drops a proto-quote from Romeo and Juliet, you can practically hear the movie elbowing you in the ribs: "Hey! You know this one! Because Shakespeare!"
And then we get to the movie's coup de grâce: the full-on Hamlet staging at the end, with real Shakespearean soliloquies, Will playing the ghost, the whole thing dripping with melodramatic oh-my-God-this-is-so-profound energy.
Agnes stands in the front row, trembling as though the weight of the universe is landing on her shoulders, and we are meant to believe that this performance, THIS one, is the cathartic release of all their grief.
In reality? It plays like a prestige drama parody. It's forced, overacted, historically silly, and emotionally deadening. I should have been moved, but by the time the "play-within-the-play" hits, I had no feeling left to give.
When the Amblin logo popped up at the start, I honestly thought, "Wait, what?" But by the time we hit the final shot, I understood completely. This thing is irritating, prestige Spielberg sentimentality wrapped in arthouse drag.
It's tear-jerking manipulation dressed up with handheld camerawork and natural lighting, pretending to be subtle and spiritual when it's actually pushing the easiest emotional buttons imaginable.
The cast is strong, even when overdirected. Jessie Buckley manages to rise above the material at times, because she's incapable of giving a dishonest moment, even when the direction is screaming at her to go bigger.
Paul Mescal gives it everything, even though the movie gives him almost no room to breathe. Emily Watson is, as always, quietly fantastic.
And yes, it's beautifully photographed. If I were only reviewing the cinematography, this would be a rave.
Hamnet is a handsomely shot, aggressively earnest, emotionally manipulative, heavy-handed slog. It is a film that mistakes loudness for impact, symbolism for depth, and melodrama for meaning.
It will absolutely get Oscar nominations. It might even win a few. But beneath all the prestige gloss, what you really have is a choppy, over-directed, overacted, painfully unsubtle piece of mythmaking that doesn't trust its audience, doesn't trust its actors, and doesn't trust its own story to resonate unless it's screamed at us.
A huge disappointment, and yes, it is indeed a Shakespeare tragedy, but not in the way it was intended. - ⭐️1/2
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