Reviews

Check out my full review @ https://www.manuelsbento.com/verity-2026-a-stellar-trio-cant-rescue-a-formulaic-thriller/ Rating: C VERITY has a trio of terrific performances, with Anne Hathaway operating a league above everyone else, but it never gives them a thriller worth their talent. The commitment to melodrama is admirable, yet the twists are so familiar that I felt like I was rewatching any other Colleen Hoover adaptation. The tension never really arrives, the trashy/sexy elements are lackluster, and scenes stall for padding before ending exactly where they were headed. Muted, predictable, and struggling to justify its runtime for what it delivers, this one didn't convince me.

Ving Rhames! Car makes an excellent vehicle for the geezer teaser. Seal Team vibes. Big black car is interesting. Would a big black truck have been a better choice? Better to use the old guy. Neeson's great. Moved to tears. What a dude. Drives well. Cool car. I cannot remember how it ends.

"Guys! Guys! Have you heard the good word about the turtle children?!" They took arguably the best part of It: Chapter 2 - the backstory - and gave us *this*. Yep! That's my review.

Sensational! 'Coco' is straight into my top five of Disney animations. The whole 105 minutes are a joy to watch, thanks to its rich and highly meaningful story alongside the wonderful animation and sharp humour. Safe to say, I was not expecting this film to smash it out the park - which it totally does. This is why I don't, personally, look up about films before watching them, I love being surprised. Big credit also goes to the cast, who play some awesome characters. From Miguel (Anthony Gonzalez) to Héctor (Gael García Bernal) to Ernesto (Benjamin Bratt), among others, they are all very, very good. It isn't just the characters that make this memorable, it is also the excellent plot which is told beautifully. It's filled with not just comedy but also a load of heart - there's a few nicely done twists too. The world that they create around the Day of the Dead is fantastic, while the...

I loved the movie starting from the characters, animation, colors, emotions, story everything. A good way to tell how important a family is. Happy it had a happy ending.

Beautiful, colourful and sweet This film has real heart, with great messages about what family can and should do for each other. Great voice acting, great songs without having the burden of exposition via song that you find in the more musical ventures by Disney. I loved that you could see genuine guitar chords being played, so often in live action films the playing of musical instruments, especially guitar are poorly faked. None of that in this animated gem. One thing I personally loved was the depiction of Mexican culture. Although I really enjoyed Moana, I thought it was a little bit too much of a pastiche of multiple Pacific cultures when it should have just picked one (Maori) and stuck with it. Coco celebrates Mexican culture, and depicts it well. The only thing missing for me was more Mexican cuisine. It can get a little dark in places, so maybe be careful when watching it...

Spectacularly colourful with a sweet, (albeit predictable) path. Certainly not a misfire from Pixar, but also did not appeal to me personally in the way that many of their other films have. Final rating:★★½ - Not quite for me, but I definitely get the appeal.

When I watch a movie, I expect to be entertained, enlightened and/or informed (not necessarily in that order or all at once). But what I *don’t* want is to be treated like a marketing prospect. And that, unfortunately, is one of the problems with many of the releases in the Marvel Universe, including this latest installment in the Spider-Man franchise. Given the studio’s intricate web of properties (no pun intended) in this overlapping assortment of superhero franchises, there are considerable character and storyline cross-overs in virtually all of its film projects. Now, because of that, some cross-pollination of the narratives is bound to occur. But, when this practice becomes a key element in developing the plots of these offerings, it begins to feel more like marketing manipulation than bona fide storytelling, as is the case here. I don’t particularly appreciate using existing...

I enjoyed this, but I have a few glaring issues. SPOILERS AHEAD: 1. How many times are we gonna do this !@#$ where folks don't say what the !@#$ their problem is? We spent half of the movie with Jean terrorizing Peter simply because he got in her way. At no point does she think to reason with him and say, "DEM MOFOS HAVE MY MOFO-ING SISTER, YOU MOFO-ING ARSEHOLE!" Really? Really? We "SSAAVVVEEE MMAAAAAARRRRRRTTTTHHHHAAAAA"-ing this up again? 2. Damage Control has been out of control since WandaVision and Ms. Marvel. How the flying !@#$ are they still operating without oversight? Furthermore, how the !@#$ is Metzger still on the loose? It's like Kingpin at the end of Daredevil Season 2: a whole bunch of philosophical bull!@#$, and no justice. No justice for Sara, no justice for Jean, no justice for Metzger's crimes. 3. I don't accept "small potatoes" excuses. Were the events of...

The name "Brand New Day" is very much a misnomer, there is nothing new in this film, you've seen it all before. The film REALLY drags, is boring and I zoned out multiple times, the film didn't hold my attention at all. It feels like its twice the length of its runtime it goes on, and on, and on, and on. I think that Spiderman worked better when it was separate from the MCU shared universe goofiness, there is some really cringy MCU stuff shoehorned in. Not a bad film, its a perfectly competent routine superhero film, the heroes are introduced, the villain is introduced, then the superhero wins, same plot as every superhero film. I was hoping for something Brand New - it did not deliver.

Check out my full review @ movieswetextedabout.com/spider-man-brand-new-day-movie-review-destin-daniel-cretton-delivers-peter-parkers-most-personal-story-yet Rating: A SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY had every excuse to become a bloated victory lap for the MCU’s biggest names, and instead it turns out to be the most emotionally mature, personal Peter Parker story we’ve gotten yet — one that treats its sprawling cast as tools in service of a single, aching question about isolation, identity, and what it costs to keep pretending you don’t need anyone. Tom Holland has never been better, Sadie Sink announces herself as a genuine star, and Destin Daniel Cretton proves that even inside Marvel’s most crowded corner, a story can still belong entirely to one person. With some of the best Spidey action I’ve ever witnessed, a standout Michael Giacchino score, and terrific performances across the board,...

This is a really bad day for Hope Harbor. You build tension in movies by the characters being relatable and putting them in peril that you can understand. This movie does this exceedingly well because you can tell just how terrified the characters are of what is going on around them. It effectively builds the tension and you get very engaged in what is happening. The movie shifts tonally a few times and yet manages to keep me engaged and invested throughout. It feels like the start of a multi-movie franchise and I am on board with it. This is a fun ride and I'm sure you will enjoy it and I highly recommend it.

*Hope* is one of the most well-rounded action thrillers of the year. The clunky ending does drop its otherwise action-packed masterpiece status down slightly, but *Hope* effortlessly blends so many genres with stellar performances, impressive gore, and intensely riveting action sequences. https://bit.ly/NaHopejin

The discovery of a badly mauled cow is quite perplexing for the local police chief (Hwang Jung-min), especially when a few of his wise-cracking citizens suggest it might have been caused by a marauding tiger! It doesn't take him long to realise that whatever it is, it's a great deal bigger and more menacing than a cat as he returns to town and finds scenes of death and destruction with gunfire sounding regularly. What are they shooting at? Meantime, out in the woods his group of mischievous tiger-hunters are finding themselves embroiled in something altogether more mysterious, extra-terrestrial and perilous too! Ok, so it is far too long and for much of the later stages it reminded me of an hybrid of that lacklustre "65" (2023) and "Predator" (1987) - only with some added semi-slapstick comedy, but the first hour is quickly paced and entertaining end-to-end stuff. There's a bit of comedy...

An old saying maintains “Never put the cart before the horse,” an observation whose implications should be obvious. That applies in filmmaking, too: When a standalone production is thought to be the inspiration for a new franchise, the creators need to be careful not to get ahead of themselves. That’s to say that the first film in the proposed series absolutely must be a knock-out to earn the right to a sequel (or sequels) (“Star Trek” notwithstanding). But, if those behind the initial effort are so focused on what lies down the road in a potential franchise that they don’t get the first release right, it’s the equivalent of shooting themselves in the foot. And that is precisely what undermines this latest release from writer-director Na Hing-jin. In essence, this sci-fi action-adventure follows the improbable, occasionally strangely madcap attempts by a small town South Korean police...

Check out my full review @ https://www.manuelsbento.com/resident-evil-2026-zach-cregger-turns-a-beloved-franchise-into-the-horror-comedy-of-the-year/ Rating: B I went into RESIDENT EVIL having never played or watched a single entry in this franchise, and I still had a blast. Zach Cregger turns a video game he clearly loves into a horror-comedy that's relentlessly gory, genuinely funny, and stuffed with jump scares that actually worked on me. It's predictable once the machinery kicks in, and it doesn't carry the thematic weight of his last two films, but as a purely fun night at the movies, this delivers exactly what it promises.

As a adaptation of the Resident Evil franchise, this is really, really good. It beats the last movie, Welcome to Raccoon City, and is far more in line with the feeling of playing a Resident Evil game. The main protagonist isn't a skilled operative or military, he's just a guy who happens to get tangled up in extraordinarily gory and scary circumstances. He therefore acts accordingly. He struggles with things that action heroes take for granted, and it makes him far more interesting to watch than the protagonists of the last movie, for instance. The effect work is, of course, superb, as it would need to be in a movie like this, and it is a fun time overall. I recommend this wholeheartedly.

Courier "Bryan" (Austin Abrams) is charged with delivering a vital organ through snowy conditions to a distant city hospital whilst arguing with his girlfriend on the phone about what to do about her recently discovered pregnancy. Next thing, he's clouted a woman wandering the woods at night with his car, and that's just the start of things going perilously wrong for this young man as she appears to have certain traits of lithe and nimble immortality and - well maybe she isn't alone? Abrams holds this together really quite well, and his dead pan delivery is really pretty engaging. Sure, the plot itself isn't that original and it's not really so similar to the 2002 version, but the wintry conditions set the scene darkly and a little claustrophobically and there's some fun to be had from a dialogue that tells us amidsts all his perils, that his socks are wet! The visual effects used to...

The best kind of survival horror knows that darkness is not merely a lack of light—it is a promise that something is waiting just beyond it. That instinct serves *Resident Evil* remarkably well, delivering a film that finally understands the eerie isolation and creeping dread that made the games so enduring. The atmosphere is easily one of the movie's greatest strengths. Dark corridors, quiet stretches and an almost oppressive sense of isolation give the film the texture of survival horror rather than generic creature-feature action. The story's emphasis on being alone and cut off from safety captures the essence of the games, often making the viewer feel as though they are navigating the next room alongside the protagonist. That commitment to suspense pays off. The film knows when to hold back and when to strike, and its jump scares are generally effective because they are built...

Despite being warned to keep her baby brother indoors, "Prue" takes him out on a trip around town and he gets pinched by a menacing murder of crows and taken deep into the impenetrable forest. She's determined to get him back and so sets off into the dark and forbidding woods where she quickly encounters the coyotes - the guards of the "Dowager Governess". Captured and taken to her castle, she is promised assistance in retrieving her sibling but just how trustworthy is this outwardly benign lady? For that matter, what about the marauding "Brendan" and his gang of ruthless bandits? Finally of course, just what have the crows got to do do with things in a kingdom where the other birds seem a good deal more helpful? So, who or what - if any - can she trust? I wasn't so impressed with the story here - it's a fairly obvious hybrid of Frodo Potter goes to Narnia adventures, but the detail in...