The new Netflix spy thriller Black Doves can feel awfully familiar in a lot of ways. The series is reminiscent of a number of other popular shows, and indulges in some genre tropes that have frankly been overplayed for a while by this point. Somehow, it’s a lot of fun regardless. A good cast, smart… Read More Arouse No Suspicion | Black Doves Season 1 (2024) on Netflix
Once an unstoppable box office powerhouse, the Terminator movie franchise has seen its fortunes dwindle with subsequent installments as audiences moved on to other sci-fi diversions, many of which have borrowed from the foundation James Cameron originally built. Nevertheless, the property remains valuable enough to keep active in some form, if no longer on movie… Read More Skynet in the Shell | Terminator Zero: Season 1 (2024) on Netflix
Three and four decades, respectively, since they each debuted, producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s Bad Boys and Beverly Hills Cop action franchises both returned with belated fourth entries in 2024. Bad Boys was apparently deemed still fresh enough to merit another theatrical release, but former box office juggernaut Beverly Hills Cop wound up relegated to a Netflix… Read More Some Things Never Change | Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F (2024) on Netflix
In his more than three decades doing it to date, Richard Linklater has had an erratic career directing movies. He’s made a small handful of classics, several other worthy efforts, and a few cult favorites, but also a whole bunch of middle-of-the-road misfires that went nowhere. His latest feature, Hit Man, is a pleasant enough… Read More This Is What Happens When You Hire an Amateur | Hit Man (2024) on Netflix
Hollywood has been warning us about the dangers of A.I. for decades. Look to the Terminator franchise for the most famous example of that, of course. However, as A.I. tools work their way into the real-world film production chain, such that a good chunk of Netflix originals often feel like they were probably scripted by… Read More Don’t Be Fooled by the Bot That She’s Got | Atlas (2024) on Netflix
Released at the end of 2023, Zack Snyder’s would-be sci-fi epic Rebel Moon: Part One turned out to be such a non-event that I half-expected Netflix to quietly scuttle the sequel without making a fuss or drawing attention to it. Honestly, would anyone have even noticed if it simply never showed up when originally announced?… Read More Cut the Snyder Release | Rebel Moon: Part Two (2024) on Netflix
The Netflix fantasy adventure film Damsel puts a modern feminist spin on some of the most traditionally sexist tropes of the fairy tale genre. That really shouldn’t be too controversial a thing to do, but because our real world is such a dumpster fire right now, probably will be. Some members of the viewing audience… Read More Distress Signals | Damsel (2024) on Netflix
The Netflix series House of Ninjas is a fun throwback to the ninja-sploitation craze of the video rental era, when most Blockbuster and Hollywood Video stores had an entire section devoted to sword-wielding, kung-fu assassins who skulk around at night wearing footie pajamas and masks. Thankfully, in doing so, the show maintains a generally light… Read More Our Whole Family Is Normal | House of Ninjas Season 1 (2024) on Netflix
Denied the opportunity to make an official Star Wars movie, director Zack Snyder tossed together his own knockoff space epic, complete with a remarkably similar story about a farmboyfarmgirl from a distant world who joins a rebel alliance to take down an evil galactic empire. In addition to other direct plot lifts and familiar recycled… Read More Seven Space Samurai | Rebel Moon: Part One (2023) on Netflix
How long does a chicken live, anyway? According to Google, five to ten years. Yet here we are more than two decades since Aardman Animations released Chicken Run to theaters in 2000 and along comes a belated direct-to-Netflix sequel featuring almost all the original characters, if not all the original cast. Does this old bird… Read More A Happy Chicken Is a Tasty Chicken | Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023) on Netflix
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