Tag Archives: Angela Bassett

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning review — FTW, eventually

May 24, 2025 flawintheiris

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie | Written by McQuarrie and Erik Jendresen | 170 min | ▲▲▲ This is a movie that still satisfies as a good Mission: Impossible thriller while desperately weighed down by the legacy of 30 years of a franchise in ways it didn't need to be. A few storytelling decisions threaten to… Read More

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever review — Unwieldy sequel wants to do too much

November 13, 2022 flawintheiris

Directed by Ryan Coogler | Written by Coogler and Joe Robert Cole | 161 min | ▲▲▲△△ The first Black Panther movie from 2018 is a gem in the Marvel Cinematic Universe pantheon — top five for sure — and was a huge hit. The vision of a technologically advanced, afro-futurist society that had never… Read More

Gunpowder Milkshake review — Feminist, uber-violent actioner a whole lot of fun

July 20, 2021 flawintheiris

Directed by Navot Papushado | Written by Papushado and Ehud Lavski | 114 min | Netflix "There's a group of men called The Firm. When they need someone to clean up a mess, they send me." That's how this stylish, candy-neon actioner starts, right in the head of Sam (Karen Gillan), an assassin living in… Read More

Soul review — Another impressive effort from Pixar

January 2, 2021 flawintheiris

Directed by Pete Docter and Kemp Powers | Written by Docter, Powers, and Mike Jones | 100 min | Disney + What have we learned about the wizards at Pixar in the past 25-or-so years? When the Disney-owned, San Francisco-based, digital animation filmmakers are on their game, they're some of the best storytellers working in… Read More

Now on Canadian Netflix — February 2019

February 6, 2019 flawintheiris

Velvet Buzzsaw A deliciously trashy art world satire/horror from Dan Gilroy, the filmmaker behind Nightcrawler and Roman J. Israel. , a picture with a lot more of the edge and unease of the former rather than the prestige aspirations of the latter. It tells the story of a shallow, ambitious, group of nasties; the delightfully named Morf Vandewalt (another… Read More

Mission: Impossible – Fallout review — Spy actioner goes from strength to strength

July 30, 2018 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Christopher McQuarrie | 146 min The Mission: Impossible franchise has proven surprisingly hardy. This is the sixth entry, going back to Brian DePalma's 1996 movie, the first cinematic adaptation of the Bruce Gellar's TV series, turning 1960s spycraft into a pre-millennial Tom Cruise action picture. Until this one, each subsequent entry… Read More

Now on Canadian Netflix: Spring 2018

May 10, 2018 flawintheiris

Mute (2018) A sci-fi thriller half a mess and half an interesting exercise in style. That it comes from Duncan Jones, the filmmaker responsible for Moon, Source Code, and, yes, Warcraft, hopes were high this would be a strong genre entry, but Mute never hits above its pulpy elements. We're in future Berlin, which looks… Read More

Black Panther review — Afrofuturist Marvel epic delivers

February 18, 2018 flawintheiris

Directed by Ryan Coogler | Written by Coogler and Joe Robert Cole | 134 minutes The Stan Lee/Jack Kirby-created Marvel comic character gets his own movie following his introduction in Captain America: Civil War. T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman), the Black Panther, is the king of the fictional African nation of Wakanda. The country presents as impoverished… Read More

Reviews: London Town, Alice Through The Looking Glass, Calvary, London Has Fallen

February 4, 2017 flawintheiris

London Town Directed by Derrick Borte | Written by Matt Brown, based on the screenplay Untitled Joe Strummer Project by Sonya Gildea and Kirsten Sheridan | 92 min | iTunes and VOD Shay Baker (Daniel Huttlestone) is a 14-year-old living in '70s Wanstead, an East London suburb. Dad Nick (Dougray Scott) moves pianos for a… Read More

Olympus Has Fallen review

March 26, 2013 flawintheiris

Directed by Antoine FuquaWritten by Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin BenediktIt's been awhile since I've seen such an egregiously lunkheaded movie as Olympus Has Fallen. Happy to let its talented cast deliver recycled, leaden dialogue and go through the motions of a recycled, leaden plot, its real failing goes beyond that, because a movie can be… Read More