Reel Reviews
Reel Review: F Plus
F Plus is a middle school heist comedy akin to Ocean’s Eleven, with some nods to Mission Impossible, that leans into the chaos. When top student Ted flunks a significant test, he and his troublemaker best friend plan a break-in to switch the grades. It’s fast, funny, and loaded with charm. Randy Couture brings dry…
Reel Review: Straw
Straw drops you into Janiyah’s worst day—and never lets go. Taraji P. Henson carries the role with fierce honesty, flooding the screen with emotion. The story hits on eviction, illness, unpredictable violence, and a hostage standoff that feels all too plausible. Sherri Shepherd and Teyana Taylor ground the chaos with quiet strength. Tyler Perry has…
Reel Review: Wake Up
Wake Up is a brutal, fast-moving horror from RKSS that turns climate activism into a bloodbath. A crew of young protesters break into a big-box store to make a statement, only to be picked off by a primal, sadistic security guard. There’s not much depth here, but what it lacks in nuance, it makes up…
Reel Review: A Desert
AA Desert doesn’t follow a trail—it erases one. A photographer goes missing in the middle of nowhere, and his wife hires a PI to find out what happened. That’s the plot, but it’s not the point. The film trades action for dread. It’s not interested in solving anything; it’s just showing how loss and silence…
Reel Review: The Crucifix: Blood of the Exorcist
The Crucifix: Blood of the Exorcist starts with a strong setup: a grieving couple moves to an isolated Scottish village to start over. What they dig up—literally—is a buried crucifix tied to an old evil that never left. The tone is bleak, the setting works, and the early tension builds the right way. You want…
Reel review: The Phoenician Scheme
Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme is as much a return to form as it is a quiet deviation. While the symmetry, deadpan delivery, and pastel dreamscapes remain intact, the emotional register hits deeper than expected. Set in a fictional North African nation on the brink of both collapse and reinvention, the story follows Anatole “Zsa-Zsa”…
Reel Review: Stand Your Ground
Stand Your Ground isn’t revamping the revenge-action genre—this one goes full in. Daniel Stisen stars as Jack Johnson, a retired Special Forces operative whose wife is killed in a home invasion. When Jack is released from prison, he uses the Stand Your Ground law to exact a bloody vendetta on the family of a local…
Reel Review: Predator: Killer of Killers
Predator: Killers of Killers explodes into the franchise like it’s going to war. The animated anthology spreads the alien hunters across three blood-drenched chapters, placing them in a Viking raid, a samurai battle, and a WWII dogfight—and then, somehow, ties them all together in a conclusion that’s pure gladiator nightmare fodder. Every tale has its…
Reel Review: Dangerous Animals
Dangerous Animals doesn’t waste time—a surfer, a psycho, and a deserted stretch of coast—no frills, no filler. Hassie Harrison plays Zephyr, a lone traveler whose trip turns into a nightmare when she crosses paths with Tucker (Jai Courtney), a predator who masks charm with menace. What follows is less a shark movie and more a…
Reel Review: Ballerina
Ballerina doesn’t reinvent the wheel—it just spins it faster. Ana de Armas steps into the John Wick universe with grit and style, playing a trained killer tracking the people who murdered her father. The setup is simple. The execution is clean. The movie knows its job and does it: sharp gunplay, tight close-quarters fights, and…