CAPSULE MOVIE REVIEWS 8-22-25
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- 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 five new movies in this week's capsule (short) movie reviews for Friday, August 22nd, 2025.
Ethan Coen's follow-up to last year's Drive-Away Dolls, his nearly unwatchable, painfully self-satisfied "lesbian comedy noir," is the second installment in what he and wife/collaborator Tricia Cooke are apparently calling a "lesbian B-movie trilogy."
If that phrase excites you, I suggest you keep the enthusiasm in check, because if the quality trend continues, we're in for a rough third chapter. The first film was a loud, empty noise machine, and while Honey Don't! is slightly more watchable, that's thanks to exactly one reason: Margaret Qualley.
Without her, this would be a straight-to-streaming disaster you'd shut off halfway through.
Qualley plays Honey O'Donahue, a private investigator in Bakersfield who wears red pumps to crime scenes, takes no crap from anyone, and makes it very clear, especially to a clueless cop played by Charlie Day, that she likes women.
She's pulled into a case after a woman who reached out to her winds up dead at the bottom of a cliff. Honey's digging leads her to a sleazy church run by Reverend Drew (Chris Evans, clearly having fun chewing scenery), who preaches on Sundays, deals drugs on the side, and sleeps with his parishioners the rest of the week.
There's also a subplot involving Aubrey Plaza as a cop named MG, who falls into a torrid affair with Honey. Meanwhile, Honey's niece (Talia Ryder) is dealing with a bad boyfriend, her sister (Kristen Connolly) is buried under childcare chaos, and somewhere in there is a French leopard-print-wearing drug courier on a scooter. Why? Don't ask, the movie doesn't know either.
Here's the fatal flaw: the movie wants to be Blood Simple and Raising Arizona at the same time, and fails miserably at both. The Coens, at their best, could juggle tonal shifts seamlessly. Here, it feels like the scenes were shot in random order, dumped in a blender, and edited by a committee that never spoke to each other.
One minute, you get an attempt at dark, moody neo-noir; the next, we're in broad cartoonish slapstick territory. It's tonal whiplash, and the violence and sex, both of which I have no problem with if they serve a purpose, feel like they're there simply to shock.
Let's talk about that. There's a long, extremely explicit sex scene between Qualley and Plaza involving sex toys. No judgment, if it served the characters or the story, fine. But it doesn't.
Same with the violence: people are blown apart, blood sprays like it's a Kill Bill parody, and yet there's no real weight or payoff. It's all just… there.
I'm not offended by extreme content. Far from it. But if you're going to push those buttons, at least have a reason beyond, "Wouldn't it be wild if…?"
The movie wastes a lot of talent. Chris Evans gets a few gonzo moments, but vanishes from the story without making much impact. Charlie Day scores a couple of small laughs with Qualley. Plaza, one of the most interesting actresses working, is criminally underused. And yet…
Margaret Qualley is phenomenal. She's funny, sharp, charismatic, and sells every beat, even when the script is fighting against her. The character of Honey is fully alive. She is tough, stylish, quick-witted, and completely different from the chaotic character she played in Drive-Away Dolls. Without her, Honey Don't! collapses. With her, it limps across the finish line.
Ethan and Joel Coen have made some bad movies together (O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Hail, Caesar!, anyone?) and separately (Joel's The Tragedy of Macbeth, Ethan's Drive-Away Dolls). They're on a cold streak right now, and Honey Don't! doesn't reverse it.
This is a tonally incoherent, structurally sloppy film with a couple of laughs, a few noir moments that work, and one dynamite central performance keeping the whole thing from being a total disaster.
Margaret Qualley is the only reason to see it. Everyone else (cast, crew, audience) deserves better. And based on the first two installments, I am absolutely dreading the third chapter in this so-called trilogy. - ⭐️⭐️
Ron Howard's latest movie, Eden, is one of those films that arrives with a whimper after a messy festival premiere, in this case, Toronto 2024, where it sat on a shelf for almost a year before limping into theaters.
It's supposed to be a thriller. It's supposed to be an island-bound tale of survival, sex, madness, and philosophy set nearly 100 years ago in the Galápagos Islands. On paper, it sounds intriguing. In execution? It's a disaster.
Based (loosely) on actual events, Eden tells the story of Dr. Friedrich Ritter (Jude Law), a German philosopher and physician who abandons society with his lover/disciple Dora Strauch (Vanessa Kirby) to live off the land on the remote island of Floreana.
It's 1929, the world is collapsing economically, and Ritter believes humankind is doomed, so he retreats to the wilderness to pound away at his Nietzschean manifesto and build his own utopia.
But their so-called paradise doesn't remain theirs for long. Another couple, Heinz and Margret Wittmer (Daniel Brühl and Sydney Sweeney), arrive with their sick son, hoping the island air will heal him. The Ritters aren't thrilled with the new neighbors, but tolerate them.
Then things get even stranger: Ana de Armas shows up as the enigmatic "Baroness" Eloise Bosquet de Wagner Wehrhorn, dressed in pearls, dragging along a pair of lovers, and loudly proclaiming her intention to build a luxury hotel on this desolate volcanic rock.
What follows is supposed to be a descent into paranoia, sexual intrigue, betrayal, violence, and madness. The settlers turn against each other, nature itself conspires to destroy them, and utopia inevitably collapses into chaos.
Let's get this out of the way: I'm not a Ron Howard fan. At all. He's one of the most overrated directors in Hollywood. He peaked for me with Night Shift, which was his second movie, way back in 1982.
Since then, his filmography is a parade of mediocrity and outright clunkers. Cocoon, Parenthood, Backdraft (a bad movie people bizarrely think is good). I don't even like Apollo 13. His Oscar-winning A Beautiful Mind? Please. That's a ridiculous movie.
And then there's Hillbilly Elegy, one of the worst films of the past decade, an embarrassing attempt to dress up J.D. Vance's awful book as some heartland epic. That one was Howard trying to prove he could get gritty.
Eden is another swing in that same lane. Here he tries to channel Herzog, maybe a little Lynch, maybe even Polanski, making something sweaty, sexed-up, violent, and unhinged. The problem? Howard has no feel for this kind of material. He's too bland, too middle-of-the-road, too much of a studio hack.
So instead of Eden being compelling, it's just…bad. Bad in a new way for Ron Howard, but still bad.
This is a stacked cast on paper. Jude Law, Vanessa Kirby, Daniel Brühl, Sydney Sweeney, Ana de Armas. And yet nearly all of them are wasted.
Jude Law gives one of the worst performances of his career: muttering, glowering, and stripping down for some unnecessary full-frontal moments that don't add a thing.
Vanessa Kirby, one of the best actresses working today, is given almost nothing to do except react to Law's rants.
Daniel Brühl and Sydney Sweeney are saddled with thin roles as the Wittmers, though Sweeney at least gets one absolutely insane childbirth scene, continuing her apparent new career of screaming her lungs out in grotesque birth sequences (see also: the ending of Immaculate).
Everyone else more or less fades into the volcanic background.
And then there's Ana de Armas.
She's the only reason this movie has a pulse. Her Baroness sweeps into the film like a hurricane... pearls swinging, accent veering into Anna Delvey territory, and every gesture pitched at maximum camp.
She's outrageous, she's bonkers, she's not remotely playing a real human being. But she knows it. You can tell she read the script and thought, "This is garbage, so I'm going to go completely over the top and at least have some fun." And thank God she did. Because the second she appears, the movie actually wakes up.
Her performance is absurd, ridiculous, and arguably terrible, but it's also entertaining. She's the only spark in an otherwise joyless slog.
The big problem with Eden is that it just sits there. For a supposed thriller about survival, lust, madness, and betrayal, the pacing is glacial. Long stretches of absolutely nothing happen.
The tension never builds. The supposed debauchery feels tame. Even the violence feels oddly flat. It's like watching a bad stage play set against some admittedly gorgeous scenery of the Galápagos.
Howard clearly wants this to be a heady exploration of human nature collapsing in isolation, but the execution is clumsy. It's not suspenseful, it's not sexy, it's not scary, it's just tedious.
Eden is yet another entry in Ron Howard's long line of misfires. But unlike his usual brand of bland mediocrity, this one is bad in a brand new way, an attempt to be edgy, transgressive, and wild, only to collapse into silliness and boredom.
The cast is wasted, the script is ridiculous, and the pacing is deathly dull. The only reason to even glance at this film is Ana de Armas, who storms through with a deliriously unhinged performance that at least entertains in its absurdity. She's the only fun thing here, and even she can't save it.
So yes, Eden is terrible. But at least it's Ron Howard being terrible in a different way. That's something, I guess. - ⭐️
The biggest animated movie in the world right now isn't from Pixar, Disney, or DreamWorks. It's not a Minions thing, it's not Inside Out 2, it's not Frozen 2, and it's not even The Super Mario Bros. Movie. No, the biggest animated film of all time, by box office, by sheer cultural impact, by the way it's blown past everything in its path, is Ne Zha 2, a Chinese animated epic directed by Jiaozi.
This thing has grossed over $2.2 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing animated film ever, the highest-grossing non-English film ever, the highest-selling animated film by ticket sales, and one of the top five highest-grossing movies of all time. It is, simply put, a phenomenon.
And here's the thing: I hadn't even seen the original Ne Zha from 2019. Walking into this sequel, I had no foundation, no familiarity with the characters, the dense Chinese mythology, or the sprawling lore. But Ne Zha 2 throws you into the deep end whether you're ready or not.
The movie picks up after the events of the first film. Ne Zha and Ao Bing are struck down by godly lightning, destroying their bodies. Master Taiyi uses the Seven-Colored Sacred Lotus to regenerate them, but it's unstable, and Ao Bing's father (the Dragon King) assumes his son is gone.
What follows is an elaborate pact: Ne Zha and Ao Bing must share one body for seven days, undergo three trials to win a potion that can restore Ao Bing's form, and prevent war.
From there, the story explodes into a frenzy of rivalries, betrayals, supernatural trials, dragons, gods, demon hunters, giant cauldrons, and world-shaking battles.
Shen Gongbao enters as a schemer, Wuliang becomes a manipulative villain, and everything spirals into a climax involving a massive celestial cauldron, Ne Zha's rebirth through samadhi fire, and a showdown that alters the balance between mortals, dragons, and gods.
It's mythological, operatic, and frankly overwhelming.
Here's where I get honest: I was utterly lost for much of the movie. The film opens with a quick recap of the first Ne Zha, but even with that, the amount of lore, exposition, characters, and moving parts is staggering.
Every new character introduction comes with giant text splashed across the screen, like the world's busiest fantasy PowerPoint. Dragons, immortals, deities, demon hunters. It's a parade of mythological figures, each with their own vendettas, powers, and backstories.
After about 45 minutes, I gave up trying to track the relationships and just let the movie wash over me.
And then there's the tone. Whiplash doesn't begin to describe it. One moment you're watching slapstick jokes that would be right at home in Dumb and Dumber (yes, including pee jokes), and the next you're dealing with shocking, tragic death scenes.
Juvenile humor and profound operatic tragedy sit side by side. It shouldn't work, but somehow it does.
Where Ne Zha 2 absolutely floored me was in its presentation. This is one of the most jaw-droppingly beautiful animated films I have ever seen in my life. I saw it in IMAX with full stereoscopic 3D, and the technical craftsmanship is staggering. The textures, the lighting, the movement, this film is an absolute technical marvel.
The final half of the movie, and especially the last third, is a nonstop barrage of breathtaking, surreal action sequences. Dragons soaring through seas of fire, gods battling inside a boiling celestial cauldron, city-wide destruction, rebirth, betrayal, redemption, it's overwhelming in the best way possible.
At times, I literally felt like I was being lifted out of my seat, tossed into this insane kaleidoscope of color, sound, and spectacle.
Even though I didn't fully understand the politics of the dragon clans, the betrayals of the heavenly sect, or every twist in the narrative, it didn't matter. The sheer ride of it, the scale, the visuals, the intensity, was enough to carry me through.
Ne Zha 2 is a strange movie. It's tonally chaotic, mythologically dense, and often confusing, demanding a lot from viewers who lack the cultural context or familiarity with the first film.
I was often bewildered, sometimes annoyed by the juvenile humor, and constantly disoriented by the sheer volume of characters and exposition.
But it's also a singular experience. It's beautiful. It's overwhelming. It's one of the most immersive pieces of animation I've ever seen. And it's a reminder that the future of animation, technically, narratively, and culturally, isn't confined to Hollywood.
Do I fully understand Ne Zha 2? Not even close. Would I watch it again? In a heartbeat. Because as much as it confused me, it thrilled and dazzled me. It made me laugh, it shocked me, and it gave me one of the best theatrical rides of the year.
See it on the biggest screen you can. Crank the sound as loud as possible. And don't worry if the mythology and plot leave you baffled, you'll still be swept away by one of the most outstanding technical achievements in modern animation. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Every once in a while, a modern movie comes along that feels like a time machine back to the paranoid thrillers of the 1970s.
Movies like Three Days of the Condor, The Parallax View, The Conversation, Marathon Man, all those post-Watergate classics where Robert Redford or Warren Beatty ran through New York City, convinced everyone was out to get them.
David Mackenzie's Relay is one of those movies. A sleek, moody, paranoid thriller that feels old-school but plays perfectly in today's world of surveillance, burner phones, and corporate corruption.
Riz Ahmed plays Tom (sometimes Ash), a secretive fixer in New York who acts as a middleman for whistleblowers and corrupt corporations. His job: if an employee steals sensitive files, say, a report about pesticides or fertilizers that could ruin the company, Tom brokers the deal.
He makes sure the files are returned, the whistleblower is paid off, and everyone walks away safe. His genius trick? He never lets anyone hear his voice. Instead, he uses the Tri-State Relay Service, a real service meant for people who are hard of hearing, to conduct all conversations.
The clients talk to a relay operator, who relays their words to Tom. No voices, no recordings, no trace. Brilliant.
Tom is a loner, save for his AA sponsor (played by the excellent Eisa Davis), who nudges him toward a more stable, open life. But Tom's carefully anonymous existence is thrown into chaos when he meets Sarah (Lily James), a scientist who's stolen files from an agricultural company.
Those files reveal the company has knowingly been selling poisonous fertilizer. She's now being hunted by a private team led by Dawson (Sam Worthington, reliably wooden), and Tom suddenly has to choose between staying detached or protecting someone he might actually care about.
What makes Relay work isn't just the plot; it's the mood, the cinematography (by the brilliant Giles Nuttgens), and the way Mackenzie uses New York City as a character.
From the very opening scene, a beautifully paranoid tracking shot of a nervous man crossing the street to deliver stolen information, the movie establishes itself as a throwback.
This isn't glossy, tourist-brochure New York. Mackenzie films the gritty corners of the Lower East Side, the steel edges of Brooklyn, the gentrified but still shadowy side streets. It feels alive, menacing, unpredictable. Honestly, the real star of Relay might be the city itself.
Riz Ahmed is terrific, as always. He's one of those actors who radiates intensity even when doing almost nothing. Here he's quiet, focused, a man of few words but lightning-fast typing fingers.
It's a subtle performance, shaded by his character's struggles with addiction and recovery. Those AA scenes feel real, not like Hollywood filler, and they add emotional weight without being exploitative.
Lily James is solid, too, nervous, jittery, constantly looking over her shoulder. The one weak link is the romance between them, which never quite feels earned.
They barely share screen time together, and most of their interaction is through phones and texts. It's a stretch to buy the connection, but the performances are strong enough to mostly cover it.
Victor Garber shows up and, as always, plays a heavy beautifully. He's such a great New York presence that his casting feels perfect, whether it's Godspell in the '70s or stage work; he's always been tied to the city.
Sam Worthington is the hired muscle here, and while he's serviceable, he's also the blandest part of the cast.
David Mackenzie, best known for Hell or High Water, handles most of the film with precision. The pacing is tight, the tension builds nicely, and he clearly knows how to shoot paranoia.
You feel the walls closing in on Tom, the way the modern world makes anonymity nearly impossible. For two-thirds of the film, Relay is gripping, atmospheric, and beautifully put together.
The problem comes in the final act. There's a twist, one you'll see coming a mile away, and once it hits, the movie starts to unravel. The last 30 minutes are underwhelming compared to the taut buildup. What should have been a knockout ending lands with a thud.
Relay isn't perfect, but it's damn good for most of its running time. It's a moody, paranoid throwback thriller with terrific performances, stunning New York City cinematography, and a style that feels like the spiritual cousin of those great '70s conspiracy films. Riz Ahmed carries it, Lily James is strong, and Victor Garber adds gravitas.
Yes, the romance is undercooked, and the third-act twist is obvious and weak. But the first two acts are so strong, so gripping, and so atmospherically perfect that I still recommend it. Relay is an entertaining, nostalgic thriller that understands paranoia, conspiracy, and the power of mood.
It's a New York movie. It's a Riz Ahmed movie. And it's a welcome return to a kind of thriller Hollywood doesn't make enough of anymore. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️
It's never, ever a good sign when a studio hides a movie. No screeners, no links, no invitations, not even a late-night email from a nervous PR assistant trying to beg a handful of critics to show up to a press screening. Silence. That's exactly what happened with Carlson Young's Trust.
It slipped into a few theaters like a thief in the night, no fanfare, no advance buzz. And when studios do that, they know what they're doing. They know critics are going to rip it apart. And sure enough, Trust is not a good movie. In fact, it's a pretty bad movie. I've seen worse this year, but not by much.
On paper, the premise has juice. Sophie Turner plays Lauren Lane, a former child star who grew up in the spotlight on the hit sitcom Meet the Johnsons, where she played America's sweetheart Sally Johnson opposite TV dad Billy Campbell. Now grown up, she's rich, famous, and exhausted.
And then comes the scandal. Her phone is hacked. Private risqué photos leak online. A pregnancy test picture, with no father in sight, becomes instant tabloid fodder. Her career, her life, and her reputation are shredded in the press overnight.
Desperate to escape the storm, Lauren hides out in a luxurious Airbnb cabin in the California mountains with only her beloved dog Georgie for company. It should be the perfect safe haven.
But of course, this is a thriller. Which means the cabin has hidden cameras, petty criminals circling like vultures, and one very dark secret that ensures Lauren won't be safe for long.
So far, so good. Honestly, the first 15–20 minutes of this film are fine. Turner sells the anguish of a young woman cracking under pressure, and the idea of a Hollywood starlet hiding out from scandal only to find her sanctuary invaded is a solid thriller hook. But then the movie goes off the rails, and it never finds its footing again.
Let's talk about the most ridiculous element of this entire movie: the boiler room.
Lauren, trapped in her mountain Airbnb, gets locked in a hidden space that looks like it was ripped straight out of Saw (by the way, this movie actually comes from Twisted Pictures, the same production company as the Saw franchise... coincidence?).
Rats everywhere. Rusty pipes leaking gas and water. A dangling light bulb swinging in the dark. It's filthy, disgusting, and dangerous. Fine, in another movie, maybe.
But here's the kicker: this nightmare dungeon is directly connected to her otherwise pristine, beautifully decorated bedroom. We've seen this huge, luxurious cabin! It's immaculate. It's like something out of an architecture magazine.
And then suddenly we're in a horror-show boiler room that just happens to be one door away from silk sheets and antique furniture.
The geography makes no sense. The design is ludicrous. It's the kind of production choice that instantly takes you out of the movie. And the filmmakers clearly only built it for one reason: to trap Sophie Turner in a room for most of the running time, screaming, crying, clawing at the walls, soaked in sweat and water, and eventually stripped down to her bra and panties for the big climax.
It's exploitative, it's silly, and it feels like the filmmakers forgot their own supposed message about the exploitation of women.
And then there are the bad guys. Rhys Coiro, Gianni Paolo, and Forrest Goodluck play a trio of criminals so idiotic they make the morons from Home Alone look like criminal masterminds.
They argue. They shoot each other by accident. They wander around the house like they've never seen a gun before. At one point, bullets are flying so carelessly that I laughed out loud. This is supposed to be tense. It's not. It's hilarious.
There's also a hospital escape sequence involving Coiro's character that might be one of the dumbest scenes of the year.
Picture this: a doctor so irresponsible he makes Dr. Nick Riviera from The Simpsons look competent, a disguise so flimsy it wouldn't fool a toddler, and a conveniently empty getaway car left in front of the hospital. It's absurd, it's laughable, and it kills any sense of danger.
These guys aren't threatening. They're clowns. And when your thriller hinges on dangerous intruders, having villains who feel like rejected SNL sketches is fatal.
Here's what frustrates me: buried inside this mess are real ideas. The movie flirts with important themes about exploitation in Hollywood, about older men preying on younger women, about the way the industry chews up actresses and leaves them broken.
There's a clear MeToo undercurrent, especially in Turner's relationship with Billy Campbell's sleazy TV dad, who's revealed to be the father of her secret pregnancy.
But whatever statement Trust is trying to make is drowned out by idiotic plotting, exploitative camerawork, and laughably bad villains. The movie wants to be a commentary on abuse and power dynamics, but it ends up being just another trashy exploitation flick where the heroine spends most of the runtime trapped, sweaty, and half-naked.
There are two bright spots here.
Katie Sagal. She plays Loretta, a small-town dog rescuer who finds Georgie on the side of the road and winds up getting tangled in the chaos. And she's terrific. Sagal seems to be the only actor in the movie who realizes how stupid it all is. Her line deliveries are sly, her side comments are hilarious, and at times she feels like she's directly addressing the audience: "Yeah, I know this is dumb. Let's laugh together." She's a breath of fresh air.
Georgie The Dog. No joke: the best performance in Trust belongs to the dog. Loyal, adorable, expressive. Georgie is more sympathetic than any of the humans. When I say the dog is the best thing in the movie, I mean it.
As for Turner herself? She's fine. She's actually pretty good in the early stretch. She sells the fear, the paranoia, the sadness. She's a strong screen presence.
But once the movie locks her in the ludicrous boiler room, she's reduced to little more than a scream queen, writhing around, drenched, stripped down for no reason other than some bizarre exploitative impulse.
It's frustrating because Turner deserves better. She's proven her talent in Game of Thrones and elsewhere. She can act. She has depth. But here, she's wasted.
By the end, the whole thing feels not only dumb but kind of creepy. And when the best performance in your movie comes from a dog, you know you're in trouble.
Now I understand why the studio buried this thing. Trust is bad. - ⭐️1/2
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