Author: Rob Dean

“Predator: Badlands” is not revolutionary by any means, but it is an incredibly satisfying and fun adventure that is well worth seeking out. Director Dan Trachtenberg and screenwriter Patrick Aison have delivered a wonderfully engaging film that honors what has come before while forging a new path ahead for the franchise. Along with the two other projects Trachtenberg has supervised in the “Predator” world — 2022’s “Prey” and this year’s animated anthology “Predator: Killer of Killers” — “Badlands” confirms the filmmaker is an exceptional captain of the ship who is constantly finding new areas to explore without abandoning what has…

Have you ever walked away from a movie not loving it and trying to figure out what’s wrong with you? Not the film, but clearly something is amiss with you if you didn’t go completely agog for the movie. Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein” (2025) should be a complete slam dunk for me. I’ve loved all of del Toro’s movies since “Cronos” (with the lone exception of “Pinocchio” which I just mostly liked a bunch). I love the story of “Frankenstein” from Mary Shelley’s incredible original novel to its various incarnations through the years (though I still maintain one of the…

The glib, memefied synopsis of “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” is that “men will literally record the album “Nebraska” before going to therapy.” But that makes it sound more interesting than Scott Cooper’s film is. While “Deliver Me From Nowhere” eschews many music biopic traps as it focuses on a very specific time in the artist’s life and explores how Springsteen realized he needed help with lots of unresolved issues, the movie surrounding it is dramatically inert and visually dull. There is no real imagination at work in this telling which is an awful tact as so much of it…

Over twenty years ago, I tracked down this one South Korean title that sounded like a bizarre mashup of intense psychological thriller, playful comedy, and sci-fi mystery. “Save The Green Planet!” has been one of my “oh you gotta see this” films ever since, a “handshake” movie you mention in other nerds’ company to see if they have heard of it, let alone seen it, to gauge their love and lore of cinema. Writer/director Jang Joon-hwan didn’t just blend these genres together but crafted a unique and expertly made experience with which I would persistently assault people in recommending and…

It’s funny when a movie makes you realize something about yourself. It could be a profound blind spot you have, a fundamental belief you’ve carried in silence all your life, or something much more trivial. “Black Phone 2” made me realize I am a sucker for misfit teens with special powers. I guess I always knew that, given my predilection for “X-Men” stories, “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors”, “Stranger Things,” “Doctor Sleep,” and more. But it was enjoying Scott Derrickson’s follow-up to his Joe Hill adaptation that it really hit home for me. After all, I could…

There’s nothing quite like the pure invigoration of seeing a great film. I’m not saying it’s better than any other simple joys in this otherwise crappish life, but it’s a unique feeling that charges up your veins and fires off all your neurons and leaves you positively levitating as the credits roll. “One Battle After Another,” the latest from writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson, is such an experience — the runtime flies by and you’re totally engrossed from the first frame to the last, captivated by incredible characters, superb dialogue, and compelling sequences. Anderson hasn’t just crafted a fun and engaging…

Tragedies breed questions. Why did something happen? Could it have been prevented? Why did it befall these people and not those folks? “Weapons” is a horror film with comedic elements that is ultimately about the fallout of a seemingly inexplicable tragedy. Writer/director Zach Cregger offers explanations for the tragic mystery at the heart of his tale, but all it does is lead to greater questions and absurdity. In lesser hands, this would be an occasion for confoundingly anticlimactic moments and plot contrivances. But Cregger, with only his second feature film, masterfully uses the full gamut of human emotions and experiences…

There’s power in sincerity. It’s easy to dismiss such raw plaintive emotions as corny or cringe but, if done well, being genuine can move millions of people. That’s kind of always been Superman’s true superpower and, to a greater extent, filmmaker James Gunn’s, too. The writer/director behind the “Guardians of the Galaxy” trilogy, “The Suicide Squad,” “Super” — hell, even “Slither” and his scripts for the “Dawn of the Dead” remake and the “Scooby-Doo” live action movies — constantly delivers real pathos. (Maybe not with “Tromeo & Juliet,” but he’s grown since then.) His films always boast big set pieces…

From director Joseph Kosinski, “F1” is an amalgam of well-worn tropes and overly familiar tics. The dialogue, from a script by Ehren Kruger and Kosinski, starts off as just quips and exposition but eventually evolves into quips, exposition and shallow profundity. And yet… I still found myself wrapped up in the excitement of the races and caring about the (essentially predetermined) outcome of the story. How? My brain could see every box being ticked by Kosinski and company. The vast majority of the time, I knew what was going to happen before it did. I rolled my eyes at 90%…

“No man is an Island, entire of it self; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main.” – John Donne “28 Years Later” is not merely more of its predecessor “28 Days Later,” in the way that “Aliens” simply grew the main antagonist from the first entry. Danny Boyle’s follow-up to his 2002 film is very much an expansion of the established world. It turns out, a lot can happen in just a few decades. On screen and in our lives, wars can be waged, and stopped, and started again—others forever ongoing. Political fortunes can…