Review: Anaconda (2025)

Reviewing this movie feels a little mean.  It's a perfectly fine film that accomplishes its modest goals and putting a full critical lens on it - which is entirely unnecessary yet here am I doing so - is a bit like being a bullying a small child.  So I will open by saying that this movie isn't bad, it just that it far too often settles for 'good enough' when it could have easily gone for good.

The movie follows a group of childhood friends as they decide to shoot an indie sequel/reimagining/remake of the 1997 so-bad-it's-good movie of the same name.  Griff (Paul Rudd) has acquired the rights to the film, and they set off to the Amazon with a dream and a hired snake owned by Santiago (Selton Mello) to fulfill a childhood dream of making movies together.

I do want to say that the friendship between Griff and Doug (Jack Black) is the best part of the movie.  While Kenny (Steve Zahn) and Claire (Thandiwe Newton) complete the friend group, the Griff/Doug pair is the heart of the film.  And Black and Rudd play it well - more than the movie or the script really call for.  Rudd especially is giving his character all sorts of shading - pay attention to the scene where he springs the idea of remaking the movie - and is the easy best in show.

Sadly, they are really the only ones given anything worthwhile by the script.  Zahn has a few funny bits, but is mostly sidelined while Newton only serves as a love interest and is criminally underused given what she is capable of.  Every other character is a cypher (though Mello does get a few great bits as the snake-handler) and it sucks because all of them have the potential to be funny the movie just doesn't care about them.

When the movie is focused on their poor attempts at making their version of Anaconda, it is at its best.  However, it moves away from that far too quickly and becomes an almost-cliche when it does.  Not only that, but the movie starts to drag in these parts, which is deadly for a feature as short as this one.  A mid-movie twist exists that I don't think surprised anyone, and still the movie continues on past that resolution (with a few meta-jokes about movie production thrown in that do help)

That might be the biggest sin of the film:  It has too many tonal shifts while still trying to play to a wide audience that is expecting a much purer comedy.  I don't know if it should've cut these plotlines out or found a way to better integrate them; maybe they had to cobble them together after substantially trimming the original script and this was the best they could do.

Again, the movie is acceptable.  I think most people will laugh and enjoy it, but I also think by the middle of the year most will have forgotten the majority of the movie.

5 out of 10.

Review: We Bury the Dead (2026)

A problem that many movies have today is that they are mis-marketed.  For example, if you saw the trailer for We Bury the Dead, the recently released Australian horror movie, you would assume that it is not only much more action-packed than the film actually is, but also much more traditional in story structure.  Which this movie is most assuredly not.

We begin in media res, with Ava (Daisy Ridley) flying to the Australian island of Tasmania to assist with a mass casualty event caused by US military experimentation.  The Tasmanian capital of Hobart and much of the surrounding population has been killed by a type of EMP, and Ava and others are going to help with disposal and to potentially find their own missing loved ones who lived in or were visiting the area - Ava's husband having been on a retreat  in the southern part of the island when the accident occurred.

Upon arrival, we hear rumors of some of the dead standing up, but not really alive.  This inspires fear and hope among those with loved ones in the areas, even if the military has a strict Kill on Site order for any of those that 'wake up.'  As the southern part of the island will be the last to be cleared, Ava gets the help of Clay (Brenton Thwaites) to sneak away from her group and try to get to the hotel her husband was staying at.

Now, the time between Ava arriving in Tasmania and her leaving to search for her husband is much longer than that summary would have you believe.  And that is where the marketing for this movie fails it.

This section of the movie is so essential to the story and, if you are not prepared for a protracted world- and character-building section of the film, then it will drive you crazy as it makes you wait for the zombies.  They are hinted at throughout, but the movie is in no rush to get to them.  Instead, we get character work from Ridley and Thwaites and see the monotony of the clean-up of such an event.

When we do eventually get to the zombies, they are worth the wait.  The sound they make is probably the best and the grossest sound for zombies I have come across, and I have seen far, far too many zombie films.  I won't spoil the sound, but it made both myself and the person I was watching the movie with turn away from the screen - it's that effective.

In a way, it's almost a bummer when the road trip part of the film starts.  We do see more zombies - with some fantastic makeup work - but it is at this point where the movie begins to fall into many of the cliches common to the genre.  When a third character is introduced, acting suspicious, I don't think anyone in the theater was surprised at the direction that the film took.  Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but for something that had been decidedly different from most zombie films, seeing it devolve into the cliche is a bit disappointing.

However, the film still works surprisingly well.  While much slower-paced than expected, it tells a good story in unexpected ways, even if it does leave a few big questions unanswered.

7 out of 10

2026 Movie List

The Movies:
We Bury the Dead

Review: Wake Up Dead Man (2025)

I can see what made this movie divisive.  It's much less a comedy than the previous Benoit Blanc movies (those being Knives Out and Glass Onion), it has much less of beloved detective (I'd have to see official - or unofficial -  screen times to confirm, but I'd say that Daniel Craig's onscreen presence is drastically lower than Josh O'Connor and possibly on par with the larger supporting performances in this same film), and I'd say it has some of the most uneven acting of the franchise (though I will go into specifics on that later in the review).  However, this slight deviation from the norm works incredibly well in my opinion.  It's too early to save if this is my favorite in the series, but it certainly can make a case for the most compelling.

We start this movie with narration from Pastor Jud Duplenticy (O'Connor) as he tells the audience how he came to be the associate pastor at Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude under Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin).  We see the young pastor arrive and how Jefferson treats Jud - not very kindly - as well as Jud's attempt to meet and get to know the church 'clique' played by Jeremy Renner, Glenn Close, Kerry Washington, Thomas Haden Church, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, and Daryl McCormack.  We also quickly learn that this clique are, by Jefferson Wicks's design, pretty much the only attendees of the church as he chases out any new parishioners and that they, like Jefferson, view Jud as an outsider who doesn't belong.

These introductory scenes are where we first get our discrepancies in performance: O'Connor is actually quite brilliant in all of his interactions, but while some rise to his performance - notably Close and Scott - the rest fall between satisfactory and uninspired.  Writer/director Rian Johnson has generally been fairly good at casting actors to inhabit the satirical character archetypes for these movies, but the more serious timbre of this movie makes these early scenes feel misplaced, both in performance and tone.  It doesn't derail the movie in any way, but it certainly prepares the audience for something more akin to the previous films instead of what this one ultimately ends up being.

Eventually, we get to our murder (for what good is a whodunnit if there isn't a murder to be solved?) and Blanc enters the story.  The movie prevents itself as something of a locked door mystery: the character who dies does so in a room with only a single entrance, and all of our suspects are either in the pews of the church or clearly visible to those populating the pews.  One can make an educated guess - I was only partly correct with mine - on who is guilty, but the movie takes its time getting to the reveal.  In a subversion of the usual storytelling of this series, not only do we get Jud working with Blanc fairly early, but we spend most of that time watching what amounts to a character study of a young priest grappling with guilt (though, minor spoiler, not the guilt of this specific murder) and trying to hold on to a faith that has been tested and is wavering in the face of an impossible situation.

I think that switch from the formula, more than any other, plays into the reception this movie has received.  I loved it.  It helps that O'Connor gives what may be the best performance not just of this movie, but of the series - and I only hesitate in definitively saying it is the best because I want more time to sit on this film before making such a claim.  But while the previous 'assistants' to Blanc have had their own inner lives, we never saw one laid this bare for us, the audience, to see.  And as it deals with personal faith - always a touchy subject - I can very easily see it making some uncomfortable.

Now, I alluded to the inconsistency of the rest of the cast earlier, and I do want to get into the specifics of what I think went wrong, but I do want to say that only one of these performances do I consider to be a bad performance.  Most are perfectly adequate for the film, but they do not rise to the masterclass that O'Connor is giving, which makes them stand out.

First, the performances that did meet that level:  Glenn Close, Andrew Scott, and Daniel Craig.  Craig, though given less of the focus than he normally does, still finds new shades and twists to Blanc, and it never feels like this is a new person with the same name.  Close gives a devoted and rigid performance - watch the way she carries herself in various scenes and you will notice all the subtle ways she displays her character's emotions.  Scott, given far less than the other two, still feels like the most realistic of the archetypes; an almost mundane awfulness that fits the tonal shift far better than the others.

Kerry Washington and Daryl McCormack hit the archetypes well, they just don't fit into this movie.  Drop them into Knives Out or Glass Onion, and they would be great, but this movie calls for a little bit more in the performance and neither quite hits that mark.  They feel a bit too large for what this movie needs.  On the opposite end, Mila Kunis (as the local police chief) isn't playing an archetype, but almost fails to be a character entirely for lack of anything noteworthy for her to do.  She's fine, but you could grab any other half dozen actresses and their performance wouldn't deviate from hers in any way.  Kunis has proven how electric she can be onscreen - Black Swan proved that - but this script doesn't give her much to stretch those acting chops on.

Spaeny and Church both have that room to breath that Kunis was missing, but they underplay it a bit too much.  Both are closer to the 'real' performance of Scott, but don't quite punch it up enough when they need to.  Again, neither are bad, they just feel like they are missing something.

Josh Brolin as Jefferson though is the most frustrating of the performances though.  He is so good at so much of the performance:  the bullying, the mind games, the manipulations, the self righteousness - all of it is perfectly played.  It just lacks charisma.  I can see that character doing everything that he does, I just don't see how he gets a devoted clique out of it.  It's Jim Jones without the magnetism, and the performance desperately needs that missing piece.  It's constantly on the cusp of brilliant except for that.

Now, the bad performance:  Jeremy Renner.  I don't know what happened here, but it is easy to imagine he wandered onto the set, did a single take, then packed it in for the day.  The characterization is weirdly inconsistent - it's hard to point to any particular moment in the movie where two of his scenes feel like the same character.  Renner is capable of being great, but this performance isn't just phoned in - it's a partially erased message on the answering machine.  Bridget Everett - as a two-scene, mostly vocal performance - does more in her 5 minutes of screentime than Renner does with an embarrassment of opportunities.  A totally misjudged performance.

Outside of the performances, this movie continues the franchise's streak of great production design.  The church and rectory both feel very real, and we spend a large amount of time in them without them ever feeling fake.  Not only that, but the levels of both are used incredibly well to keep the movie dynamic in what would read as a static setting.

So, even as I write this, I see how I go back and forth between praise and criticism, between joy and exasperation: this movie is contradictory, but in the best way.  I will not judge anyone who doesn't enjoy it, but the various faults of this movie only serve to make the bright spots shine even brighter.

8 out of 10

Review: Jaws 2 (1978)

So, here's the thing, I think we, as a society, are too hard on this movie.  There are two reasons for this:  The first is that it is a sequel to one of the greatest movies ever made - one that doesn't really need a sequel.  When you are following up a stone cold classic there is a high bar to be met, and Jaws 2 does not meet that bar.  It doesn't even get close, but what movie could?  Many a sequel has met a similar fate.  The Lost World: Jurassic Park immediately comes to mind as another sequel treated harshly and, like Jaws 2, later sequels would prove that it could've been much, much worse.

The second reason, and far more relevant to this review, is that the is no credible way to do this sequel and not stretch the bounds of believability.  The audience can very easily believe that somewhere another giant shark starts terrorizing a beach community.  If you really want characters from the first film to return, it isn't too much to have them contacted and brought in to assist against this new threat.  They could have easily made this movie make sense with a few changes to the script.

Instead, we get the very same community again facing a giant shark, the very same leadership refusing to believe that there is a shark, and the very same family having to defeat said shark to save the day.  And I get it.  You want Roy Scheider to return after his absolutely iconic performance as Martin Brody in the original.  Lorraine Gary is the wife of the (at-the-time) president of the studio, so bringing her back to make sure the budget is where it needs to be makes sense (she also is great as Ellen Brody).  Having filmed in the area before gives familiarity to those behind the camera.  I understand why certain choices were made.

But damn do those choices hobble this movie in substantial ways that can't really be overcome.  I will still argue for its value as far as the movie-watching experience is concerned.  It is a perfectly fine movie and it has some pretty great scenes scattered throughout even if it never reaches the highs of the original.  It just needed to be completely divorced from the original to be judged fairly, but the screenplay makes that an impossible task.  The movie as it exists is so tied to the previous one that any attempt to comment on it without bringing up its predecessor is a herculean task.

To expand on the summary from above:  Another shark starts terrorizing Amity Island, with it initially killing two divers photographing the sunken boat from the first movie.  They just so happen to get shots of the shark during the attack, and when Brody finds the camera and gets the photos developed, he immediately sees the shark and wants to shut down the beaches.  And no one believes him.

And we have already hit the point where the audience is collectively saying "Are you fucking serious?!"  It's such a dumb plot point.  If you excise this from the movie - maybe just have Brody continue to be suspicious after the earlier deaths in the film, then develop the pictures and immediately go to rescue his two sons.  You've removed the dumbest part of the plot and made it ten times more believable as far as ridiculous sequels go.  Maybe slide in another random attack if length is a concern, but this ostracization of Brody is unnecessary.

Because if you ignore that subplot (and I highly recommend you do), you have a modestly effective killer creature film.  The early attack on the skier and the boat driver is well done, as is the later attack on the sail boating teenagers.  I'd say the latter scene is the movie at its best as it captures the terror and confusion inherent in such an attack, along with setting up the flotilla of crashed boats that leaves them stranded.  The scene where they try to save an unconscious Mike Brody (Mark Gruner, who I am not ashamed to say I had a huge crush on when I was younger) is incredibly tense.

One can certainly argue that this is a slasher movie with a shark as the killer, but even by that standard, it is perfectly fine.  You get just enough fleshing out of the teenagers to be able to separate them from one another.  Scheider as Brody is a solid actor who carries the film well despite absolutely hating the script and production, with a fight breaking out between him and director Jeannot Szwarc.

While Jaws is an easy recommend, I'm a bit more ambivalent on this one.  I enjoy it, and think it is unfairly maligned, but I can't really argue with people who think the plot is stupid (since it is for large parts) or that it can never live up to the first film (also a legitimate complaint).  I'd guess I'd recommend it with the mentality of treating it as a purely popcorn flick:  Don't take it too seriously and just have fun.

7 out of 10

Review: The Faculty (1998)

Tonight's movie was not supposed to be The Faculty: The plan had been to watch Night of the Comet, a borderline horror film from 1984.  However, issues with the Blu-ray player forced me into a streaming solution, so this film was quickly slotted in.  Thus, I ended up with the second movie from 1998 to feature Josh Hartnett (after the previously-reviewed Halloween H20, his debut film).

This movie is a combination of The Thing, The Breakfast Club, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers: partly homage (there is a decapitated head that crawls across the ground that couldn't be anything but) and partly a twist on those various movies' formulas.  And it is a fun twist on them.  It doesn't rewrite any of the genres it is pulling from, but it does use the tropes wisely.

The plot: Aliens are invading a small town by sticking parasites inside the brains of various people, with them starting at the local high school.  Various students (played by Elijah Wood, Josh Hartnett, Jordana Brewster, Clea DuVall, Shawn Hatosy, and Laura Harris) realize that something weird is going on and work to stop the invasion.

Now, in case you didn't notice, that is quite a stacked cast for our students.  It also extends to the titular faculty, with Robert Patrick, Piper Laurie, Bebe Neuwirth, Famke Janssen, Jon Stewart, and Salma Hayak.  How this movie got such a cast, I cannot say (did director Robert Rodriguez have that much pull post-From Dusk till Dawn?), but it definitely works in the film's favor.  Most of these actors could play these roles in their sleep, but everyone is 100% committed to the characters they are playing.  Patrick, in particular, is having a blast as the asshole football coach.

If I am going to criticize any aspect of the script, it would be that the students figure out the basics of the aliens far too fast.  Part of that is because of the runtime of 104 minutes (precious little time given how many characters there are), but it would've been nice if the discovery of weaknesses/anatomy were discovered by accident or happenstance.  Even with the caveat of the smartest one being a drug dealer who makes his own drugs (to give him science credibility, I guess?), it reads as a bit forced.

To keep this review relatively short (compared to my other reviews) this is a fun little time capsule and an above-average teen horror flick.  An easy recommend

7 out of 10

Review: The Relic (1997)

The Relic follows Dr. Margo Green (Penelope Ann Miller), an evolutionary biologist at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, and Det. Vincent D'Agosta (Tom Sizemore), a lieutenant with the Chicago Police Department, as a strange series of killings occur in and around the museum.  The killings are especially brutal, with entire brains removed from the head - and the full brain is never recovered.  What could be doing such a thing?

A monster, to answer that question.  For The Relic is a creature feature, one where the creature is partly played by the best CGI 1997 had to offer (so, very dated as of 2025) and partly played by a creature designed by the legendary Stan Winston that has aged very well.  The movie makes you wait a long time for a full shot of the creature - possibly too long, given that we know there is a monster about long before the characters do - but once it is revealed, it is quite a site to behold.

The creature is one of the main reasons I chose to revisit this movie after having not seen it in many years.  It's an inventive design, an amalgamation of multiple animals that - at least in the practical appearances - blend into a familiar yet otherworldly monster that feels truly threatening.  It's a bummer when the CGI takes over (though it is above average for the time period) because that loss of weight to the creature really takes you out of the movie.

But back to our plot:  Our cold open shows us Dr. John Whitney (Lewis Van Bergen) interacting with a tribe in Brazil.  This tribe gives him something strange to drink, which appears to affect him both physically and mentally.  We then cut to him desperately trying to get his cargo off of a ship before it leaves and being refused.  Why does he need that cargo so badly?  We won't find out until near the end of the movie, so buckle up.

The movie plays at being a mystery for a good chunk of the first half of the movie, which is the weaker half by far.  Most of this time is spent with Vincent and his partner as they try to figure out what is going on (and he seems to be the only one that realizes something especially weird is going on).  We do break away from him to see Margo and her museum adventures (namely: checking out some weird fungus on the leaves sent to them by Dr. Whitney), but mostly we are waiting for the two storylines to converge as the plot spins its wheels far too long with subplots from the book that don't really have any bearing on the main story.

At least it is well acted.  Miller and Sizemore both carry the film easily without ever feeling like they are above the material.  You also have Linda Hunt, James Whitmore, and Chi Muoi Lo providing vivid characterization in their supporting roles (Lo, in particular, plays an annoying sleazeball incredibly well).  Even the bit parts have some nice moments scattered throughout.  It helps keep the movie entertaining before we get to the monster, which is a good thing since the plot meanders a bit.

Once the monster reveals itself - during the big exhibition on Superstition, to make sure things are already as creepy as possible - it's basically a race to see who will survive and who will escape (and how will they defeat the monster) until the finale.  While I might sound blasé about it, the use of the exhibit is one of the strongest bits of production design in the film.  It allows the film to be purposely dark and sets a great tone going into the final act of the film.

Would I recommend this film?  Yes.  It's a bit dated in the graphics, but it works really well as a creature feature, and it is worth it for the practical version of the monster.  It doesn't rewrite the genre, but it is a fine way to spend a couple of hours.

7 out of 10