Review: Resident Evil (2026)

I want to like this movie more than I do.

I believe in the adage of 'the characters don't know what genre of movie they are in' and try not to go too hard against 'dumb decisions' made by the characters (I doubt I would be clear headed under pressure) but this movie stretched me to the limit of what I will allow a horror movie character to get away with.  Because Bryan (Austin Abrams), our protagonist for this entry, very quickly knows what sort of genre he is in and still makes many, many, many bad choices.

Despite this, the movie is a fun time, it's just one that consistently frustrates me because director Zach Cregger, co-writing with Shay Hatten, could very easily have made small changes to fix the issues with the film.  Stop having Bryan stare, dumbfounded, at the various monsters and maybe have him react?  Or even better, have him oblivious to some of it until the moment the action starts.  It's like watching someone who can hit a home run instead settle for a double.

And rest assured, the bad decisions are not limited to Bryan - every character in this makes poor decisions counter to their knowledge of what is going on, save one.  That one remaining still makes bad decisions, but at least they have no idea what is going on when they make said decisions.

Which is a bummer, because there is quite a bit to enjoy with this entry.  The humor, for the most part, is spot on.  It goes on slightly too long and makes for some awkward moments later in the movie, but I'd definitely say it is a strength.  The acting is also pretty strong across the board, though a good 80% of it falls on Abrams.

Several of the action set pieces are also well done, with Creggar staging some interesting sequences.  He also manages tension very well, with a tunnel scene keeping the audience on the edge of their seats without doing anything other than showing a dimly lit section.  The goods are there, just frequently missing better characters.

Would I recommend it?  Certainly.  Even with my complaints, I'd say this is easily amongst the best this series has to offer, but it might leave some frustrated at the potential greatness it toyed with.

6 out of 10

Review: Heart of the Beast (2026)

In Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, there is a scene between Brad Pitt's Cliff Booth has a sparring match with Bruce Lee (Mike Moh).  The point of this scene, beside adding a bit of action by way of flashback, is to show how strong/good a fighter Cliff is in a not-so-subtle way so that when he fights off multiple other characters later on in the movie, we believe it.  Heart of the Beast, directed by David Ayer, does something similar with James Belmont (Brad Pitt, again) - albeit in a much more subtle way (I shudder to think what a less-subtle version would be) - having a scene where James mentions his military career to help lend credibility to his toughness in the later lost-in-the-wilderness scenes.

It helps initially, but this script by Cameron Alexander stretches the bounds of plausibility well beyond the point of that early conversation.  The script also defeats the film in other ways, both big (you feel every second of this 101 minute movie) and small (someone involved doesn't quite know how many days are in a week).  By being such a slow moving picture, I had time to not only notice that small issue with the days in the week, but various other missteps that a punchier or more action-packed script would've helped to cover.

There's nothing wrong with a more meditative approach to this sort of story, but (to compare it to yet another movie) much like The Revenant in 2015, there is meditative and then there is draggy this film is much more the latter than the former.  It's not as long as The Revenant (thank God), which is a small favor to the audience.  However, there were far too many moments where it lingered in moments where the extra time added nothing to the story.

Even the one thing that gives this movie novelty over the many, many similar films - the dog suffers from PTSD - barely has any bearing on the story.  It doesn't come up in any meaningful way, and for something that the trailers make a point of showing, the lack of any meaningful arc coming of it feels weird - almost like something was cut from the script.

I've made it four (now five) paragraphs into this review without mentioning anything other than the screenplay issues, and I haven't even mentioned them all.  I almost want to make a quick bullet-point list of all the other problems, but it would edge into spoiler territory.  Plus, a review should also cover other aspects of the film in question without harping on one particular part of it, no matter how bad it is.

The film has three characters outside of the dog: in addition to Pitt, J.K. Simmons makes a cameo appearance as someone for Pitt to exposition-dump onto and Anna Lambe shows up for a part so small the character doesn't even have a name.  Because of this, the bulk of the film rests on Pitt (who is adequate to bad, depending on the scene) and the dog Odin (Uber for most of the movie, various other dogs for flashbacks).

The dog is fine, for the most part, but director Ayer has absolutely no idea how to shoot the non-action scenes that focus on the dog in a cinematic way.  So many of those scenes can be summarized as 'the dog stares pensively at James' that I have to wonder if the screenplay gave Ayer to little to work with that he just gave up.

Dang, I am back to the script issues again...

Since we already circled back to it, I think Pitt also struggles with a screenplay that either has no understanding of how an injured body behaves, or.... really, that is the only explanation.  James goes  through quite a bit of abuse in this movie and whether or not that affects his trek through the wilderness seems to depend on what actions the script demands of the character in each particular scene.  It's almost as if scenes are out of order.

This review is coming across as exceptionally negative, but this movie's mediocrity gives me so little to praise about it.  If pressed, I'd say the cinematography is well done, and Simmons is always a solid performer.  That is about all I can commend though.

Would I recommend this movie?  A resolute 'No' - though I get the feeling that most would not be quite as harsh on it as I am.  A forgettable movie.

4 out of 10

Review: The End of Oak Street (2026)

It's kind of funny that The End of Oak Street delivered on the broken promise of the latter Jurassic World movies.  While those movies teased but ultimately only gave us glimpses of dinosaurs in the suburbs, this film gives it to us in spades.  For a PG-13 movie, it has a surprising amount of violence (though it does refrain from being gory) and does not hesitate when killing off the various denizens of the neighborhood.  It gives us everything we wanted from Jurassic World that we were denied, and I respect it for that.

To give a summary, in July of 1982, the Platt family finds not only themselves, but their entire neighborhood transported to the distant past.  Dinosaurs quickly invade the neighborhood and the family finds itself struggling to survive.  As is often the case with films produced by JJ Abrams, there is also a healthy amount of family drama akin in the vein of the great Spielberg movies of the 80s.

For obvious reasons, this story feels familiar in many ways - hell, the movie almost forces a Spielberg-esque bicycle scene with son Brian (Christian Convery) - and director David Robert Mitchell leans into it mostly successfully.  The film isn't completely devoid of subversions, but a seasoned moviegoer is going to predict most of the major beats should they wish to.

Mitchell mostly avoids this by keeping things moving at such a pace that you don't have time to think, but there is something to be said for using familiar tropes to focus on the character work being done.  Anne Hathaway, as the family matriarch Denise, is particularly good in her role in a way that the movie didn't need but is much better for having.  Ewan McGregor, who plays Greg, the father, doesn't have quite as much to work with but nevertheless also gives his character details that enrich the movie in small ways.

The dinosaurs are probably on the more accurate end of movie creations, though not without creative liberties.  Some of these work well - the body proportions are off in a way that adds to the surrealism of the situation - but some of them feel odd.  Having the long-necked dinosaurs (I dare not try to guess which they are supposed to be given the mix of dinosaurs shown) covered in what looks like hair just feels weird as opposed to surreal.

There are two main criticisms I would have for the film, both on the 'personal pet peeve' end of the spectrum.  The first?  There is an obvious hole in the story where a sapphic storyline involving the daughter Audrey, played by Maisy Stella, was meant to be.  In a time period with the type of president we have, running away from any LGBT storyline feels like a deliberate choice, and not one that makes me comfortable.

The other main critique involves a mild spoiler - so mild that I hesitate to even call it a spoiler.  Anyone who has watched a movie can see a certain plot point coming, but consider this the spoiler-warning paragraph before I delve into it.

So, there is a family dog that disappears early in the film and of course it shows up in a pivotal moment to save the day.  I'm not against this.  This is a certain type of movie, and in this type of movie, the dog is going to live.  That is fine.  What is not fine is this movie going out of its way to kill multiple cats.  One, I would not be happy about, but I could live with - especially since it is one of the first hints that something is wrong.  But multiple?  Including a scene where it is several dinosaurs picking at the corpse of one?  It just feels so unnecessary that it rubbed me the wrong way very late in the movie.

Would I recommend this?  Probably.  It's a fun time, and it gives us something we haven't seen in awhile onscreen.  But I'd more likely recommend Primitive War before this one.

6 out of 10.

Review: Buddy (2026)

I seldom come across a movie that I want to recommend to everyone I know where I recognize that - at best - the number of people who will love it as much as I do might hover around 3 in 10.  And that's if I am lucky.  But dammit, Buddy is such a darkly fun time that I will continuously send people into it with as little warning as possible.

My only knowledge going into this movie was that it was a horror movie that escalated quickly and that parents had taken their children to see it, somehow missing that it had an R rating.  And honestly, that was sufficient.  This is a movie that pays dividends by going into it blind - not because of surprises (though there are some), but because the movie is such an experience that the less you know, the better.

Which makes writing a review difficult, I must say.  The most I can say about the plot is that Buddy is a children's show character and it is a horror movie.  The performances are pretty great across the board - though I will point out that it felt like Topher Grace put in minimum effort in a very stock role - the set design and score are pitch perfect, and humor is just the right amount of dark.

Director Casper Kelly (who co-wrote this with Jamie King) had not directed a feature-length movie before this, and was mostly known for the Adult Swim short film "Too Many Cooks", does not hesitate in the slightest with the material.  There is a confidence to this direction that serves the movie well - I think someone who approached this film with irony or skepticism would have doomed it, so Kelly taking the reins worked in its favor.

The main critique I would have - aside from Grace's performance mentioned above - is that there is a section of the movie that feels completely unnecessary.  It's the only segment that feels like it could be cut, though it is likely in to keep the movie at a respectable length of 96 minutes.  It's also the only section that feels shocking for shock's sake.

But overall, this is a fun movie.  Definitely not for everyone, but I would still encourage everyone to see it.

8 out of 10