Movie Reviews
Movie Review: Blue Beetle
By Bob Garver Having seen the best (“The Dark Knight,” “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse”) and worst (“Morbius,” “Fant4stic”) of what the modern superhero genre has to offer, I can report that “Blue Beetle” falls right smack in the middle of the spectrum. It would be easy to write off this movie’s staggering averageness…
Read MoreMovie Review: The Meg 2 – The Trench
By Bob Garver It’s around the two-thirds mark in “Meg 2: The Trench” that we learn that some of the film’s minor aquatic monsters (not the Megalodons or “Megs” of the title) have developed the ability to walk, and attack, on land. It’s a mistake to bury such a huge twist this late in…
Read MoreMovie Review: “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem”
By Bob Garver Bad news, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” fans, new installment “Mutant Mayhem” gets the Ninja Turtles all wrong. You know how the characters are usually voiced by adults that make you forget that the characters are even supposed to be teenagers? This movie settles for real teenagers that can play off each other…
Read MoreMovie Review: Oppenheimer
By Bob Garver The other half of this summer’s “Barbenheimer” phenomenon, “Oppenheimer” did so well in its second weekend that it gets a full review all its own. Sure, it came in a distant second to “Barbie” both weekends, but with an estimated $174 million at the domestic box office thus far, it’s more…
Read MoreMovie Review: Barbie
By Bob Garver “Barbie” prides itself on inspiring a full range of feelings – both in its characters and its audience. The characters tap into dark, sad sides they never knew they had, and they find out life is more rewarding for it. The audience is sure to eat up all the easy jokes…
Read MoreMovie Review: “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One”
By Bob Garver Last summer, when “Top Gun: Maverick” was making roughly all the money printed in the United States during that fiscal quarter, I read a number of articles (many publications jumped on the trend at once) calling Tom Cruise various iterations of “The Last Movie Star.” The moniker is obviously an…
Read MoreMovie Reviews: Triple Feature – Elemental, Insidious: The Red Door, & Sounds of Freedom
By Bob Garver A quick explanation about this week’s movies: with an estimated $40 million at the domestic box office, “Sound of Freedom” had the most money at the end of the weekend. But because it made it a point of opening on Tuesday, July 4, instead of the usual Friday, it had a…
Read MoreMovie Review: “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”
By Bob Garver It has been 15 years since famed archeologist/adventurer Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) was onscreen in “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” and even longer since he was onscreen in a decent movie. Fans were worried if that creative flop would be the last they’d ever see of…
Read MoreMovie Review: The Flash
By Bob Garver It’s been a whole two weeks since “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” opened, so it’s about time we had another superhero multiverse movie. This one takes place in the DC Extended Universe, which means we’re sure to get some fun takes on Batman and Superman. It’s enough to make one forget that…
Read MoreMovie Review – Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
By Bob Garver Few blockbuster franchises are as reviled by critics as “Transformers.” The 2007 original and its 2009 sequel “Revenge of the Fallen” both have special places among the worst movies of all time. Later sequels weren’t exactly improvements (though 2018 spinoff “Bumblebee” was surprisingly-well-reviewed), but they didn’t inspire the same vitriol, if…
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