Dracula
Having watched Luc Besson's Dracula as a companion piece to Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein, I have reached a grim conclusion: it is time to let these two iconic monsters sleep forever. No matter how "unique" a director's vision may be, or how assuredly they speak of finding a "new wrinkle" in the shroud, these justifications are merely window dressing. The narrative skeleton remains the same, and the hitherto "unexplored" angles are more apt to degrade the story's structural integrity than enhance it.

In this iteration, Besson leans heavily into a sweeping romanticism, positioning Mina Murray (Zoe Bleu) as the reincarnation of the Count's long-lost 15th-century love. It is a pivot that effectively neuters the character; all the unholy, predatory desires that motivated Stoker's original creation are sacrificed at the altar of tragic longing. Caleb Landry Jones portrays a Dracula who is more pathetic than ferocious - the inevitable result of reframing a cosmic predator as a misunderstood soul. The film often feels like a jarring fusion of Stoker's prose and the feverish scribblings of erotic fan fiction. This is further hamstrung by Besson's long-standing inability to craft genuine onscreen romance or eroticism, a weakness that has haunted his filmography since his days as an international wunderkind. With romance serving as the film's structural spine, this failure proves fatal.

Despite the narrative anemia, there are flickers of life. The sequence in which Jonathan Harker (Ewens Abid) dines with the Count is largely faithful to the text and infused with a cheeky, macabre humor that briefly lifts the mood. Furthermore, Christoph Waltz, playing a Van Helsing surrogate, acts as the film's saving grace. His dialogue crackles and his performance sizzles, particularly during a confrontation with Maria (Matilda De Angelis), one of Dracula's followers. It is easily the most electric sequence the movie has to offer, standing in stark contrast to the surrounding melodrama.

However, the film's prologue serves as a warning of the choppy waters ahead. Set during a 15th-century battle between Prince Vlad the Impaler and the Ottomans, the sequence depicts the death of his wife, Elisabeta, and his subsequent renunciation of God. It is so overwrought and filled with unlikely beats that it borders on unintentional parody. This tonal unevenness persists as the film fast-forwards to the late 1800s, where it abruptly transforms into a gothic version of Bridgerton.

The concept of Dracula as a sex symbol was popularized by Frank Langella in 1979, and since then, the Count has been increasingly viewed as a charismatic figure of desire. Even Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 version - which should have been titled Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula - leaned heavily into this tragic backstory. Caleb Landry Jones brings "rock star" aesthetics to the role, playing the vampire as an emo icon rather than a monster. While this interpretation works within the narrow framework of Besson's reimagining, it underscores the film's identity crisis.

Ultimately, the decision to use the "Dracula" name is the film's greatest failing. Had the script been scrubbed of its Stoker connections and the vampire presented as an original creation, the film might have stood on its own. By claiming the mantle of an "adaptation," Besson creates expectations that his heavy-handed directorial style simply cannot satisfy. If the legend of Dracula has become tired through overuse, there is certainly nothing in this iteration to grant the old Count a new lease on life.

© 2025 James Berardinelli

Send Help
Send Help answers the long-simmering question of what would happen if director Sam Raimi - the mastermind behind The Evil Dead and Spider-Man - were to direct a big-screen reimagining of Gilligan's Island. Okay, that's not quite true, but you get the idea. While similar survival stories like Six Days, Seven Nights and Cast Away might come to mind, the true comparison is Lina Wertmüller's warped 1974 film Swept Away (we will pretend never to have heard of the unfortunate Guy Ritchie/Madonna remake). Send Help bears more than a passing resemblance to Wertmüller's work, albeit with the gender roles swapped.

I thoroughly enjoyed roughly the first two-thirds of Send Help, but I was disappointed by its handling of the overlong climax. There is a third-act reveal that initiates a downward spiral, promising more than it delivers and dragging the movie into well-worn, generic territory. However, until it stumbles, the film offers a solidly entertaining ride. The ending isn't a complete disaster; it's just not as "juicy" as the buildup suggests it will be.

Linda Little (Rachel McAdams) is the kind of character who, if she were male, would be a stereotype ripe for Revenge of the Nerds. Socially awkward, unconcerned with her physical appearance, and generally disliked by her coworkers, she possesses a keen intellect and a mastery of numbers. Her nemesis is the company's new CEO, Bradley Preston (Dylan O'Brien), a charming cad who callously informs Linda she's being passed over for a promotion because she is unattractive and uncouth. Nevertheless, he expects her to travel with him to a critical meeting in Bangkok. En route, their plane suffers a catastrophic failure and plunges into the Gulf of Thailand.

At first, it appears Linda may be the sole survivor as she washes ashore on a deserted beach. However, she soon discovers a seriously injured Bradley. Using skills honed by an obsessive love for the TV show Survivor, Linda sets up a rudimentary camp, starts a fire, secures potable water, and nurses Bradley back to health. Her employer, however, remains less than thankful, subjecting her to demeaning orders and unreasonable requests. But Linda is no longer the timid woman she was in the office; she decides to show Bradley exactly who is in charge in the wild.

Alas, if you've seen the trailer, you've essentially seen the film. The less you know going in, the more surprises Send Help offers as relationships shift like the island sands. The meat of the story lies in the character interaction as the power balance between Linda and Bradley teeters back and forth. We are left to guess when these two are being genuine or simply playacting to gain an advantage. McAdams and O'Brien tear into these roles like their starving characters attacking a roasted boar. The movie only loses steam when it slides into the aforementioned generic thriller territory.

Gore is used sparingly but to great, often comedic, effect. One can see glimpses of the Raimi who directed Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness in these sequences - especially the one involving the boar. The director's intent is clearly more "comedy-thriller" than "straight survival horror," offering both jump scares and big laughs. The ever-changing chemistry between McAdams and O'Brien works... until it doesn't.

Send Help makes for an interesting counterpoint to Swept Away; the similarities are too frequent to be coincidental. Yet, where the Wertmüller film openly courted controversy for its misogynistic elements, Send Help is a more straightforward, crowd-pleasing endeavor. Its release date might suggest a lack of confidence from the distributor, 20th Century Studios, but this is a better movie than we normally see during the "dump months." It is far more worthy of the price of admission than much of what is currently playing.

© 2026 James Berardinelli

Mercy
You know the old saying about putting lipstick on a pig? Well, that's pretty much what's happening with Timur Bekmambetov's Mercy, a tedious and preposterous whodunnit. It is so poorly scripted and negligently paced that the distributor (Amazon MGM) has heavily advertised its availability in IMAX and 3-D to compensate. That sort of marketing might work with something like an Avatar movie, but Mercy is no Avatar. In fact, it feels small in every way imaginable - from the story to the visuals to the wooden acting of leads Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson, both of whom appear unwilling to go beyond the bare minimum to cash their paychecks. (I'll forgive Ferguson, who's currently turning out some great work in Silo.)

Had even a modicum of attention been paid to world-building, Mercy might have had a chance as a futuristic, high-tech procedural. Alas, we're left marooned in a timeframe (alleged to be 2029, though it appears more like 2040-ish) where only the barest details have been sketched in. Worse, the movie leans into the whodunnit element. It is extremely difficult to execute a murder mystery in a two-hour movie because of the "conservation of characters" parameter, and Mercy clocks in at just over 90 minutes. There is no suspense and not a lot of intrigue surrounding the identity of the killer. The "reveal" is unsurprising and anticlimactic. Whodunnit? Who cares?

Mercy postulates a near-future in which certain criminals are given a trial at "Mercy Court," where an "infallible" AI figure functions as judge, jury, and executioner. Once the accused comes before the bot, they have 90 minutes to prove their innocence or be executed on the spot. In this case, the defendant is LAPD Detective Chris Raven (Pratt), who faces a mountain of evidence pointing to his having killed his wife, Nicole (Annabelle Wallis), in a fit of rage. He faces Judge Maddox (Ferguson), the implacable figure who presents him with the evidence, then ticks down the time remaining for him to sift through everything and create reasonable doubt.

Mercy plays into the current mood that combines equal parts fear of and fascination with AI capabilities. As with far too many high-concept motion pictures, it gets a lot wrong; there are so many huge plot holes that the runaway truck in the climax could drive through them like a tunnel. The gimmicky screenplay, which mostly features a shackled Chris watching old videos and making genius leaps of intuition, is plodding. Chris is so poorly developed that we're not especially concerned whether he's innocent or guilty. Toward the end, the level of implausibility skyrockets as inane complexities pollute an already convoluted storyline.

Outside of Pratt and Ferguson, the cast is composed of little-known actors, none of whom acquit themselves particularly well. Maybe they're taking their cues from the stars. Pratt's "performance" as the alleged protagonist is stilted and wooden. Ferguson plays her AI judge with a degree of ambiguity (what does that quasi-smile imply?), but I found myself questioning some of her choices. She's not given much to work with, but she doesn't craft anything remotely compelling from the minimal material she has.

The biggest problem with Mercy, aside from its somnambulant pacing, is that the background and storyline are simply too thin. Aside from the hook of a man engaging in a real-time trial for his life, there's not much here. A potential cat-and-mouse game between Chris and Judge Maddox is abandoned early, and the constant reliance on social media posts and cell phone videos becomes monotonous. The movie's attempt to merge found footage with conventional narrative falls on its face. At best, this is a late-night time-waster to be watched on Prime Video when all better options have been exhausted. Paying to see it in IMAX and/or 3-D is a misguided waste of money.

© 2026 James Berardinelli

Mercy 3D
You know the old saying about putting lipstick on a pig? Well, that's pretty much what's happening with Timur Bekmambetov's Mercy, a tedious and preposterous whodunnit. It is so poorly scripted and negligently paced that the distributor (Amazon MGM) has heavily advertised its availability in IMAX and 3-D to compensate. That sort of marketing might work with something like an Avatar movie, but Mercy is no Avatar. In fact, it feels small in every way imaginable - from the story to the visuals to the wooden acting of leads Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson, both of whom appear unwilling to go beyond the bare minimum to cash their paychecks. (I'll forgive Ferguson, who's currently turning out some great work in Silo.)

Had even a modicum of attention been paid to world-building, Mercy might have had a chance as a futuristic, high-tech procedural. Alas, we're left marooned in a timeframe (alleged to be 2029, though it appears more like 2040-ish) where only the barest details have been sketched in. Worse, the movie leans into the whodunnit element. It is extremely difficult to execute a murder mystery in a two-hour movie because of the "conservation of characters" parameter, and Mercy clocks in at just over 90 minutes. There is no suspense and not a lot of intrigue surrounding the identity of the killer. The "reveal" is unsurprising and anticlimactic. Whodunnit? Who cares?

Mercy postulates a near-future in which certain criminals are given a trial at "Mercy Court," where an "infallible" AI figure functions as judge, jury, and executioner. Once the accused comes before the bot, they have 90 minutes to prove their innocence or be executed on the spot. In this case, the defendant is LAPD Detective Chris Raven (Pratt), who faces a mountain of evidence pointing to his having killed his wife, Nicole (Annabelle Wallis), in a fit of rage. He faces Judge Maddox (Ferguson), the implacable figure who presents him with the evidence, then ticks down the time remaining for him to sift through everything and create reasonable doubt.

Mercy plays into the current mood that combines equal parts fear of and fascination with AI capabilities. As with far too many high-concept motion pictures, it gets a lot wrong; there are so many huge plot holes that the runaway truck in the climax could drive through them like a tunnel. The gimmicky screenplay, which mostly features a shackled Chris watching old videos and making genius leaps of intuition, is plodding. Chris is so poorly developed that we're not especially concerned whether he's innocent or guilty. Toward the end, the level of implausibility skyrockets as inane complexities pollute an already convoluted storyline.

Outside of Pratt and Ferguson, the cast is composed of little-known actors, none of whom acquit themselves particularly well. Maybe they're taking their cues from the stars. Pratt's "performance" as the alleged protagonist is stilted and wooden. Ferguson plays her AI judge with a degree of ambiguity (what does that quasi-smile imply?), but I found myself questioning some of her choices. She's not given much to work with, but she doesn't craft anything remotely compelling from the minimal material she has.

The biggest problem with Mercy, aside from its somnambulant pacing, is that the background and storyline are simply too thin. Aside from the hook of a man engaging in a real-time trial for his life, there's not much here. A potential cat-and-mouse game between Chris and Judge Maddox is abandoned early, and the constant reliance on social media posts and cell phone videos becomes monotonous. The movie's attempt to merge found footage with conventional narrative falls on its face. At best, this is a late-night time-waster to be watched on Prime Video when all better options have been exhausted. Paying to see it in IMAX and/or 3-D is a misguided waste of money.

© 2026 James Berardinelli

Mercy: The IMAX 3D Experience
You know the old saying about putting lipstick on a pig? Well, that's pretty much what's happening with Timur Bekmambetov's Mercy, a tedious and preposterous whodunnit. It is so poorly scripted and negligently paced that the distributor (Amazon MGM) has heavily advertised its availability in IMAX and 3-D to compensate. That sort of marketing might work with something like an Avatar movie, but Mercy is no Avatar. In fact, it feels small in every way imaginable - from the story to the visuals to the wooden acting of leads Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson, both of whom appear unwilling to go beyond the bare minimum to cash their paychecks. (I'll forgive Ferguson, who's currently turning out some great work in Silo.)

Had even a modicum of attention been paid to world-building, Mercy might have had a chance as a futuristic, high-tech procedural. Alas, we're left marooned in a timeframe (alleged to be 2029, though it appears more like 2040-ish) where only the barest details have been sketched in. Worse, the movie leans into the whodunnit element. It is extremely difficult to execute a murder mystery in a two-hour movie because of the "conservation of characters" parameter, and Mercy clocks in at just over 90 minutes. There is no suspense and not a lot of intrigue surrounding the identity of the killer. The "reveal" is unsurprising and anticlimactic. Whodunnit? Who cares?

Mercy postulates a near-future in which certain criminals are given a trial at "Mercy Court," where an "infallible" AI figure functions as judge, jury, and executioner. Once the accused comes before the bot, they have 90 minutes to prove their innocence or be executed on the spot. In this case, the defendant is LAPD Detective Chris Raven (Pratt), who faces a mountain of evidence pointing to his having killed his wife, Nicole (Annabelle Wallis), in a fit of rage. He faces Judge Maddox (Ferguson), the implacable figure who presents him with the evidence, then ticks down the time remaining for him to sift through everything and create reasonable doubt.

Mercy plays into the current mood that combines equal parts fear of and fascination with AI capabilities. As with far too many high-concept motion pictures, it gets a lot wrong; there are so many huge plot holes that the runaway truck in the climax could drive through them like a tunnel. The gimmicky screenplay, which mostly features a shackled Chris watching old videos and making genius leaps of intuition, is plodding. Chris is so poorly developed that we're not especially concerned whether he's innocent or guilty. Toward the end, the level of implausibility skyrockets as inane complexities pollute an already convoluted storyline.

Outside of Pratt and Ferguson, the cast is composed of little-known actors, none of whom acquit themselves particularly well. Maybe they're taking their cues from the stars. Pratt's "performance" as the alleged protagonist is stilted and wooden. Ferguson plays her AI judge with a degree of ambiguity (what does that quasi-smile imply?), but I found myself questioning some of her choices. She's not given much to work with, but she doesn't craft anything remotely compelling from the minimal material she has.

The biggest problem with Mercy, aside from its somnambulant pacing, is that the background and storyline are simply too thin. Aside from the hook of a man engaging in a real-time trial for his life, there's not much here. A potential cat-and-mouse game between Chris and Judge Maddox is abandoned early, and the constant reliance on social media posts and cell phone videos becomes monotonous. The movie's attempt to merge found footage with conventional narrative falls on its face. At best, this is a late-night time-waster to be watched on Prime Video when all better options have been exhausted. Paying to see it in IMAX and/or 3-D is a misguided waste of money.

© 2026 James Berardinelli

Mercy: The IMAX Experience
You know the old saying about putting lipstick on a pig? Well, that's pretty much what's happening with Timur Bekmambetov's Mercy, a tedious and preposterous whodunnit. It is so poorly scripted and negligently paced that the distributor (Amazon MGM) has heavily advertised its availability in IMAX and 3-D to compensate. That sort of marketing might work with something like an Avatar movie, but Mercy is no Avatar. In fact, it feels small in every way imaginable - from the story to the visuals to the wooden acting of leads Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson, both of whom appear unwilling to go beyond the bare minimum to cash their paychecks. (I'll forgive Ferguson, who's currently turning out some great work in Silo.)

Had even a modicum of attention been paid to world-building, Mercy might have had a chance as a futuristic, high-tech procedural. Alas, we're left marooned in a timeframe (alleged to be 2029, though it appears more like 2040-ish) where only the barest details have been sketched in. Worse, the movie leans into the whodunnit element. It is extremely difficult to execute a murder mystery in a two-hour movie because of the "conservation of characters" parameter, and Mercy clocks in at just over 90 minutes. There is no suspense and not a lot of intrigue surrounding the identity of the killer. The "reveal" is unsurprising and anticlimactic. Whodunnit? Who cares?

Mercy postulates a near-future in which certain criminals are given a trial at "Mercy Court," where an "infallible" AI figure functions as judge, jury, and executioner. Once the accused comes before the bot, they have 90 minutes to prove their innocence or be executed on the spot. In this case, the defendant is LAPD Detective Chris Raven (Pratt), who faces a mountain of evidence pointing to his having killed his wife, Nicole (Annabelle Wallis), in a fit of rage. He faces Judge Maddox (Ferguson), the implacable figure who presents him with the evidence, then ticks down the time remaining for him to sift through everything and create reasonable doubt.

Mercy plays into the current mood that combines equal parts fear of and fascination with AI capabilities. As with far too many high-concept motion pictures, it gets a lot wrong; there are so many huge plot holes that the runaway truck in the climax could drive through them like a tunnel. The gimmicky screenplay, which mostly features a shackled Chris watching old videos and making genius leaps of intuition, is plodding. Chris is so poorly developed that we're not especially concerned whether he's innocent or guilty. Toward the end, the level of implausibility skyrockets as inane complexities pollute an already convoluted storyline.

Outside of Pratt and Ferguson, the cast is composed of little-known actors, none of whom acquit themselves particularly well. Maybe they're taking their cues from the stars. Pratt's "performance" as the alleged protagonist is stilted and wooden. Ferguson plays her AI judge with a degree of ambiguity (what does that quasi-smile imply?), but I found myself questioning some of her choices. She's not given much to work with, but she doesn't craft anything remotely compelling from the minimal material she has.

The biggest problem with Mercy, aside from its somnambulant pacing, is that the background and storyline are simply too thin. Aside from the hook of a man engaging in a real-time trial for his life, there's not much here. A potential cat-and-mouse game between Chris and Judge Maddox is abandoned early, and the constant reliance on social media posts and cell phone videos becomes monotonous. The movie's attempt to merge found footage with conventional narrative falls on its face. At best, this is a late-night time-waster to be watched on Prime Video when all better options have been exhausted. Paying to see it in IMAX and/or 3-D is a misguided waste of money.

© 2026 James Berardinelli

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
I was surprised at how much I enjoyed 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. Over the years, I have grown bored with zombie movies. Watching this film, I got the sense that the same might be true of producer Danny Boyle (who directed the previous entry and launched the series), writer Alex Garland, and director Nia DaCosta. The Bone Temple dares to be different, with a storyline that draws influence from both Frankenstein and A Clockwork Orange. Does it always work? No. There are times when it feels a little drawn-out, but it is hard to deny the ambition at work here. These aren't filmmakers rushing to release the next chapter in a franchise; they have put thought and energy into the movie, building on its predecessors with new twists and opening the door to another installment that I would actually be interested in seeing.

It is far too easy for a zombie movie to fall back into familiar patterns. To a degree, that is what we saw with the second entry in the series, 28 Weeks Later. After a significant break and an opportunity to recharge, Danny Boyle returned in 2025 with 28 Years Later, which introduced new elements to the storyline - not the least of which was Ralph Fiennes' Dr. Ian Kelson. That film ended with a cliffhanger, but viewers had to wait only about six months to see the continuation. The Bone Temple picks up nearly exactly where 28 Years Later left off. However, while certain narrative threads are resolved during Nia DaCosta's series debut, this very much feels like the "middle story of a trilogy," in that another film will be necessary to provide a satisfactory resolution. Unlike The Bone Temple, which was filmed back-to-back with 28 Years Later, the next production does not yet exist.

For approximately the first two-thirds of its runtime, The Bone Temple offers two disparate stories running in parallel. The first focuses on the integration of Spike (Alfie Williams) into a brutal cult of Satan-worshipping survivors - akin to a post-apocalyptic Manson family - run by Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal (Jack O'Connell), who claims to be the son of "Old Nick." Spike's initiation is vicious, and his success is more accidental than intentional. The youngest of "The Fingers" (as they call themselves), he is generally disliked by the rest of the group, with the exception of Jimmy Ink (Erin Kellyman), who befriends him. Meanwhile, not far away, Dr. Kelson continues his work at the Bone Temple, trying to open a line of communication with Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry), the monstrous infected alpha. Finding a cure is Kelson's "white whale," and he intends to experiment on Samson, even if it kills them both.

As was the case with 28 Years Later, the star of the show is Ralph Fiennes, though that is even more true here. The production number he choreographs to Iron Maiden's "The Number of the Beast" puts the dances by Jenna Ortega in Wednesday and the title character in M3GAN to shame. This turn is unlike anything previously done by Fiennes (and includes full-frontal nudity) and deserves recognition as such. Jack O'Connell is deliciously despicable in a performance that recalls Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange, but even he can't hold a candle to Fiennes when the latter "turns it up to eleven." Also returning from 28 Years Later is Alfie Williams, though Spike's storyline takes a backseat to everything else (his father, Jamie, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, doesn't even make a token appearance).

The horror elements - at least those represented by the infected - are no longer in the foreground. There are a couple of attacks, but only one legitimate jump scare, and the movie doesn't have the same vibe as the earlier films (credit must go to DaCosta for that). The film plays against expectations: the hulking Samson, who reminded me of the Sasquatch from the 1970s series The Six Million Dollar Man, is actually less of a monster than the sometimes-urbane Sir Lord Jimmy. To me, The Bone Temple is more of a post-apocalyptic adventure thriller than a horror movie. The exceptional, percussive score by Hildur Guonadottir amplifies this.

The door is wide open for future possibilities. The final scene features Cillian Murphy reprising his role as Jim (the lead from the original 28 Days Later) and promises a substantive continuation of his story within this new world order. (It has actually been 24 years, not 28, since Murphy made his last appearance in the series.) The Bone Temple doesn't work entirely well as a stand-alone, but as part of a larger whole, it is a very good continuation of the ongoing tale. It leaves me hoping for a successful box office run so we can see how the whole thing ends.

© 2026 James Berardinelli

Greenland 2: Migration
It's a given that many modern blockbusters will have sequels - they arrive in theaters with a "franchise-in-waiting" tag already attached. Greenland, the 2020 comet-meets-Earth disaster movie, was not an instant candidate for this illustrious group, despite being fronted by Gerard Butler. Nevertheless, the film's pandemic-influenced streaming success prompted Lionsgate to pursue a second installment. So here we are - all dressed up with no story to tell. That is the fundamental problem with sequels to movies designed as stand-alones; the follow-up often feels like an inelegantly attached narrative appendage.

That's not to say that Greenland was anything groundbreaking, but it effectively told its story and ended. Once the credits rolled, I didn't feel compelled to wonder what happened next to the characters. Now, for better or worse, we find out. Greenland 2: Migration brings back Butler's John Garritty; his beloved wife, Allison (Morena Baccarin); and his diabetic son, Nathan (Roman Griffin Davis, replacing Roger Dale Floyd). This time, instead of making the trek to the base in Greenland, they're going in the other direction, heading for the crater where the comet Clarke impacted (somewhere in France). The screenplay forces them into a linear, video game template, where they must endure a gauntlet of physics-defying tasks - like dodging falling fireballs and navigating rickety ladder bridges - just to unlock the next level on their way to the promised land.

Ultimately, Greenland 2 feels less like a stand-alone film and more like an extended, high-budget epilogue to the first movie. The characters remain so thinly drawn that if you don't remember (or haven't seen) Greenland, you may find it difficult to figure out why anyone would care about them. To amp up the danger level, the premise suggests that fragments of the deceased comet are in decaying orbits around Earth; every so often, a storm of them comes buzzing landward, remaining intact and wreaking havoc. This helps to explain why surviving pockets of humanity have opted not to resettle the surface. However, a scientist has theorized that Clarke's impact crater may, in fact, host a surprisingly fertile sanctuary.

Director Ric Roman Waugh (who also made the original Greenland) does a workmanlike job with his dystopian vision. This particular post-apocalyptic world utilizes all the usual tropes (minus zombies) and presents them in a way that is both eerily familiar and devastatingly different. I found myself consistently more invested in the film's aesthetic and the incipient world-building than in the half-baked storyline and one-dimensional characters. A subplot involving a factional war zone in France is so poorly developed that I was never sure exactly what the stakes were, who the "good guys" were actually supposed to be, or how it was possible for a ramshackle bus to go from a refugee camp all the way up a mountain to the lip of the crater. There is a lot in Greenland 2 that doesn't make a lick of sense.

For those craving a Gerard Butler kick-ass performance, you have come to the wrong movie. One of two things is occurring here: either Butler is doing an excellent job portraying a man buried under layers of crushing world-weariness, or he's bored out of his mind and just trying to get to the paycheck at the end. I could never quite decide. His biggest action sequence involves a bunch of unstable ladders and an even less secure stick-and-rope bridge across a canyon. During this sequence, I was vividly reminded of King Kong, except there is no giant ape waiting to shake the bridge. Instead, the script relies on a convenient earth tremor arriving at the precise moment required to inject a dose of artificial suspense.

This is a January release, so expectations must naturally be kept in check. Then again, Butler has delivered some delicious early-year surprises (Den of Thieves in 2018 and its sequel in 2025). This isn't one of them. Granted, I've seen much worse in theaters at this time of year, but there is little reason to experience this one. The special effects are solid and Waugh gives us the beginnings of an intriguing world order, but any genuinely interesting ideas are quickly shunted aside just so the poorly defined characters can trudge toward their pre-ordained conclusion.

© 2026 James Berardinelli

Marty Supreme
There's a kind of exhaustion that sets in while watching Marty Supreme - a response to the relentless, anxiety-inducing noise that defines the 150-minute experience. In Josh Safdie's first solo directorial effort in more than 15 years (following an amicable dissolution of the partnership with his brother, Benny), that anxiety is transplanted from the diamond districts of the 2010s (the setting of Uncut Gems) to the table tennis halls of the 1950s. The result is visually electric, impeccably acted, and ruthlessly paced. The narrative is somewhat threadbare, but it gets the job done.

At the center of this hurricane is Marty Mauser (Timothee Chalamet), a character loosely inspired by real-life ping-pong hustler Marty Reisman. Safdie has taken the raw material of Reisman's eccentricities and crafted a fictional monster. Marty is the most obnoxious, odious fast-talker to grace the screen in recent memory. He is comprised entirely of unshakeable confidence and frantic desperation. Chalamet, pivoting away from Bob Dylan and Paul Atreides, is riveting. He plays Marty not as a charming rogue, but as a true believer in his own superiority (both at the ping pong tables and away from them). It's a train wreck of a personality, and Chalamet commits to the unlikability of the character. It's as probable viewers will be rooting against Marty as for him.

The film surrounding this performance struggles to find its footing. Two and a half hours feels too long for Marty's tale, which turns into a repetitive downward spiral characterized more by Safdie's jittery energy than a compelling storyline. Comparing this to Benny's recent The Smashing Machine, one gets a sense of what Josh brought to the previous partnership, as here he seems to have doubled down on the chaotic impulses that defined the duo's efforts. Marty Supreme masquerades as a sports movie, but anyone anticipating triumphant arcs will find that such expectations have been subverted.

The narrative arc, which stretches from the grimy streets of the Lower East Side to a high-stakes third act in Tokyo, is as much about scamming as playing. Marty isn't just training for the championship; he's swindling his way there. Yet every get-rich-quick scheme has a way of blowing up in his face, and sometimes things get very ugly and very dangerous. (Filmmaker Abel Ferrara has a small role as a terrifying small-time gangster whom Marty crosses.)

A counterweight to Marty's overbearing presence is Rachel Mizler, his pregnant, married girlfriend. In this role, actress Odessa A'zion provides the film with its emotional heartbeat. Gwyneth Paltrow (as faded starlet Kay Stone) may be the film's most notable female performer, but A'zion cedes no ground to her. Rachel is critical to humanizing Marty; without her resilience, Marty's cartoonishness would be complete. We also get one of the year's stranger casting choices in Kevin O'Leary ("Mr. Wonderful" from Shark Tank), who appears as Milton Rockwell, Kay's husband. It feels like stunt casting, yet O'Leary slides into Safdie's world of transactional sharks with ease, playing a calculating businessman.

Safdie's musical choices are nothing if not audacious. In a move that shouldn't work, he mixes period-accurate numbers with an anachronistic '80s sound. It may sound jarring in concept, but in practice, it works. Songs like Alphaville's "Forever Young" and Peter Gabriel's "I Have the Touch" bridge the gap between the mid-century setting and the "me-first" decade from which they originate, framing Marty as a man of the '50s with the soul of a Gordon Gekko disciple.

The ending is note-perfect: a moment of redemption and recognition that threatens to bring a tear to the eye. When the needle drops on "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears at the fade-to-black (the best use of the song in a movie since the opening of the otherwise forgettable Peter's Friends), it elevates the entire experience. If I was on the fence at times during the previous 145 minutes, Safdie got me in the end.

Marty Supreme is a flawed beast - occasionally irritating, sometimes shallow, and undeniably exhausting. But that exhaustion is the point. Safdie drags the audience through the wringer not to punish us, but to make the final release that much sweeter. Driven by Chalamet's fearless performance and a directorial style that refuses to blink, the film leaves an impression. It can be a challenging watch, but in the landscape of late-2025 cinema, it is electrifyingly alive.

© 2025 James Berardinelli

Avatar: Fire and Ash
The build-up for Avatar: Fire and Ash wasn't quite as intense as the one between the original Avatar and its first sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water, due in large part to the shorter span between releases (three years versus thirteen). As was true of the earlier films, director James Cameron continues to push the technological envelope, although there's a sense he's running up against a wall that may not be breachable without a major leap forward in 3-D (such as a no-glasses version). Fire and Ash is an experience unlike anything else released this year: immersive, exciting, and visually stunning. However, although narrative has always taken a back seat in these films, the storytelling limitations are a little more evident this time. A sense of repetition is hard to avoid. Cameron moves things forward and continues his impressive world-building, but certain scenes echo moments from the earlier entries (especially The Way of Water).

In an era when many filmmakers are pulling back on blockbuster ambitions, Cameron makes no such concessions. And when bloated budgets have paradoxically given way to cheaper-looking visual effects, the Avatar films remain the exception. With a reported production budget of about $250 million, this is one of the most expensive films ever made, yet it still trails the likes of Jurassic World: Dominion and Snow White on the 2025 roster - and looks orders of magnitude better. With Cameron's films, the money is on the screen, not lining someone's pockets. If the goal is awe, Cameron achieves it.

The third film opens not long after the second, with Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoë Saldaña) mourning the death of their eldest son, Neteyam. Neteyam's siblings - brother Lo'ak (Britain Dalton), stepbrother Spider (Jack Champion), sister Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), and stepsister Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) - are wrestling with their own emotional struggles, with Lo'ak blaming himself for the tragedy. Meanwhile, the Metkayina clan finds itself threatened by a new Na'vi tribe, the Ash People, whose leader Varang (Oona Chaplin) has formed an alliance with Quaritch (Stephen Lang) and his "Sky People." Quaritch continues to pursue his vendetta against Jake while attempting to reunite with - or recapture - his son, Spider, who has thrown his allegiance behind his adopted family.

Although the non-credits running time of Fire and Ash crosses the three-hour mark, there's surprisingly little bloat. The story unfolds smoothly, with Cameron interleaving quiet character beats with bravura action sequences that burst off the screen and fill the theater. The climactic battle, as one might reasonably expect, is the year's most astonishing spectacle, although one could argue that there's almost too much going on to track everything. In a way, some of the more intimate moments stand out even more - a tense interaction between Jake and Spider, or a charged father-son conversation between Quaritch and Spider. The movie also gives us one of the series' most unlikely alliances, although it doesn't last long (and ends with a well-timed one-liner).

Cameron's focus on characters and world-building makes Fire and Ash a cut above similarly effects-heavy productions. No, he's not 100% successful, but when you compare the human interaction here with something like Attack of the Clones, it's evident how much better Cameron can write dialogue and craft relationships than many of his special-effects-minded contemporaries.

Cameron has long touted performance-capture as a way to retain an actor's full emotional range while transforming their physical appearance, and he has refined this approach with each installment. It's easy to dismiss the work done by Sam Worthington, Zoë Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, and others because so much of Fire and Ash resembles animation, but these are lived-in performances: human actors, not digital figures conjured on a workstation. As was the case in the earlier films, Stephen Lang steals the spotlight, and newcomer Oona Chaplin is ferocity incarnate. Talk about a power couple.

If Avatar: Fire and Ash proves to be the final film in the saga, it's a worthy end. Cameron doesn't sew up every loose thread, but he resolves enough that this could function as a conclusion. He has plans for two more installments - and has even filmed portions of Avatar 4 - but his precondition for continuing is box-office success. He also has other projects he wants to pursue, so the final two entries (which would be shot back-to-back) probably won't see the light of day this decade, if ever. Cameron is now in his seventies, and the director is notorious for pushing himself as hard - or harder - than he pushes his actors.

It's worth considering whether there's a case to see Fire and Ash in 2-D. It ultimately comes down to physical comfort. If the glasses are too uncomfortable or there's an issue with how the 3-D is perceived, this remains a strong enough experience to seek out in flat projection. (Although the movie is primarily showing in 3-D, some 2-D options exist.) Despite the sweeping, soaring, you-are-in-the-action qualities that have always been among the franchise's strongest selling points - and Cameron is still the undisputed master of this technology - the composition is skilled enough that the film should work in 2-D. But "big screen" is still essential. The movie needs to come just shy of an "assault on the senses" to achieve maximum effect.

I don't expect Avatar: Fire and Ash to win many converts to Cameron's methods. As impressive as it all is, the characters are a major part of what will bring viewers back for this second sequel. By now they're well established, and watching the sci-fi family saga of their triumphs and tragedies provides as compelling a reason to stick with the series as the eye-popping visuals and thunderous sound design. This is as good as spectacle moviemaking gets: old-fashioned in intention but fully modern in execution. It may not stand quite as high as its two predecessors, but the fall-off is neither extreme nor precipitous.

© 2025 James Berardinelli