CAPSULE MOVIE REVIEWS: 6-27-25
- Jun 28
- 13 min read
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I enjoy wearing nice shorts. Nice Film Critic Shorts. That fit. They are on, and I'm ready to review four new movies in this week's capsule (short) movie reviews for Friday, June 27, 2025.
F1: The Movie is not a movie. It's a factory-produced, mass-marketed, drive-thru fast-food item dressed up to look like a cinematic experience. This is not storytelling. This is brand merchandising.
This is what happens when marketing committees greenlight "films" based solely on synergy with a sporting franchise, actor Q-scores, and a leftover effects budget from Top Gun: Maverick.
Brad Pitt, in all his aging, charming glory, plays Sonny Hayes, a retired Formula 1 driver who never quite made it to the top tier. After a devastating crash in the '90s, Sonny disappeared into the world of lesser races and shadows. But guess what? He's BACK.
Because, naturally, his old pal Ruben (Javier Bardem, trying his damnedest to elevate the crap he's been handed) needs Sonny to mentor a cocky young rookie, Joshua "Noah" Pearce (Damson Idris), and bring glory to their underdog team, APXGP.
Cue every single tired sports movie trope ever written: the grizzled old pro haunted by demons, the hotshot kid who thinks he knows it all, the skeptical team, the big races, the fallouts, the crashes, the comeback, and the inevitable redemption arc that you can telegraph from frame one.
There's a brilliant, underused actress (Kerry Condon) shoved into a love-interest-meets-tech-genius role with dialogue that sounds like it was written by a second-year intern who just binge-watched Ford v Ferrari and Rush on mute.
Oh, and there's a whole pit crew of underwritten, cliché-ridden side characters tossed in like garnish on a fast-food tray. The "scrappy mechanic who earns their stripes"? Check. "Team principal with a heart of gold but a stick up his ass"? Check. "Double-crossing board member who doesn't believe in the team"? Double check.
Joseph Kosinski, who somehow convinced the world that Top Gun: Maverick was cinema and not just two and a half hours of military propaganda and hero worship, is back with more noisy, empty spectacle. This guy has the visual flair of a Gatorade commercial and the storytelling instincts of an AI trained solely on Super Bowl ads.
And like Top Gun: Maverick, F1 is loud — distractingly, aggressively, insultingly loud. Hans Zimmer phones in a score that blasts through every moment with the subtlety of a jackhammer. Sure, it's technically well-produced. The racing scenes are shiny, fast, and expensive-looking. But who cares when you know exactly how every moment is going to unfold?
It's just noise over nothing.
If Ehren Kruger's name doesn't make you groan, you haven't suffered through enough of his work. This is the guy behind The Ring Two, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and yes, Top Gun: Maverick. His scripts are a greatest-hits compilation of every bad trope in the book.
There is not a single line of dialogue in F1 that feels original, lived-in, or human. It's wall-to-wall platitudes, exposition dumps, corny montages, and motivational speeches pulled straight from the "Inspirational Sports Drama for Dummies" handbook.
Brad Pitt is too good for this. Even when buried under mountains of predictability, he remains charming, committed, and capable. But it's all wasted. Condon is criminally misused — reduced to a cardboard-cutout love interest wearing headphones. And Bardem? He deserves a damn apology letter.
There's zero chemistry between Pitt and Condon — a romantic subplot so forced, so flat, it borders on parody. They're two of the most attractive, talented people on the planet… and they generate less heat than a snow cone.
If F1: The Movie were a meal, it'd be a Big Mac. Brad Pitt's the beef patty. The racing sequences? Secret sauce. The Hans Zimmer score? A sesame seed bun. And just like that burger you regret 10 minutes after eating, this "movie" is forgettable, formulaic, and leaves you feeling hollow. This isn't cinema — it's branding. It's packaging. It's noise dressed up as meaning.
This thing is a product. Pure and simple. A focus-tested, committee-built, soul-sucking content blob with zero originality and even less heart. It's the definition of Hollywood cynicism. An insult to the intelligence of every moviegoer and a massive waste of the immense talent involved.
When I wasn't bored out of my skull during F1, I was actively angry. Angry at the waste of talent. Angry at the predictability. Angry at all of the noise. Angry that this kind of thing keeps getting made. It's 2.5 hours of clichés, crashes, and cringe — and it's 2.5 hours too long.
I don't say this lightly: I hated every frame of this thing. - ⭐️
M3GAN 2.0 is an absolute bust. It's an overstuffed, overlong, underwritten sequel that takes whatever modest charm the first film had. It drowns it in exposition, explosions, and incoherent robot-on-robot brawls.
It's a movie about the dangers of artificial intelligence that ironically feels like it was made by an AI bot cobbled together from a thousand other bad movies.
It's been two years since the pint-sized, homicidal tap-dancing AI doll known as M3GAN stole the spotlight, racked up a body count, and became a pop culture sensation. The original film? It was fine. Lightweight, weirdly charming, and at least self-aware enough to embrace its camp.
It had some clever kills, some decent satire, and, of course, those viral dance moves that America couldn't get enough of. You couldn't swing a robotic arm in 2022 without hitting a M3GAN Halloween costume.
But the first film made a boatload of money and, because Hollywood never met a mildly successful IP it couldn't milk dry, M3GAN 2.0 is here. And hoo boy, is it trying so hard to be bigger, louder, and dumber.
This time around, Gemma (Allison Williams, still charming but visibly tired) has become a bestselling author and public advocate for AI regulation. Her niece Cady (Violet McGraw, now a rebellious teen) is practicing karate and quoting Steven Seagal films.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government, in its infinite wisdom, has taken M3GAN's tech and turned it into a military-grade infiltration unit called AMELIA. Of course, AMELIA goes rogue, becomes self-aware, and decides she'd rather wipe out humanity than take orders.
So what's the solution? Naturally—rebuild M3GAN. Faster. Stronger. Sassier. Cue the robot death match.
This movie is 124 minutes long. Let me say that again: 124 minutes. It shouldn't even be 90 minutes long. For a film that's ostensibly about killer robots and AI gone wild, it spends a staggering amount of time talking.
The first 45 minutes are pure exposition. Government briefings. Military presentations. Characters explaining things we just saw. And then, for good measure, flashbacks to those same explanations. It's exposition nested inside exposition.
And when, after reintroducing all of the old characters, we finally get to the meat—robot fights, betrayals, and the world-threatening AI plot—it's… not good. The action is incoherent. The fight choreography is clumsy. The editing is a mess.
Director Gerard Johnstone, who pulled off some modest flair in the original, is entirely out of his depth here. The horror-comedy balance is gone. The satire is limp. The thrills? Nonexistent.
What makes it worse is the sheer number of new characters, most of whom are underwritten, overacted, or just plain wasted. Timm Sharp, a genuinely talented comedic actor, is relegated to generic FBI agent duty.
Aristotle Athari, formerly of SNL, brings none of his robot-comedy genius to the screen—even though, hilariously, he once played a robot comedian on Weekend Update that was funnier and smarter than anything in this entire movie.
Ivanna Sakhno plays AMELIA, the new killer bot. She's got presence, sure, but the movie gives her nothing to do but glower and glitch. Meanwhile, Jemaine Clement pops in for a few scenes, seemingly to remind us that, yes, this movie could have been funny if someone knew how to write a punchline.
To be fair—very fair—there are a few genuinely funny moments. The running gag about Steven Seagal movies and Cady's obsession with martial arts is weirdly charming.
Hearing "Hard to Kill!" being yelled out like a battle cry actually made me crack a smile. And the scene where M3GAN sings a Kate Bush ballad to a wounded Allison Williams? Surreal. Bizarre. Almost beautiful. That moment alone deserved a better movie.
But two or three chuckles don't make up for 120 minutes of tired tropes, bad pacing, and recycled themes. Not even close.
The ultimate irony here is that M3GAN 2.0 wants to be a commentary about artificial intelligence and our overreliance on it. But it ends up feeling like a product of that very thing.
There's no fresh idea here. Every twist is predictable. Every "satirical" beat has been done before—and done better—in movies dating back to the original Westworld, RoboCop, and even Short Circuit. Hell, even Chopping Mall had more originality and fun.
If you're trying to explore the dangers of AI with intelligence, you need sharp writing. If you're trying to parody it, you need wit. This movie has neither. It just has noise.
M3GAN 2.0 is what happens when a studio feeds a bunch of sci-fi tropes into an algorithm and hits "generate." It's longer, dumber, and more bloated than the original—with none of the charm. The few laughs it lands only highlight how lazy the rest of it is.
This is the cinematic equivalent of reading the Terms of Service for two hours, with a dance and action break.
There's no good reason for this movie to exist. And definitely no reason for it to be this long, this talky, or this dull. A bloated, exposition-heavy retread that talks about AI while feeling like it was made by one. - ⭐️
Hot Milk is a flawed film. It's messy. It's meandering. It lacks clarity, is emotionally distant in parts, and doesn't always connect as intended.
And yet—I'm recommending it. In fact, I think it's worth seeing. Because despite the film's ambiguities and narrative fog, it is anchored by a trio of strong, captivating performances and a final five minutes that left me staring at the screen in stunned silence.
There are moments in this movie—particularly the ending—that are bold, bracing, and genuinely unforgettable.
Set in the sweltering heat of southern Spain, Hot Milk follows Sofia (played with quiet intensity by Emma Mackey), a twentysomething anthropology student who's put her entire life on hold to care for her ailing mother Rose (the great Fiona Shaw), a woman who may or may not be physically paralyzed.
Rose has convinced herself—and possibly others—that she cannot walk. But is it a medical condition? A mental block? Or, more disturbingly, a manipulative choice designed to keep her daughter tethered to her side forever?
That ambiguity sits at the molten center of this movie. Sofia and Rose move into a whitewashed rental cottage on the coast, complete with barking dogs and jellyfish-infested waters, to pursue treatment with the eccentric, possibly fraudulent Dr. Gomez (Vincent Perez, sly and fascinating).
Along the way, Sofia begins a tempestuous relationship with Ingrid (Vicky Krieps), a German woman who ignites something in her emotionally and sexually—before pulling away just as fast.
Sofia also reconnects briefly with her estranged father in Athens. But everything, ultimately, comes back to Rose. Their toxic bond. The power plays. The unspoken traumas. The bone-deep damage.
Fiona Shaw's performance is tremendous. Just absolutely phenomenal. She plays Rose with an aristocratic bitterness and cryptic charm, offering just enough mystery and menace to keep you on edge. You're never quite sure if she's manipulating everyone around her—or if she's genuinely broken. Or both. Shaw nails the contradictions.
Emma Mackey, known for her work in Sex Education and Emily (she was also a Barbie in Barbie), delivers her best performance yet. Her Sofia is largely silent, but you can read the exhaustion, the fury, and the yearning right off her face. There's no voiceover here. No inner monologue. It's all expression, subtle gestures, restrained emotion. It's internal acting done right.
Vicky Krieps, meanwhile, is a beautiful enigma. Ingrid isn't fully three-dimensional—she's more of a symbol than a character—but Krieps lends her presence, danger, and allure. She's less a person and more a catalyst for Sofia's long-delayed self-reclamation.
This is Rebecca Lenkiewicz's directorial debut, and while you might know her work from Ida, She Said, and Colette, here she adapts Deborah Levy's 2016 novel—a book I haven't read but which reportedly relies heavily on inner narration. That narration is stripped out here, and you feel the loss.
There's an emotional distance to the film. Scenes cut out before they climax. Conversations withhold just a bit too much. Major character moments often slip through the cracks. The film's ambiguity is a strength and a weakness: it allows for nuance, but it also leaves you yearning for a little more emotional grip.
Christopher Blauvelt's cinematography is stunning, though. He has worked with Kelly Reichardt, and that influence is evident. The bleached-out whites of the Spanish village, the sting of sunlight, the ominous tranquility of the sea—it all feels symbolic, dreamlike, detached.
And that's intentional. The movie wants you to feel stuck, like Sofia, in a surrealist purgatory of passive aggression, parental guilt, and jellyfish stings.
At its core, Hot Milk is about the legacy of inherited trauma. The damage that bleeds from parent to child. Rose is a narcissist, a woman whose physical afflictions mask emotional ones. She insists she can't walk, but she also can—sometimes.
Is it physical? Psychological? Munchausen? Manipulation? The movie doesn't say. And that's part of the point.
Sofia is caught in this strange, awful loop: taking care of a mother who won't admit to needing help and sacrificing her own life in the process. Ingrid offers a fleeting escape, but even that is complicated by non-monogamy, jealousy, and an inability to commit. Gomez (who notably does not want to be called "doctor") presses at these wounds with therapist-like curiosity. Or is he just a charlatan?
The movie swims in symbolism. The jellyfish. The barking dog. The flamenco dancers. The sea. Margaret Mead, Sofia's academic idol, is referenced often. Her theories about elasticity in life—how we can stretch, but we might also snap—echo throughout.
And then there's that ending.
I won't spoil it, but it is abrupt. Shocking. Possibly offensive. A hard, sudden cut to black in a moment of extreme tension. There's no resolution. No music. No explanation.
And it's brilliant.
It might be divisive. It might leave you angry. But to me, it felt bold and thematically perfect. Because Hot Milk is about emotional ambiguity. It's about severing ties. It's about walking away—or not. And that ending? That's exactly what it should be. The best kind of gut punch.
Hot Milk isn't for everyone. It doesn't explain itself. It doesn't offer catharsis. It's chilly, ambiguous, and occasionally frustrating. It's emotionally aloof and narratively fragmented.
But it's also filled with sharp ideas, deep undercurrents, and compelling performances.
Yes, it meanders. Yes, some scenes feel like placeholders. But it also sticks with you. And it has one of the most effective and gutsy endings I've seen in a long time.
I was never bored. I was always engaged. And even when I didn't love it, I was intrigued. And that's worth something. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️
There are plenty of movies about dementia. About aging. About slipping away slowly while the world continues to spin at full speed. But Familiar Touch—the extraordinary feature debut from writer-director Sarah Friedland—is not like those other films.
It isn't melodramatic. It isn't manipulative. It doesn't reduce its central character to a vehicle for tear-jerking scenes and Oscar-bait speeches. No. This is something else. Something far more grounded, poetic, and honest.
This is a coming-of-old-age story. And it's absolutely devastating in the most delicate, human way.
Kathleen Chalfant plays Ruth, an octogenarian widow whose cognitive decline begins to seep into everyday tasks—like cracking eggs, boiling water, and recognizing the man sitting across from her at breakfast.
When her son Steven (H. Jon Benjamin) drives her to what she thinks is a lunch date, she's instead dropped off at a memory care unit in an assisted living facility. It's a quiet betrayal that sets the stage for Ruth's slow, stumbling transition into her new life.
From here, Familiar Touch becomes less of a traditional narrative and more of a lived experience—capturing the beauty and sorrow of fading memory with scenes that drift in and out of clarity, just like Ruth's mind.
The film lets you inhabit her confusion, her joys, her small victories, and her moments of devastating recognition. It's a sensory experience. The smell of a roast in the kitchen. The sound of soup boiling. The feel of warm water on skin. Memory lives in these details.
Kathleen Chalfant gives one of the best performances of the year. Period. She's 80 years old in real life, and her portrayal of Ruth feels lived in—a masterclass in subtlety, restraint, and emotional honesty. You might remember her from Hereditary (where she was truly terrifying) or from her stage and screen work, which spans decades. Here, she doesn't play the role. She is Ruth. Completely.
There's a moment when Ruth wanders into the kitchen of the facility during a bout of confusion and just instinctively starts cooking. And as the scene unfolds, you realize—she used to be a chef. A great one. A successful author, too. It's like watching a mystery unravel.
We, as the audience, discover Ruth right alongside her. Her past is revealed not through exposition dumps but through moments—gestures, conversations, smells, recipes. And it's handled with remarkable grace.
Carolyn Michelle Smith is wonderful as Vanessa, the care worker who forms a deep connection with Ruth. Their scenes together—especially in the kitchen—are some of the film's most emotionally resonant. And Andy McQueen, as the on-site physician, gives a performance that's understated and sincere. There's not a single false note in the ensemble.
Even H. Jon Benjamin, best known for voicing Bob Belcher and Archer, plays it completely straight and delivers a low-key, heartbreaking performance as Ruth's son.
There's a shower scene, brief and brutal, where Ruth, alone, suddenly remembers him—and just as quickly forgets. It's fleeting. It's real. It destroyed me.
What makes Friedland's direction so impressive is how she paces this story like a puzzle. It doesn't hit you all at once. It reveals itself in fragments. Just like memory. You don't even realize how invested you are until Ruth's life begins to take shape.
You find out who she was, who she loved, and what she's losing—not through monologues or speeches—but through actions, glances, smells, and sounds. It's sensory. It's cinematic.
And while this is a movie that deals with the sadness of dementia, it's never only sad.
There's joy in rediscovery. There's comfort in touch. There's agency in small acts. Ruth may be losing her memory, but she's still a person. She still has dignity. The film never forgets that. It's a remarkable balance of sorrow and beauty.
Look, this is a small movie. It was made independently, for no money, with no hype. Music Box Films picked it up and is giving it a limited theatrical run. But it deserves so much more.
Friedland's film should be seen far and wide—not just by people dealing with aging parents, but by everyone. It's a reminder of how movies can reflect real life in meaningful, poetic, intimate ways.
We need more films like this. Films that aren't afraid to be quiet. Films that treat aging not as a punchline or a tragedy but as a reality—a human experience, messy and painful and funny and beautiful all at once.
If you've ever watched a loved one go through the slow erosion of dementia, this film will hit you like a freight train. But you'll be grateful for it. If you haven't, it'll teach you something about empathy, patience, and the preciousness of everyday connection.
Familiar Touch isn't just a great debut; it's a remarkable one. It's a great film. And Kathleen Chalfant deserves every accolade that could possibly be thrown her way. She's stunning here.
This is one of the most quietly powerful, deeply moving films I've seen in a long time. Don't let it slip past you. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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