Movie Reviews

By Bob Garver All the way back in 2009, director James Cameron introduced the world to the planet Pandora and the Na’vi race in “Avatar.” The film soon set the record for all-time highest grossing movie at both the domestic and international box offices (it still holds the record for the latter). Sequel “Avatar: The…

By Bob Garver               From its ridiculous opening scene, there is little denying that “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” is one of the stupidest movies of 2025. Its only real competition comes from Disney’s live-action “Snow White” remake thinking that its Dwarfs were fit for human eyesight. And it’s not even the fun kind…

By Bob Garver 2016 was a great year for animation. Disney gave the world a new musical masterwork in “Moana.” Pixar had its biggest hit up to that point in “Finding Dory.” Even underdog Laika came out with cult classic “Kubo and the Two Strings.” But the winner of the Best Animated Feature Oscar that…

By Bob Garver   Previously, in “Wicked”   Aspiring witches, green-skinned outcast Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and pink-and-popular Glinda (Ariana Grande), started off as enemies at school, but then became friends. They decided to go their separate ways after discovering a plan by the nefarious Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) to blame and punish animals for problems in…

By Bob Garver It was all the way back in 2013 that audiences were first introduced to the Four Horsemen of Magic – J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), and Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher). The quartet blurred the line between “magic tricks” and “heists,” in that they would…

By Bob Garver “Predator” and I got off on the wrong foot. I’m not talking about the new movie, but rather the 1987 original, and by extension the whole franchise. I rented the film hoping to enjoy some action-movie interaction between two future governors: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura. Unfortunately, there was little to no…

By Bob Garver   How is it that Halloween of 2025 couldn’t give us a better horror movie than “Black Phone 2”? It’s not that I’m shocked that a Halloween horror movie is a disappointment. I’m just shocked that we got such a disappointing movie this year. 2025 has been such a banner year for…

By Bob Garver The legacy of the “Tron” franchise is complicated. On a consistently positive note, the series has always been a feast for the eyes and ears, with pleasing, if not groundbreaking special effects and musical scores that heart-pumpingly convey that technological developments are happening every minute. But the films have never quite stuck…

By Bob Garver A popular criticism I’ve heard about “The Smashing Machine” is that it tries too hard to subvert expectations. I assume that this is a reference to the way the film follows mixed martial artist Mark Kerr (Dwayne Johnson) on his journey not to a major win, but to his first professional loss.…

By Bob Garver Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson is known as a top-tier talent without top-tier recognition. None of his movies have made more than $50 million at the domestic box office, and despite 11 nominations, he’s never won himself an Academy Award (a combined three Oscar wins have come from his films, including Daniel Day-Lewis…

By Bob Garver Jokes linking football and religion, especially Christianity, are common. “One gets Americans to sit attentively for hours every Sunday, the other is religion.” “Christian athletes always thank God when they win, never blame Him when they lose.” And of course, “WW(FSDJ)D? – What Would (Football Star Du Jour) Do?” With “Him,” it’s…

By Bob Garver NOTE: Many theaters have this Japanese animated film available in both “Subbed” and “Dubbed” versions. This review is based on the “Subbed” version – Japanese spoken with English subtitles, with the Japanese voice cast credited.   Ah, “Demon Slayer,” the anime franchise that comes out with a new movie about once every…

By Bob Garver   A few days before I saw “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” a friend of mine asked me about my plans for the weekend. I told her that I planned to see the film, and I was excited. When she asked me why I was excited to see yet another entry in the…

By Bob Garver “Caught Stealing” is one of those twisty crime thrillers where it seems like the filmmakers cast as many interesting names as they could and then wrote the movie around using them all. For example, at no point did I feel it was necessary for the film to feature Matt Smith as a…

By Bob Garver This past weekend’s biggest big-screen hit didn’t go straight to the big screen. Animated actioner “KPop Demon Hunters” premiered in June on Netflix, reportedly racking up over 180 million views in its first eight weeks. A special one-weekend-only “Sing-Along” version of the film was released to select theaters this past Saturday and…

By Bob Garver   I remember being a big fan of the 1976 “Freaky Friday” with Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris. Granted, I saw it when I was young enough to not know the tropes of the body-swap comedy, but I still have fond memories. I got a few laughs out of the 2003 update…

“Weapons”   By Bob Garver               In a weekend that I could have sworn would be dominated by family-friendly franchise fare “Freakier Friday,” it was R-rated horror movie “Weapons” pulling off the upset. What happened here? I know stars Julia Garner and Josh Brolin have important roles in the MCU, but were they such…

  By Bob Garver With Zack Snyder’s version of the DC Universe having officially fizzled out, Warner Bros. is trying a hard reboot of the multi-faceted superhero franchise under the direction of James Gunn. First up for Gunn is “Superman,” with actor David Corenswet stepping into the role of space alien Kal-El/mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent/blue-suited…

By Bob Garver               After three “Jurassic Park” movies and three “Jurassic World” movies, it seems the time has come to kickstart the “Jurassic” franchise again with “Jurassic World: Rebirth.” I’ll give the franchise credit for recognizing that there was no need to continue with the Chris Pratt or Bryce Dallas Howard characters from…

By Bob Garver “F1: The Movie” takes viewers inside the exciting world of Formula One auto-racing. The director is Joseph Kosinski, best known for taking “Top Gun: Maverick” to the top of the yearly box office three years ago. Between that movie’s jets and this movie’s cars, it seems the man’s specialty is directing movies…

By Bob Garver It has been 23 years (not 28, somewhat frustratingly) since British audiences were first introduced to the mind-and-body-ravaging Rage virus in “28 Days Later.” The virus turned everyone it affected into zombies, known as The Infected, obsessed not so much with feeding as with turning more people into zombies. The film’s heroes…

By Bob Garver After three weeks of domination by the Disney live-action remake “Lilo & Stitch,” it’s time for the top spot at the domestic box office to be taken over by the Dreamworks live-action remake “How to Train Your Dragon.” It feels like it’s too soon to do a remake of a movie from…

By Bob Garver “Final Destination: Bloodlines” It’s hard to believe that we went over a decade without a new “Final Destination” movie. Fans love this series and its “slasher-movie-without-a-slasher” gimmick. The “killer” here is the concept of Death itself, which takes the form of unlikely, elaborate, horrific accidents.   This sixth installment features arguably the…