By John Corrado The directorial debut of actor Dev Patel, whose breakout role in Slumdog Millionaire was sixteen years ago, Monkey Man is a revenge thriller set in India that shows promise for him as an action filmmaker. Patel stars in the film as Kid, a young man who makes cash getting beaten up in… Read More Blu-ray Review: Monkey Man (Collector’s Edition)
By John Corrado When the Planet of the Apes series was revived in 2011 with the pleasantly surprising Rise of the Planet of the Apes, it led to one of the best modern blockbuster trilogies with the two Matt Reeves-directed follow-ups Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and War for the Planet of the… Read More Movie Review: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
By John Corrado Alex Garland’s Civil War, the filmmaker’s visceral near-future portrait of an America on the brink, doesn’t divide things into Red States and Blue States. In fact, the story’s imagined alliance between California and Texas doesn’t even make much sense along current political lines. But this neutral stance is also what makes the… Read More Movie Review: Civil War
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Eight years after the release of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 in 2015, director Francis Lawrence returns to this franchise with The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, an adaptation of author Suzanne Collins’ 2020 prequel novel of the same name. The story is… Read More Review: The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
By John Corrado Please note that this is a review of the 4K Ultra HD release of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. For my full thoughts on the film itself, you can read my original review right here. Following its run in theatres over the summer, Paramount is now releasing Mission: Impossible –… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (SteelBook Edition)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Following his Old Hollywood passion project Mank, director David Fincher returns to the thriller genre with The Killer, a slickly crafted adaptation of Alexis Nolent’s French graphic novel exploring the daily grind of a professional assassin. Fincher’s film opens with its unnamed titular assassin (played by Michael Fassbender) staying… Read More Review: The Killer
By John Corrado Please note that this is a review of the 4K Ultra HD release of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. For my full thoughts on the film itself, you can read my original review right here. Following its run in theatres over the summer, Paramount is releasing Transformers: Rise of the Beasts on… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) Fast X is the tenth entry in the Fast and Furious saga (the eleventh if you count the spin-off film Hobbs & Shaw), and at this point the series has fully embraced its status as offering little more than brainless entertainment fuelled by fast cars and hot stars.… Read More Blu-ray Review: Fast X (Collector’s Edition)
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is the latest big screen outing for the adolescent mutant turtles trained in ninjutsu who eat pizza and live in the sewers of New York City, and it serves as a rock solid reboot of sorts for the franchise. Directed by Jeff Rowe… Read More Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Following the release of Ghost Protocol in 2011, the Mission: Impossible series has turned into one of our best and most reliable action movie franchises, building on the promise of sequels that either match or exceed their predecessors. That trend continues with the seventh film in the series,… Read More Review: Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is the seventh film in the big screen Transformers franchise, serving as both a prequel and soft reboot of sorts to the five Michael Bay movies, and it’s one of the more watchable entries in the series, at least. While it doesn’t exactly… Read More Review: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
By John Corrado ★½ (out of 4) Since Bruce Willis has announced his retirement from acting due to his diagnosis of frontotemporal dementia, the film Assassin serves as his final role. As such, the movie is being sold under his name, but Willis is merely a supporting player in the sci-fi flick, which offers a… Read More DVD Review: Assassin
By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) In Mission Kandahar (which is being released as Kandahar south of the border), Gerard Butler stars as Tom Harris, a covert CIA operative who must travel through Afghanistan with his translator Mo (Navid Negahban), towards an escape point in Kandahar. The film opens with Butler’s Harris on an undercover… Read More Review: Mission Kandahar
By John Corrado ★★★½ (out of 4) Keanu Reeves returns to the titular role of John Wick in John Wick: Chapter 4, which doubles as the best entry yet in this already very good action movie franchise. This fourth instalment puts Reeves’ former assassin Wick, who is now a marked man, at the centre of… Read More Review: John Wick: Chapter 4
By John Corrado ★★½ (out of 4) David Harbour stars as a drunk, badass Santa Claus in Violent Night, a Christmas action comedy from Norwegian director Tommy Wirkola (Kill Buljo) that is at it’s best when embracing being a goofy, unabashed B-movie We first meet Harbour’s Santa in a bar on Christmas Eve, taking a… Read More Blu-ray Review: Violent Night (Collector’s Edition)
By John Corrado ★★ (out of 4) Little Dixie is a brooding revenge thriller that stars Frank Grillo as Doc Alexander, an ex-Special Forces Operative who has helped broker a truce between corrupt Oklahoma governor Richard Jeffs (Eric Dane) and a Mexican drug cartel. When the deal falls through following the governor’s public celebration of… Read More DVD Review: Little Dixie
By John Corrado ★½ (out of 4) Black Adam, the latest film in the soon-to-be retooled DC cinematic universe, is the epitome of mediocrity in the already overcrowded superhero genre. No, this big scale action flick directed by Jaume Collet-Serra and starring wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne Johnson is not completely unwatchable. But it is entirely mindless and… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Black Adam
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) It’s been thirteen years since director James Cameron first took us to Pandora in his 2009 sci-fi blockbuster Avatar, a film that some have erroneously claimed had no cultural impact, but won a trio of Oscars, lit the box office on fire, and ushered in a new 3D… Read More Review: Avatar: The Way of Water
By John Corrado ★★★ (out of 4) How do you go about making a sequel to a blockbuster film when the star of said film has tragically and unexpectedly passed away? That’s the moral conundrum faced by director Ryan Coogler with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, a follow up to his 2018 Marvel film that arrives… Read More Review: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
By John Corrado Please note that this is a review of the 4K Ultra HD release of Top Gun: Maverick. For my full thoughts on the film itself, you can read my original theatrical review right here. It’s the biggest movie of the year so far, and now Top Gun: Maverick is arriving on 4K… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Top Gun: Maverick
The Joy of Movies 