By John Corrado The 2024 Toronto International Film Festival ran from September 5th to 15th, more information can be found right here. The latest film from Indonesian action filmmaker Timo Tjahjanto (Headshot, The Night Comes for Us), The Shadow Strays is a totally insane and highly stylized action flick. Right from the opening sequence laying waste… Read More #TIFF24 Review: The Shadow Strays (Midnight Madness)
By John Corrado The fifth film in Australian filmmaker George Miller’s operatic action anthology, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a prequel to his Oscar-winning 2015 film Mad Max: Fury Road, that finds him returning to the post-apocalyptic wasteland of the decades-old series. Starring Anya Taylor-Joy as a younger version of Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa,… Read More 4K Ultra HD Review: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
By John Corrado Fashioned as a love letter to Hollywood stunt doubles, The Fall Guy is a mildly entertaining but ultimately uneven romantic action comedy from director David Leitch (Deadpool 2, Bullet Train). Ryan Gosling stars in the film as Colt Seavers, who is the main stunt double for Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), an arrogant… Read More Blu-ray Review: The Fall Guy
By John Corrado Eddie Murphy returns to one of his most iconic characters in Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. The Netflix-backed legacy sequel finds the comic actor reprising his role as Axel Foley, the Detroit cop with his own way of doing things who ends up transplanted to Beverly Hills. Arriving forty years after the… Read More Movie Review: Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F (Netflix)
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
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