CAPSULE MOVIE REVIEWS: 5-9-25

[Get the exclusive video version of these weekly reviews each Friday by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon!]

My Film Critic pants are stylish and looking good, so I am ready to review four new movies in this week's capsule (short) movie reviews for Friday, May 9th, 2025.

1) SHADOW FORCE

Joe Carnahan has always been a bit of a wild card. The guy can swing between gritty excellence (Narc, The Grey) and ridiculous, testosterone-fueled cartoon chaos (Smokin' Aces, Boss Level, The A-Team). He's one of those directors where you never really know what you'll get, except that it will be loud, slick, and usually riddled with F-bombs, bullets, and slow-motion walkaways from explosions.

Shadow Force lands squarely in his "ridiculous cartoon chaos" column—and not in a good way.

Here's the setup: Isaac (Omar Sy), a once-deadly special ops agent, is living a quiet, Lionel Richie-soundtracked life with his son Ky. He's trying to shield the kid from his violent past, keeping things low-key until—surprise!—his old life comes crashing back.

His former flame and fellow fugitive, Kyrah (Kerry Washington), tracks him down after he's forced to go full action hero in a bank robbery gone wrong. Their rekindled presence on the grid catches the attention of their former elite team, Shadow Force, now on a mission to wipe them out.

Why? Because they broke the number one rule of shadowy global mercenary clubs: no falling in love and definitely no kids. So, of course, they must now shoot their way through betrayal, high-octane chases, and painfully obvious double-crosses while protecting their precocious, adorable child. You know, that old chestnut.

Let's start with the film's saving grace: Kerry Washington. She's terrific. Always has been. I've been a fan of hers since I Think I Love My Wife (an underrated movie, by the way), and she brings every ounce of her star power here. She's fierce, she's magnetic, she's believably badass, and somehow, she almost (almost!) pulls this thing out of the gutter.

Watching Kerry Washington unload an automatic weapon while giving side-eye and sass is a joy. Unfortunately, she's saddled with one of the most generic action scripts in recent memory. Her chemistry with Omar Sy is solid—he's got charm and presence, no doubt—but the material gives them nothing fresh to work with. Estranged lovers forced to team up while dodging bullets and bickering over past mistakes? Been there, ducked that.

Mark Strong shows up doing exactly what you think Mark Strong is going to do: play the smug, icy villain with that exact same gravelly voice, steely glare, and predictably grim monologues. The guy has made a career out of playing this character. He's good at it, but it's officially tired. There's no surprise, no twist, no dimension. He enters, chews scenery, points a gun, sneers... Rinse, repeat.

I respect Strong as a performer. He's done excellent work elsewhere. But here? He's just doing "The Mark Strong Thing," and we've seen it a dozen times too many.

To his credit, Joe Carnahan still knows how to stage action. The shootouts are clean, the fight scenes are serviceable, and the film moves briskly enough. The guy's not without skill. He can point a camera, build momentum, and blow things up in creative ways. And the cinematography isn't bad. Visually, the film looks slick.

But directing can't save a script that's this paper-thin. We've got every trope imaginable here: estranged lovers, adorable kid in danger, evil ex-colleagues, black ops gone rogue, comic relief family members, last-minute betrayals, and "this time it's personal" speeches. It's like someone threw Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Safe House, and a Hallmark family drama into a blender and hit "meh."

Adding some much-needed levity are Cliff "Method Man" Smith and Da'Vine Joy Randolph as the quasi-uncles of the family. Method Man brings that cool, effortless charisma he always does, and Randolph—fresh off her Oscar win for The Holdovers—proves yet again she's a scene-stealer in any genre. Their timing is sharp, and they generate some real laughs.

But even they can't overcome the film's forced sense of humor. Jokes feel dropped in from another draft of the script, one that was maybe trying for Rush Hour energy but ends up landing somewhere closer to Ride Along 3 (which, thankfully, doesn't exist—yet).

Shadow Force is the action movie equivalent of microwave leftovers. It's reheated clichés served with a side of decent action and a very charismatic cast trying to elevate bland material. You've seen this movie before. You've seen it better. And while it's not the worst of the Carnahan canon (Boss Level and Smokin' Aces are still duking it out for that title), it's a missed opportunity.

When you've got Kerry Washington, Omar Sy, Mark Strong, Method Man, and Da'Vine Joy Randolph, you should have something electric. Instead, we get something painfully average. - ⭐️⭐️

2) CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD

Let's get one thing straight: clowns and horror go way back. There's an inherent creepiness to the exaggerated face paint, the forced laughter, and the idea that something designed to bring joy might secretly want to gut you with a meat hook.

From Pennywise in It to the cult goofiness of Killer Klowns from Outer Space, the creepy clown subgenre has had its ups. And then it had Terrifier—and that, in my humble and absolutely correct opinion, was the beginning of the end.

The Canadian production Clown in a Cornfield is the latest unfortunate spawn of the Terrifier-fueled clown slasher revival. And if you thought Art the Clown was irritatingly empty and wildly overrated, then strap in, because Clown in a Cornfield somehow manages to be even dumber, even more derivative, and even less fun.

The story follows Quinn Maybrook (Katie Douglas), who moves from Philly to the middle-of-nowhere town of Kettle Springs with her dad (Aaron Abrams, doing his best). The town's pride and joy—the Baypen Corn Syrup Factory—has gone up in flames, and the community is now economically and emotionally gutted.

The blame for that fiery downfall has been pinned on Cole Hill (Carson MacCormac), a local "troublemaker" who, along with his misfit friends, turned the town mascot—a clown named Frendo—into a viral meme of violence.

Now, Frendo is apparently on a murder spree, slicing and dicing teens while the adults do their best Hot Fuzz impersonation, all "greater good" and small-town rage. There's something bubbling beneath the surface, of course. A dark secret. A twist. And in the grand tradition of terrible third acts, the movie slams the brakes to explain everything in one long, exposition-choked dump that's as boring as it is predictable.

This one stings because Eli Craig once showed promise. Tucker and Dale vs. Evil was a solid horror-comedy—bloody, clever, and genuinely funny. It played with genre expectations, had charm, and boasted some terrific gore. It wasn't Shaun of the Dead caliber, but it had something.

That promise? Gone. Flushed. Buried in the cornfield, along with the film's common sense. Clown in a Cornfield tries to strike a similar tone—slasher bloodbath meets social satire—but it doesn't have the brains, the teeth, or the heart.

It wants to be Thanksgiving (Eli Roth's recent gem of gruesome satire), but instead, it's a pale, soggy knockoff. Every clever or subversive idea—about rural rage, economic desperation, generational divides—is either ignored or utterly botched in favor of more blood and less wit.

Look, I'll give credit where it's due: there are a couple of decent kills. The practical gore effects are solid, and a couple of jump scares land. But that's it. That's the full list of positives.

Katie Douglas is a solid young actress, and the cast of teens does their best. But the script gives them nothing. Every character is a stock type: the bad boy with a heart of gold, the misunderstood outsider, the sneering adults, the ineffectual sheriff (played here by Will Sasso, who I like in comedy but who's stranded in this mess). Kevin Durand, hulking around as Cole's dad, prowls the frame like he's in a better movie. Spoiler: he's not.

And then there's Frendo. Not scary. Not iconic. Not memorable. Just a red-nosed placeholder in a movie full of better references to better films.

There's a real missed chance here to say something about the death of small-town America, about generational mistrust, about performative violence and viral fame. There are nuggets in the premise that could've been mined for biting commentary. But Craig and Blanchard's screenplay fumbles every single one.

Instead, they pile on clichés like corn in a silo. The angry townsfolk. The misunderstood teens. The masked killer with a twist. And then they screech everything to a halt to walk us through the dumb, obvious "mystery" in the final 20 minutes. It's lazy storytelling, plain and simple. And worst of all, it thinks it's being clever.

Clown in a Cornfield is derivative, dumb, and devoid of originality. It rips off better slasher flicks, squanders its potential satire, and overloads its third act with exposition so boring it could double as sleep therapy. Sure, there's some blood, and a few kills are fun in that red corn-syrup way. But when that's the only thing your horror movie has going for it? You've lost the thread.

Frendo the Clown might be stalking teens in a cornfield, but the real horror is that this script made it to the screen. - ⭐️1/2

3) FIGHT OR FLIGHT

There was a time, not too long ago, when the name Josh Hartnett carried weight. A charming, good-looking guy with just enough edge to straddle the line between sensitive and scrappy. We rooted for him. And now?

He's three movies deep into what should be a comeback—Oppenheimer, Trap, and now Fight or Flight—and none of them are doing him any favors. In fact, Fight or Flight might be the most disappointing of the bunch, not because it's the worst (hi, Trap), but because it's so mind-numbingly derivative it makes Bullet Train look like Citizen Kane.

And if you know me, you know how much I hated Bullet Train.

Lucas Reyes (Hartnett) is a washed-up ex-agent living in boozy exile in Thailand, drinking away the days after being tossed onto the government's no-fly list for reasons that are aggressively uninteresting, like most things in this movie.

One day, his ex-girlfriend/boss (Katee Sackhoff, trying hard to keep a straight face) shows up with a deal: get on a commercial flight from Bangkok to San Francisco, find a mysterious figure known as "The Ghost," and bring them in alive. The catch? Nobody knows who The Ghost is—only that they've recently been shot—and the plane is loaded with assassins who want them dead.

So yeah. It's Bullet Train. But on a plane. With Josh Hartnett instead of Brad Pitt. And, shocker, it's not better.

The John Wick series was a gift to action cinema. Smartly choreographed, hyper-stylized, and dripping with mythology and flair, those movies reminded us how good modern action could be.

But like anything great, they inspired a flood of imitators—only most of those imitators forgot what made Wick so good in the first place: clarity, elegance, and Keanu Reeves not acting like he was in on the joke.

Fight or Flight is just the latest in a long, wearying line of Wick wannabes (Nobody, Atomic Blonde, Bullet Train, Silent Night, Monkey Man, Love Hurts... shall I go on?). And this one commits the cardinal sin of the genre: it's boring.

Not because nothing happens—plenty happens—but because none of it matters. The action is loud, the blood is plentiful, the kills are stylish, but the characters are cardboard, the jokes are stale, and the twist (if you can call it that) is visible from 30,000 feet.

David Leitch didn't direct this movie, but his fingerprints are all over it, meaning it's sleek, smug, and thinks it's funnier than it is. There's a self-awareness here that veers into parody, but without the actual wit required to pull it off.

Everybody's mugging, cracking wise, swearing like Tarantino characters who've suffered a head injury, and engaging in hand-to-hand fights that feel like they were choreographed by someone who just discovered slow-mo.

The movie opens with an "aren't-we-clever" montage scored to The Blue Danube, set in slo-mo chaos as passengers beat each other with seatbelts, fire extinguishers, and presumably whatever wasn't nailed down in coach. Then we rewind 12 hours earlier—because nothing says "original storytelling" like a Pulp Fiction flashback trope used for the 9,000th time—and launch into the most uninspired expository slog you've seen in years.

Look, I like Josh Hartnett. I've always liked him. Even back in The Faculty, you could see the guy had something. And to his credit, he's the best thing about Fight or Flight. He's trying. He's got charm. He sells the lone-wolf-mercenary thing as much as anyone could with a script written by what sounds like a frat house AI.

But there's only so much he can do when surrounded by scowling, screaming, suit-wearing clichés yelling "F---!" into Bluetooth headsets while staring at world maps and countdown clocks.

It's not just Hartnett, either—Katee Sackhoff, Charithra Chandran, and the rest of the cast are clearly game, but they're trapped in a screenplay that's just a collage of other better movies. There's no suspense, no stakes, and no surprises.

You'll spot "The Ghost" about 15 minutes in. And the emotional core the movie thinks it has? You'll feel nothing. Just noise and blood and the occasional window being blown out mid-air.

Fight or Flight isn't a movie—it's a checklist. Airborne assassins? Check. Washed-up hero with a secret past? Check. Government agents yelling nonsense jargon into earpieces? Check. Big twist you saw coming before takeoff? Oh yeah.

Throw in a few mid-air slow-mo shootouts, some attempted Tarantino banter, and a whole lot of recycled flair, and you've got one of the most uninspired action films of the year. Is it better than Bullet Train? Marginally. But that's like saying lukewarm airline food is better than a tray of cold peas. The bar is so low it's practically underground. - ⭐️1/2

4) WATCH THE SKIES

If you're the kind of moviegoer who gets misty-eyed at the mere sight of a BMX bike under a setting sun or an alien lighting up its index finger, Watch the Skies will hit that nostalgic nerve hard.

This Swedish sci-fi import (originally released in 2022 under the title UFO Sweden) is tailor-made for fans of 1980s Spielberg—E.T., Close Encounters, The Goonies, Batteries Not Included—pick your flavor. And while the film itself doesn't reinvent the flying saucer, it does come with a very 2025 twist: an artificial intelligence dubbing process so seamless that it may change how international films are released going forward.

Let's start with the plot. Sixteen-year-old Denise (a very good Inez Dahl Torhaug) lives with indifferent foster parents in the small Swedish town of Norrköping. Her father, Uno (Oscar Töringe), disappeared eight years earlier after claiming to have pinpointed the location of a UFO.

Now, when a red Saab 90 crashes through a barn roof and a glowing red formation lights up the sky, Denise becomes convinced her father is still alive—and that he was right all along. She reconnects with his old UFO investigation group, an endearingly bickering band of misfits, and they begin unraveling a conspiracy involving a government agency, a mysterious supercomputer, and, yes, potential alien contact.

Watch the Skies is not exactly blazing new territory. It's essentially Super 8 with IKEA furniture. It hits every beat you expect in a retro-sci-fi adventure: deadbeat adults who don't believe the kids, secret government operations, a ragtag group of investigators, and a final third where the sky lights up and all the plot threads tie themselves in a bow. It's comfortable, safe storytelling—the cinematic equivalent of reheated mac and cheese. But hey, sometimes comfort food hits the spot.

The big differences here are geography and tone. This movie feels Swedish, even though you hear pitch-perfect English thanks to the AI dubbing. The settings, the pacing, even the dry humor—it's all distinctly non-American, which gives the film a little more texture than the Spielbergian pastiche it clearly wants to be.

And the cast? Uniformly solid. Dahl Torhaug gives the film its emotional anchor, and the ensemble around her has great chemistry. You believe this UFO club used to be something. You believe they lost their way. And you want them to find answers.

But let's be honest: the most interesting part of Watch the Skies isn't the glowing red UFOs or the likable cast—it's what's going on behind their lips. This is the first international film to use Flawless's "TrueSync" AI technology to match dubbed English voices to the actors' original lip movements. And it works—shockingly well.

Gone are the days of Godzilla-style voice mismatches and off-rhythm line readings. This tech uses the original actors' voices, digitally manipulated to speak perfect English while syncing with facial movements. The result? Unless someone told you, you'd never guess this movie wasn't shot in English.

It's both impressive and a little disconcerting, because while it smooths out the viewing experience for subtitle-averse audiences, it also raises real questions about the future of foreign cinema. Will subtitles become obsolete? Will actors even need to speak the languages they're being dubbed into?

As a guy who's always preferred subtitles to clunky dubbing, I'm torn. I'd still rather hear the natural cadences of the native language. But I'll admit: this is leaps and bounds beyond anything we've seen. It's a game-changer, and in some ways, the implications of this technology are more fascinating than the movie itself.

Watch the Skies is a decent movie. It's not great, and it's not groundbreaking. But it's charming, well-acted, nicely shot, and rooted in an earnest science-fiction optimism that we don't see much anymore.

If you're a sucker for Spielberg-ian throwbacks or you grew up with the dream of building a radio antenna in your backyard to talk to Martians, this movie will probably work for you.

But let's be clear—the legacy of this film isn't going to be its story or characters. It's going to be the tech. Watch the Skies is the first in a world where AI is rewriting how we experience language in film. That's the truly forward-looking part. - ⭐️⭐️1/2

Thanks for reading, and please SUBSCRIBE to my weekly NEWSLETTER!

Join me on Patreon as a paid subscriber to help keep this thing going.

Thanks again!