Spider-Man: Homecoming movie review: boys and their alien toys
Thoroughly charming. Spider-Man’s signature light comedy works surprisingly well even as this story is uniquely steeped in the darker Marvel Cinematic Universe.
science fiction
The Bad Batch movie review: a girl walks into dystopia alone
Filmmaker-to-watch Ana Lily Amirpour again shakes up a familiar genre — here, the postapocalyptic adventure — in unexpected ways, but stumbles a bit in the process.
Wonder Woman movie review: women’s work
Everything about this joyful, sincere origin story feels like a retort — a very welcome and much needed one — to traditional male-centered superhero stories.
Alien: Covenant movie review: game over, man
A rote disappointment. There is nothing shocking or even mildly unexpected here. But there is an ironic weakening of the power of the xenomorphs to terrify.
Colossal movie review: becoming the monster
Wonderfully strange and weird and funny and dark and bitter. A deliciously geek-flavored metaphor for how damaged people heedlessly spread around their damage.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 movie review: 2 same 2 spurious
Thinks it’s edgy and transgressive, the punk little brother of all those other stodgy comic-book movies, but it isn’t. It’s just slightly more candy-colored.
Fast & Furious 8 (aka The Fate of the Furious) movie review: notes from the critics’ ward
EMPs and nukular codes and cyber crap and submarines, oh my! “What does this have to do with us?” Michelle Rodriguez cries, and I’m like I know, right?
Bokeh movie review: blurry, lonely lives at the end of the world
A pretty blur of an apocalypse happens to pretty, blurry people in this dull SF drama. This end of the world brought to you by the Reykjavik Tourist Board.
The Void movie review: retro monsters, alien mystery
It’s Lovecraft by way of The Thing and Alien in this satisfyingly schlocky 80s throwback, complete with practical FX. A genuinely eerie experience.
Ghost in the Shell movie review: more like ghost in the meh-chine
Trite characters, very well-worn clichés of SF cinema, and a mystery that is completely transparent. All about production design, and even that is familiar.
